The very first cartoon in the world is believed to have been shown in 1906 and was called “The Humorous Phases of Funny Faces”.
American James Stewart Blackton prepared a small series of drawings and, together with the famous inventor Thomas Edison, filmed them one by one, calling his creation “a magical animated drawing.”
A year later, Blackton made the film “The Magic Fountain Pen,” where, in front of astonished moviegoers, a fountain pen, uncontrolled by anyone, drew certain figures on paper. Another film, The Haunted Hotel, was shown to audiences in Paris in 1906 and became instantly popular because it depicted moving inanimate objects.
It's interesting that last film became the subject of careful study for a whole group of French cameramen who were never able to unravel the simple principle of time-lapse photography and called this incomprehensible effect “American movement”.
In the Soviet Union, the very first cartoon was created and shown in 1924. Director Dziga Vertov and animators A. Ivanov and A. Bushkin filmed the animation “ Soviet toys" Despite children's name, its plot was purely propaganda. It depicted a fat bourgeois leading a hearty and have a fun life until the workers and Red Army soldiers came and ripped open his stomach. And the coins that fell from the bourgeoisie were simply taken to the people's bank.
First soviet cartoon"Soviet toys", 1924. In their cartoons, director Dziga Vertov and his colleagues used the principle of frame-by-frame filming of flat puppets, which was much easier than drawing hundreds of individual drawings. Thanks to the new approach, Soviet animation developed rapidly - annually creating several, and then several dozen films at once.
First global recognition Animators of the USSR received thanks to the film “The New Gulliver” released in 1935, which showed the first animated film adaptation famous novel Jonathan Swift, but with an adjusted communist slant. The film combined the principles of doll animation and filming of actors, in particular Gulliver, who for some reason happened to be wearing a Soviet pioneer tie.
However, it should be recognized that the first foundations of the principle of animation were laid more than a thousand years ago. The famous Roman philosopher, poet and Lucretius, in his treatise “On the Nature of Things,” was the first to give a detailed technical description of a device with which one can highlight drawings one by one.
Of course, for that time there were no enthusiasts capable of comprehending ideas that seemed so incredible. And Lucretius himself, apparently, simply did not have enough time to practical use their inventions.
Cartoon “New Gulliver”, USSR, 1935. Animation has been considered a branch of the film industry since its inception. However, this interesting direction can also be successfully associated with painting and graphics. The artist's talent plus technical capabilities - and art is born that leaves neither children nor adults indifferent.
The origins of animation are associated with the strobe light, an optical toy invented by the Belgian inventor Joseph Plateau in 1832. The principle of this device was simple - a cyclic pattern was applied to the edge of the circle. For example, a running horse, which was depicted several times in different stages of movement. When the circle rotated, the pattern merged, and the illusion of a moving object arose.
The first real animator is considered to be the Frenchman Emile Reynaud. He created a praxinoscope apparatus, which consisted of a rotating drum, a system of mirrors and a lantern. In 1892, Reynaud launched a unique attraction - an optical theater. There he showed the audience comic stories lasting 15-20 minutes. This happened several years before the famous premiere, that is, animation became known to the French even a little earlier than films.
Further development of animation, as well as cinema, took place in France. Emil Kohl is another one bright director and artist, began his career with acting productions. In 1908 he created the first cartoons. They resembled hand-drawn comics, only in motion. Emil Kohl drew thousands of drawings to bring them to life. He sought to achieve realism by copying real objects, and even used photography. Modern animators consider his legacy valuable.
Emil Kohl
Another bright name in the history of animation is associated with Russia. In 1912 he created the first puppet cartoon called “Beautiful Lyukanida, or the war of stags and barbels.” This figure became famous for his love of insects. He made a lot of films dedicated to them, and they looked very natural on the screen. Vladislav Starevich is a subtle psychologist and talented artist. He cared not only about the visual side of cartoons, but also filled them with deep meaning.
