Eadweard Muybridge's The Horse in Motion (1878), and Primitive Motion Studies (from 1884-1887)

One of a number of early achievements that helped pave the way for animation was by Briton Eadweard Muybridge who famously photographed The Horse in Motion in 1878. In a series of pictures, he captured frame by frame, how a horse's four hoofs were actually off the ground at the same time. In other test footage, including The Human Figure in Motion - Descending Stairs and Turning Around, he photographed cinematic glimpses of naked men and women in motion, such as this female and male walking up and down stairs.

Monkeyshines No. 1 (1889 or 1890)

Thomas Edison's assistant William K.L. Dickson filmed his first experimental Kinetoscope trial film, Monkeyshines No. 1, the only surviving film from the cylinder kinetoscope, and apparently the first motion picture ever produced on photographic film in the United States. It featured the fuzzy movements of laboratory assistant Sacco Albanese, filmed with a system using tiny images that rotated around the cylinder.

Dickson Greeting (1891)

The first public demonstration of motion pictures in the US using the Kinetoscope occurred at the Edison Laboratories to the Federation of Women’s Clubs on May 20, 1891. The very short film’s subject in the test footage was William K.L. Dickson himself, bowing, smiling and ceremoniously taking off his hat.

Pauvre Pierrot (1892)

The inventor of the viewing device called a praxinoscope (1877), French scientist Charles-Emile Reynaud, also created a large-scale system called Theatre Optique (1888) which could take a strip of pictures or images and project them onto a screen. He demonstrated his system in 1892 for Paris' Musee Grevin - it was the first instance of projected animated cartoon films (the entire triple-bill showing was called Pantomimes Lumineuses), with three short films that he had produced:

• "Pauvre Pierrot" (Poor Pete) (500 frames) - the only surviving example
• "Le Clown et Ses Chiens" (The Clown and His Dogs) (300 frames)
• "Un Bon Bock" (A Good Beer) (700 frames)

To create the animations, individually-created images were painted directly onto the frames of a flexible strip of transparent gelatine (with film perforations on the edges), and run through his projection system. The three animated films lasted about 12-15 minutes each. Depending upon one's definition of terms, some consider Pauvre Pierrot the oldest-surviving animated film ever made and publically broadcast.

Fred Ott's Sneeze (1894) aka Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze

One of Thomas Edison's first film strips on celluloid, filmed to be viewed on his invention called the kinetoscope, a device for viewing moving pictures without sound, and patented in 1887. It remains as one of the earliest surviving copyrighted motion pictures (or "flicker"), lasting a duration of five seconds and filmed at sixteen frames per second (80 frames), composed of an optical record of Fred Ott, an Edison employee, sneezing comically for the camera. In a few short years, Edison was producing between 200 and 300 films at the Black Maria, the first movie studio established in 1893.

Annabelle (Whitford) Moore's Dance Routines (mid-1890s)

Many of the earliest nickelodeon films featured the dancing of vaudeville performer Annabelle Whitford (known as Peerless Annabelle) Moore, whose routines were filmed at Edison's studio in NJ:

• Annabelle Butterfly Dance (1894)
• Annabelle Sun Dance (1894)
• Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895) - the first publically-released color film (pictured), and hand-tinted
• Serpentine Dance by Annabelle (1896)
• Annabelle in Flag Dance (1896)
• Skirt Dance by Annabelle (1896)
• Tambourine Dance by Annabelle (1896)
• Sun Dance - Annabelle (1897)

Male audiences were enthralled watching these early depictions of a clothed female dancer (sometimes color-tinted) on a Kinetoscope - an early peep-show device for projecting short films.

Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1895)

The first known (and only surviving) film with live-recorded sound made to test Edison's Kinetophone (with a cylinder-playing phonograph and connected earphone tubes) was this 17-second short film. It was noted as the first film combining both sound and motion. The projector was connected to the phonograph with a pulley system, but it didn't work very well and was difficult to synchronize. It was formally introduced in 1895, but soon proved to be unsuccessful since competitive, better synchronized devices were also beginning to appear at the time.

The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots (1895), aka The Execution of Mary Stuart

This was the first special effect (in-camera), reportedly, of the controversial execution (decapitation) of Mary, Queen of Scots (Robert Thomae) on the execution block, using a dummy and a trick camera shot (substitution shot or "stop trick"). In the short sequence, Mary knelt down, and put her head on the block as the executioner raised a large axe. When the axe was brought down, her head rolled off the chopping block to the left - where the executioner picked it up in the final frame and held it up.

The Vanishing Lady (1896, Fr.) (aka "The Conjuring of a Woman at the House of Robert Houdin")

Reportedly, French film-maker and trickster Georges Melies, known as the 'Father of Cinematic Special Effects,' accidentally discovered the stop-motion effect when his first rudimentary camera jammed during filming. After fixing the jam and the action resumed, he realized that he had inadvertently discovered a neat camera trick, causing objects to change position (a man changed into a woman, and a bus changed into a hearse).

Melies' first intentional use of this discontinuity technique was for the special visual effect in this short film. It was a simple illusion or magic act - a lady on stage disappeared.

