CHOOSE ARTIST
Robert Breer, Paul Chan, Martha Colburn, Thomas Demand, Edison Manufacturing Company, Fleischer Studios, Brent Green, George Griffin, Ezra Johnson, Bill T. Jones and OpenEnded Group, William Kentridge, Avish Khebrehzadeh, Laleh Khorramian, Maria Lassnig, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Joshua Mosley, Oscar Muñoz, Jacco Olivier, Raymond Pettibon, Robert Pruitt, Christine Rebet, Mary Reid Kelley, Lotte Reiniger, Robin Rhode, Hiraki Sawa, Berni Searle, Cindy Sherman, Federico Solmi, Dziga Vertov, Kara Walker
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- Edison Manufacturing Company
- The Enchanted Drawing, 1900
- 35mm film transferred to DVD; 1 minute 26 seconds
Producer: J. Stuart Blackton; Camera: Albert E. Smith
The Library of Congress, Paper Print Collection, Washington, DC
ABOUT THIS WORK
Produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company, The Enchanted Drawing is a pioneering example of the use of stop-motion animation techniques. Combining live action and animation in this work, a lightning-sketch artist, portrayed by the filmmaker J. Stuart Blackton, is able to bring to life the objects he draws on a large sketch pad, including a top hat, a glass, and a bottle of wine. In the humorous piece, a fully animated caricature of a man’s face interacts with and responds to Blackton’s pranks.
ABOUT EDISON MANUFACTURING COMPANY
Owned by Thomas Edison, the Edison Manufacturing Company was America’s first commercial film studio and the industry leader from 1894 to 1918. Its earliest films were shown on the Edison-invented kinetoscope, a freestanding device with a peephole through which individual viewers watched small moving pictures. While their first productions were typically short films documenting current events, modern marvels, and comedic acts, the studio eventually developed large format, longer films that were projected in theaters. This included their 1903 production The Great Train Robbery. One of the first narrative films ever produced, it employed groundbreaking editing techniques such as cross-cutting to show simultaneous action in different locations. The studio also developed early stop-motion trick film methods to make objects appear to move on their own.