Vladislav Starevich
If in Europe the filming took place in an almost artisanal way, then in America everything was much better with the technical base. Here he appeared, who in 1929 shot his first hand-drawn cartoon with musical accompaniment, “Dance of the Skeletons.” Disney is considered to be the father of animation; his work deserves a separate story, because he alone received 30 times. His experience is still used as a basis today.
Subsequently, cinematographers introduced another interesting technology - the combination of live actors and cartoon characters.
The history of cinema is truly interesting, because in our time, modern high-tech special effects work real miracles: films amaze with their believability so much that viewers literally feel themselves during the events of the film! However, this was not always the case, and in order to achieve the results that each of us sees in the cinema now, people in the arts have been striving for this for decades. We invite you to take a look at where it all began!
THE VERY FIRST FILM IN THE WORLD - 1895
The beginning of the era of cinematography was marked by this short documentary film, which was shot by the Lumiere brothers, called " Arrival of the train at La Ciotat station". Since then, Auguste Louis Marie Nicolas and Louis Jean have been considered the founders of cinema. Despite the simple plot, the picture shocked everyone, because before that people could not imagine that sitting in the room in front of them a real carriage train would pass.
French director Georges Méliès.
THE VERY FIRST HORROR FILM IN THE WORLD - 1896
Modern viewer It’s hard to surprise, let alone scare, but because he’s already spoiled. But there’s a first time for everything, just like the first “horror” movie on the planet. Of course, now the special effects of the 19th century look funny: people appear and disappear in clouds of smoke, and the bats suddenly flutter out from behind the edge of the scenery, but precisely "Devil's Castle" officially considered the world's number one horror story.
American cartoonist Stuart Blackton.
THE VERY FIRST CARTOON IN THE WORLD No. 1 - 1906
And two contenders are competing for the title of the very first cartoon in the world: Stuart Blackton and Emil Kolya. In general, the very first was precisely " Humorous phases of funny faces" where the characters come to life with the help of the artist’s hand - it was shown to the public already in 1906 in France.
THE VERY FIRST CARTOON IN THE WORLD No. 2 - 1908
Despite the top multimedia film, scientists recognized the painting " Phantasmagoria" the very first full-fledged hand-drawn cartoon in history. During the creation of a 1.5-minute cartoon, 700 drawings were required!
Directed by Alan Crosland. USA.
THE VERY FIRST FILM IN THE WORLD WITH SOUND - 1927
Musical film "The Jazz Singer" became the first feature-length film in history with sound, which means that it was in 1927 that the era of silent films ended. 88 minutes long, its creation required a huge amount of money at that time, 422 thousand dollars.
Director: Dziga Vertov. THE USSR.
THE VERY FIRST CARTOON IN RUSSIA - 1924
The first animated film in Russia "Soviet toys", was created as propaganda for the Soviet system. The leading roles are played by an overeating and morally decaying bourgeois, whose belly is full of money, but in the end there is a happy ending for everyone: a Red Army soldier appears, and all the proletarians formed christmas tree, on which the enemies of Soviet society hung in the form of toys...
Armenian director Ruben Mamulyan.
OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED THE VERY FIRST COLOR FILM IN THE WORLD - 1935
Surprisingly, color cinema was invented by the Lumière brothers (they colored each frame by hand), then in 1902 the film “Traveling to the Moon” was released, where green and red tones appeared in several frames; in 1917 and 1922, the first films of Herbert Calamus, the founder of Technicolor company and the founder of color cinematography, 1925 USSR film "Battleship Potemkin" with splashes of red..
But apparently scientists found out about this too late, but because "Becky Sharp" 1935 is officially recognized as the very first color film in the world.
Walt Disney Company.
THE VERY FIRST DISNEY CARTOON - MARCH 1, 1924
The very first cartoon of the legendary and beloved Disney animation studio was the debut "Alice's Day at Sea", based on Lewis Carroll's book Alice in Wonderland. By the way, even now the picture is interesting to watch.
From this article you will learn what the very first cartoon in the world was, as well as many other interesting facts.