In the film, a tuxedoed magician (Georges Melies) brought a woman (Jeanne d'Alcy) onto a stage (with a painted backdrop - an artificial set), seated her in a chair and covered her with a large tablecoth. Then, when he removed the sheet, she vanished or disappeared. Actually, the camera was imperceptibly stopped (a "jump cut" or stop-substitution effect) and started again, allowing the lady to 'vanish' from the stage in the interim.

Afterwards, he had a skeleton reappear in the chair (with a second jump cut). He covered it with the sheet, and then - with a third jump cut - brought back the lady. They both bowed and left the stage and then returned for a second bow and curtsy.

The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1898)

This theatrical 'cartoon' from Vitagraph, a lost silent film, has been claimed by Guinness to be "the first animated film using the stop-motion technique to give the illusion of movement to inanimate objects."

Reportedly, directors/filmmakers Albert E. Smith (with James Stuart Blackton) conceived the idea, borrowing one of their young daughter's circus toys and shooting the acrobats and animals in barely changed positions one frame at a time.

Santa Claus (1898, UK) (aka The Visit of Santa Claus)

This early one-minute single-scene short by British film-maker George Albert Smith told a simple narrative of two children being put to bed by a nanny, and a late-night dream-vision visit by thin, robe-wearing Santa Claus who entered via the chimney to deliver presents.

It was notable for many reasons: it featured the first opening title screen with lettering, and also contained a number of visual effects (many of which were also being perfected by French filmmaker Georges Melies): a stop-motion jump-cut to set up a black drape upon which the childrens' dream was projected with a superimposed multiple exposure, the iris-masking of the camera lens for a small circular vignette of the secondary plot-line (a scene-within-a-scene) of Santa on the roof-top and entering into the chimney, and parallel action without cross-cutting (the children in bed and Santa Claus on the roof). With a second jump-cut, Santa Claus disappeared from the room.

The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899, UK)

This was another one-minute short film by pioneering UK filmmaker George Albert Smith, this time with three separate shots.

The humorous short began with a steam locomotive exiting from a tunnel, then a moving or tracking dolly shot (one of the first instances of what was called a "phantom ride" - a camera/cameraman were positioned on the front of the train to shoot the scene from the POV of the train) of a second train smoothly entering into the dark tunnel, and a jump-cut to an inserted sequence of a well-dressed bourgeois couple (G.A. Smith and his wife), after a day of shopping, seated in one of the train car rooms (an artificial set). They shared a few kisses (the Victorian-era wife protested slightly, but was willing to accept the kisses) during the darkness (painted windows created the effect).

The film made it obvious that it was a separate but continuous scene - and the two were on a train carriage in the middle of the tunnel. The gentleman had removed his top hat for the kiss and set it down, and realized he had sat on his hat and crushed it. The two returned to reading a book and a newspaper.

The film ended with another jump-cut to darkness, and the train emerging from the tunnel into the daylight - a second book-ended use of the "phantom ride" technique.

[Note: the film spliced or edited the interior scene into the center of previously-filmed 'phantom ride' footage, Hepworth's View From an Engine Front - Train Leaving Tunnel. A cycle of "phantom ride" films (or "kinesthetic films") featuring a constantly-moving camera were popular for a short while.]

The Enchanted Drawing (1900)

Pioneering animator and film-maker James Stuart Blackton produced The Enchanted Drawing, a Vitagraph Studios short film that featured a drawn character and some objects. It was the earliest surviving prototype of stop-motion (or stop-action) animation - the sequence was not composed of continuous frame-by-frame filming.

It showed a cartoonist (Blackton himself) using a large stand-up easel on which he drew a round cartoon face of an elderly man. He then sketched a bottle of wine and a glass in the upper-right hand corner of the page - and then removed the two items from the paper, holding them up as real objects and pouring himself a glass of wine. He then placed the mouth of the wine bottle in the cartoon-man's mouth, causing a smile as he gave him a drink.

The cartoonist then drew the man's hat - and again reached into the picture to borrow the hat and place it on his own head. He also borrowed the man's cigar, causing a frown. At the conclusion of the short segment, he then restored all the elements back into the picture.

Grandma's Reading Glass (1900, UK)

This innovative two-minute short film from British film-maker George Albert Smith exploited the camera's capacity for magnification by employing a series of closely-scaled shots within a narrative framework. It featured the first use of a POV close-up insert shot, seen in multiple examples within the film. A young grand-son used his Victorian-dressed grandmother's huge magnifying reading-glass to look at various items (from his POV, signaled by a circular viewing iris): a newspaper article, the inner-workings of a pocket watch, a bird in a cage, grandmother's eyeball (in extreme closeup), the pet cat, etc.

Smith's As Seen Through A Telescope (1900) (aka The Professor and His Field Glass) was a similar 45 second short, although its single POV closeup shot was seen "through" a telescope taken outdoors by a black-garbed elderly professor, who stood next to a stool positioned in front of a village shop. He used the telescope to view a woman's ankle and shoe at a distance up the street, when the woman's shoe became untied and her gentleman friend tied it for her. After the gent noticed the professor 'peeping' on them, he came up to the man, knocked off his hat, and sent him tumbling off his stool onto the ground.

