Page 195 - Expanded Media & the MediaPlex

Expanded Media - and the MediaPlex 195/206
James Stuart Blackton: The Enchanted Drawing - live on film 1900
James Stuart Blackton: The Enchanted Drawing - live on film 1900. It is clear from the 1895 Blackpool poster for Blackton’s animation that he was one of the earliest to make hand-drawn animations on film. The other contender for the earliest animation includes Emile Cohl (Un Drame 1908)...
Blackton was one the small number of artists of this period who combined stage performance with projected imagery, often featuring animated or motion cinematography. From as early as 1900, the Sussex film pioneer George Albert Smith, the famous George Melies in France, - and Stuart Blackton - were mounting stage shows, that in the case of Smith and Melies, combined stage magic and motion- picture projection. Blackton invented a style of stage-drawing and filmic animation that he combined with a comedic presentation. A few years later (by 1911), the comic-strip genius Winsor McCay, famous for Little Nemo in Slumberland (1910) and his early animation Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) made stage- shows an integral part of his promotional work, and even filmed his stage exploits...