Blackton

The last pioneer I am going to talk about is J. Stuart Blackton, the man who actually created the stop motion technique as it is used today. Unlike all of the other pioneers mentioned he did not create a device, he instead created a film, the Humpty Dumpty Circus. This film used the stop motion technique to make it looks though some inanimate toys were moving around on their own. This illusion was created by Blackton taking a picture of them in one position, moving them slightly, then taking another picture. When playing all of the pictures in a row at a fast speed, it appeared that they were moving by themselves. Although it would later be expanded on, this was the basis for the idea of stop motion animation. Although today all footage of this movie is lost, it is widely accepted that this was the first movie to use the technique.

Blackton released his movie in 1898, after that the technique spread and evolved. In Blackton’s movie it is said that he used his daughter’s toy circus, which would likely have been made of wood or plastic, however the material that is most heavily associated with stop motion animation is clay. Although the technique would evolve in ways like this, Blackton created the original stop motion animation, so I would consider him the most important pioneer in stop motion animation.