Let Me Dream Again (1900, UK)

In this short one minute, two-shot film by UK film-maker George Albert Smith, a middle-aged man (Tom Green) sitting at a table was drinking and smoking with an attractive female, wearing a fancy clown costume. He flirtatiously kissed her - and then there was a transition from his fantasy-dream (the first-shot) to reality (the second-shot).

The fanciful transition from dream-time was signaled by a primitive out-of-focus dissolve, one of its first uses in cinema. The first shot went out-of-focus before it cut to the second shot (also out-of-focus), but then the image gradually sharpened or refocused. The man found himself in his own bed at home, embracing his unattractive shrewish wife - except that they turned away from each other, presumably in a loveless and sexless marriage.

A Railway Collision (1900)

Director W.R. Booth and producer Robert W. Paul (Paul's Animatograph Works) made this short 22-second film - one of the earliest attempts to realistically re-create a large-scale railroad disaster by using miniature scale models; the film depicted two trains speeding toward each other on the same track, and colliding on the embankment.

Scrooge, or Marley's Ghost (1901, UK)

Director Walter R. Booth's short film was the first (earliest surviving) version of Dickens' tale of A Christmas Carol (although based upon J. C Buckstone's popular stage adaptation). Only one-half of the film survives to this day (approximately 3 and a half minutes of its approx. 10 minute length).

It was produced by R.W. Paul's Animatograph Works company - and featured impressive and ambitious trick photography in its tale of Marley's ghostly visitation to miserly Ebenezer Scrooge. In scene II, it showed the superimposition of Marley's face over Scrooge's door knocker, a vertical wipe-transition from bottom to top - probably the first ever seen (as Scrooge entered his house), and scenes (or "visions") presented by Marley's ghost of Scrooge's youth in Christmasses past - superimposed on a black curtain in Scrooge's bedroom.

Fun in a Bakery Shop (1902)

This was another early surviving example of stop-motion (or stop-action) animation (see the earlier The Enchanted Drawing (1900) above). It was a trick (experimental) film by Edwin S. Porter, released by Thomas A. Edison's Manufacturing Company.

The 80 second film was a combination of stop-action photography and object manipulation. In the short, a baker's assistant sculpted dough thrown onto the side of a flour barrel, making various faces and comical shapes - executed with smooth edits between "freezes."

La Voyage Dans la Lune (1902, Fr.), (aka A Trip to the Moon)

Turn-of-the-century Frenchman/magician Georges Melies developed the art of magical special effects (and film editing) in earlier films and then perfected them and used them in later films, such as in this classic and pioneering science-fiction film - a 14 minute ground-breaking masterpiece (nearly one reel in length (about 825 feet)).

He made up and invented the film medium as he directed. It contained 30 separate tableaus (scenes) with innovative, illusionary cinematic 'editing' techniques (trick photography with superimposed images, double-exposures, dissolves and stop-motion jump cuts), live-action, animation, the use of matte paintings, the substitution shot, actors performing with themselves over split screens, and miniature models.

He depicted many memorable, whimsical old-fashioned images, such as a modern-looking, projectile-style rocket ship blasting off into space from a rocket-launching cannon (gunpowder powered?), a crash landing into the eye of the winking 'man in the moon', a dream sequence with a dissolve, the appearance of fantastic moon inhabitants (Selenites, acrobats from the Folies Bergere) on the lunar surface who disappeared in a puff of smoke (jump cut), a scene in the court of the moon king, and a miraculous last minute escape back to Earth.

The Great Train Robbery (1903)

Edwin S. Porter's landmark 10-minute dramatic film was a primitive one-reeler action picture. It was the first to use a number of innovative, modern film techniques, many of them for the first time, such as parallel editing, minor camera movement, jump-cuts and cross-cuts, location shooting and less stage-bound camera placement. It also featured multiple camera positions, filming out of sequence and later editing the scenes into their proper order. One early special effect was a composite made of two separate images. The in-camera matte effect was of two separately filmed segments: the interior of a train station and its window (where a shot of a passing train was matted in).

There were 14 scenes with parallel cross-cutting between simultaneous events in its narrative story with multiple plot lines. Porter's film was a milestone in film-making for its storyboarding of the script (about a robbery, the getaway, the pursuit, and the capture), the first use of title cards, an ellipsis, and a panning shot, and for its cross-cutting editing techniques. Jump-cuts or cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique, showing two separate lines of action or events happening continuously at identical times but in different places. The film was intercut from the bandits beating up the telegraph operator (scene one) to the operator's daughter discovering her father (scene ten), to the operator's recruitment of a dance hall posse (scene eleven), to the bandits being pursued (scene twelve), and splitting up the booty and having a final shoot-out (scene thirteen). The film also employed the first pan shots (in scenes eight and nine), and the use of an ellipsis (in scene eleven). Rather than follow the telegraph operator to the dance, the film cut directly to the dance where the telegraph operator entered.

It was filmed in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which would remain virtually unchanged for half a century.