Humorous Phases of Funny Faces

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces
Directed by	J. Stuart Blackton
Produced by	J. Stuart Blackton
Starring	J. Stuart Blackton
Distributed by	Vitagraph Company of America
Release dates	April 6, 1906 (1906-04-06)
Running time	3 minutes
Country	United States
Language	Silent

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is a 1906 short silent animated cartoon directed by James Stuart Blackton and generally regarded by film historians as the first animated film recorded on standard picture film.

Content

In the cartoon, animated hand-drawn scenes appear on a chalkboard, such as a clown playing with a hat and a dog jumping through a hoop. In the beginning the cartoonist's hands are included, too, which are then left out, using stop-motion.

Techniques

File:Humorous Phases of Funny Faces screenshot.jpg

A single frame from the animation, showing the use of cut-out technique

Stop-motion as well as cutout animation are used, just as Edwin Porter moved his letters in How Jones Lost His Roll, and The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog. However, there is a very short section of the film where things are made to appear to move by altering the drawings themselves from frame to frame.

The film moves at 20 frames per second.

See also

• Fantasmagorie
• The Enchanted Drawing
• History of animation

External links

• Humorous Phases of Funny Faces at IMDb
• Humorous Phases of Funny Faces at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Humorous Phases of Funny Faces at the Library of Congress
• Humorous Phases of Funny Faces on YouTube