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Ancient Egyptians painted or carved scenes onto surfaces, these showed characters in slightly altered positions, suggesting movement. -
Prehistoric cave paintings in Lascaux, France, depicted animals in multiple positions to give the illusion of motion as light from torches flickered.
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Descriptions of mechanical slides for the magic lantern begin. These involved extra pieces of glass that could be moved by hand. -
Christiaan Huygens begins to develop the magic lantern which projects images from glass slides. -
J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith make The Humpty Dumpty Circus. This was the first use of stop motion, but the film is now lost. -
Eadweard Muybridge projects moving images onto a screen. Zoopraxiscope: Developed by Muybridge to project moving images. -
James Stuart Blackton makes "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces". He used stop-motion and cut out.
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Joseph Plateau develops the Phenakistoscope, which is a series of evenly spaced images painted onto a rotating disc.
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J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith make The Humpty Dumpty Circus. This was the first use of stop motion but the film is now lost.
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Arthur Melbourne Cooper makes "Matches an Appeal".
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Eadweard Muybridge projects moving images onto a screen. Zoopraxiscope: Developed by Muybridge to project moving images -
Emile Cohl makes the first cut-out animation, "En Route" - this is entirely cut outs. Cohl used this technique to save time as the cut out shapes could be adjusted. -
Animator Willis O'Brien works on "The Lost World". The film mixed stop-motion animation with live action.