Early Animations

Fantasmagorie

Fantasmagorie is a stop motion chalk animation from 1908. Each image is drawn on a chalkboard and a camera takes a picture of it. The next frame is then drawn again and the process continues.

Gertie the Dinosaur

Gertie the Dinosaur is a Key-Frame animation from 1914. For this one each frame was hand drawn on paper. Where as Fantasmagorie was drawn on a chalkboard, Gertie was drawn over roughly 10,000 sheets of paper.

Steamboat Willie

Steamboat Willie is a cel animation style from 1928. The differences between Steamboat Willie and Gertie the Dinosaur are Sound and technique. Cel animation is done by painting the "scene" on separate celluloids (such as background layer, character layers, and the mouth/eyes/other animated parts layers). This made it easier to make, as they didn't have to constantly re-draw the frame over and over. They simply had to swap out cels in between shots.