Prerequisites
It all started with the fact that the French-born inventor Emile Reynaud in 1877 patented one of his best devices - the praxinoscope. This device allowed the display of moving pictures. However, the day of the appearance of animation as such is considered to be October 28, 1892, since it was then that E. Reynaud first demonstrated his so-called luminous pictures in public. This happened worldwide famous museum wax figures Grevin in Paris.
His success was phenomenal. In fact, with this invention he discovered new era in human culture.
The very first cartoon in the world
Cinematography and animation developed in parallel with each other, and if everything is clear with the first film, then with the first cartoon in history the question is not so clear.
The fact is that three works are vying for the title of the very first cartoon in the world. First of all, two works by the American Blackton, who was a caricaturist and artist, are vying for the role of the first animated work. So, in 1906 he created his famous " funny faces" is a short cartoon consisting of sequentially displayed pictures of drawn human grimaces.
Then, less than a year later, in 1907, he released his second creation called The Haunted Hotel. It was a more technically advanced cartoon. Moreover, he gained quite a lot of fame among film lovers of that time. However, it was a puppet film, so most often the palm is given to another cartoon.
The third and most striking contender for the title of the very first cartoon in the world is “Phantasmagoria” (1908), authored by the Frenchman Emile Cohl. Unlike the cartoons described above, this one was a full-fledged hand-drawn cartoon in the usual sense, which is why it is considered to be the first animated cartoon in history.
"Phantasmagoria": history, plot
The action of the cartoon is quite simple. Initially, someone's hand draws Fantosh, who is hanging on the horizontal bar and then falls. In his place appears a new Fantosh wearing a hat and slightly fatter than the previous one. A lady in a hat with feathers sits in front of him, which blocks his view in front, so Fantosh plucks out all the feathers one by one.
This cartoon was very good impression to the public. He took part in the "Night Show", which took place in 1915, as well as in International festival animation in 1977 and at an event called "The Century of Animation" organized in 2003.
Further development of animation
The very first cartoon in the world and in Russia, made in the form of three-dimensional animation, is “Beautiful Lyukanida, or the War of the Barbels with the Horned Horns.” It was created by Russian biologist Vladislav Starevich in 1910, and the premiere took place 2 years later, in 1912.
He became not only the creator of the first three-dimensional cartoon in the world, but also the founder of Russian animation as a whole, since no one before him Russian Empire did not work with this genre of art.
The very first cartoon in the world, which had a full meter, is “The Apostle” (1918), the creator of which was Quirini Cristiani, an Argentine animator and film director.
In 1928, two significant events occurred at once, both of which are associated with the name of Walt Disney. Firstly, this year the most famous animated character in the world was created - the mouse Mickey Mouse, and secondly, the first ever cartoon with sound, called "Steamboat Willie", was released.
And just 4 years later, in 1932, Walt Disney again revolutionized the world of animation by making the very first color cartoon in the world. It is called "Flowers and Trees" and was the first completely commercial product, and its creation technique used a three-color spectrum.
Contribution to culture
It's probably no secret that animation is at the peak of popularity today. Along with cinematography, it is in fact the most powerful element of modern mass culture.
And the triumphant ascent of animation to Olympus was started by the very first cartoon in the world, when it was shown to the first viewers. Who knows how the world would have developed if the first cartoons had not been accepted by the public in their time?
In any case, the very first cartoons in the world played a key role in the formation of an entire art form, which, although it has much in common with cinema, is a different genre that developed in parallel, and not together with cinema.
Conclusion
The very first cartoons in history were, of course, quite primitive by modern standards, but for their time they were the most advanced and progressive technologies. They demonstrated that intelligent and technical resources humanity has not yet been exhausted, but is only in its infancy.
Thanks to them, a new milestone in the history of mankind began, the era of high technology, mass art and culture, as well as globalization. Today, few people remember about the very first cartoons in the world, although they should not be forgotten, since this is a very important element not only modern culture, but also in the lives of most individuals, because there are practically no people in the world who have a negative attitude towards animation. And most people have an extremely positive attitude towards this type of art and are willing to watch new products from the multi-industry, as well as review old ones.
