This document provides a timeline of animation history from 1900 to today. Some key events include the first use of stop-motion animation in 1902, the success of stop-motion films in the early 1900s, the first claymation film in 1917, advancements in stop-motion films in the 1920s and 1930s including King Kong, the founding of Aardman Animations in 1972 known for Wallace and Gromit, Pixar releasing the first full-length computer animated film Toy Story in 1995, and Aardman releasing their first full-length claymation film in 2000. The timeline shows the major developments and innovations in animation techniques over the past century.

1. Timeline
1900 - Today
By Sam Jackson

2. 
1902

3. 
1902
 Short film Fun In A
Bakery Shop was
released, directed by
Edwin S. Porter.
 It was only 1 minute and
30 seconds long, but
contained some
experimental use of Stop-
Motion Animation.

4. 
1907

5. 
1907
 Stop-Motion film ‘The
Haunted Hotel’ is made
by J. Stuart Blackton.
 It was a short silent
comedy film which was
very successful in
America.
 Blackton directed several
Stop-Motion shorts
following this.

6. 
1910

7. 
1910
 A puppet animation ‘The Battle of the Stag Beetles’
(or Lucanus Cervus) was created by Ladislaw
Starevich.
 As he could not record actual stag beetles fighting,
he used stop motion to record it instead with
puppets.

8. 
1917

9. 
1917
 Helena Smith Dayton
(b. 1879, d. 1960) was
one of the first female
animators.
 In 1917, she adapted
Shakespeare’s novel
Romeo and Juliet using
Claymation

10. 
1925

11. 
1925
 The Lost World was an
adaptation of a book by
Arthur Conan Doyle.
 The fantasy film
contained Stop-Motion
effects by Willis O’Brien,
and was produced in a
large Hollywood studio.

12. 
1933

13. 
1933
 King Kong was a massive film
made using stop motion
animation, and starred many big
actors from the time.
 It was a full length movie that
would not be at all possible
without animation.
 The quality of this animation was
much better than anything
produced before it, so it marked a
big step forward for animation.

14. 
1972

15. 
1972
 Aardman was founded with the aim of producing an
animated motion picture.
 Shorts were made for various BBC and Channel 4
programmes and segments using techniques
including Claymation.
 In 1989, Nick Park made Creature Comforts and the
film Wallace and Gromit: A Grand Day Out, with
many other popular films following up to the
present day, as well as TV series and advertisements.

16. 
1977

17. 
1977
 1977 was the year that the original Star Wars film
was released, containing Stop-Motion animation:
Models were manipulated a frame at a time, animated in front of painted
backgrounds instead of a blue screen, with baking soda used in place of
snow. It was shot at 24 frames per second, resulting in about 5 seconds of
footage per day of work. For explosions, high speed photography was
used, and cutouts were used for background walkers.

18. 
1988

19. 
1988
 Tim Burton was a big name for films containing
Stop-Motion animation, including The Nightmare
Before Christmas (1993), Corpse Bride (2005) and
Frankenweenie (2012).
 In 1988, he released the movie Beetlejuice, which he
was the director of.

20. 
1995

21. 
1995
 Pixar produced the first
ever feature-length movie
using computer-animated
film, called Toy Story. It
was released by Disney
and has become one of
the biggest animated
films ever to be released.

22. 
2000

23. 
2000
 Aardman released their
first full length movie
in 2000 after success
with their previous
shorts including
Wallace and Gromit
and Morph.

24. Animation has made massive advancements
in the last century, and will probably
continue to do so in this one…
By Sam Jackson