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The first cartoon appeared in Russia in 1910. It was created by director Vladislav Starevich. This cartoon was about beetles and was not at all like what we were used to seeing. It was filmed for educational purposes: the first Russian animator did not intend to entertain young viewers, he wanted to create documentary about beetles. However, during filming, he encountered a problem - when he set the right light, the beetles refused to move. Then Vladislav Starevich made stuffed beetles, attached strings to them and shot the film frame by frame. This picture was called the first puppet cartoon. Starevich produced several more similar insect-themed cartoons, but now he used real scripts. These cartoons were very popular among viewers - many did not understand how the pictures were made and were surprised at how the author managed to train the beetles in such a way.

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Real cartoons appeared a few years later in Soviet years. The first cartoon with sound - "Mail" - was based on the work of Samuil Marshak in 1930. The author of the script was Marshak himself. Soviet animators began working with color in the late 1930s. Already the first experiments ended successfully - such color films as “Sweet Pie” (1936), “Little Red Riding Hood” (1937) and “Little Mook” (1939) appeared on the screens of the country.

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IN post-war period Soviet animation not only quickly recovered, but also continued to develop rapidly. At this time, domestic cartoons began to slowly but surely enter the world animation arena. The most notable films of that period are “Sinbad the Sailor”, “The Lost Letter”, “Spring Melodies” and “The Little Humpbacked Horse”.

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Creating a cartoon is a long and painstaking work of many people. In the mid-50s, cartoons were made in large groups: about 20-30 people worked on just one 8-minute cartoon. The group was divided into the following categories: -Director (manages the entire project) -Producer (pays expenses) -Scriptwriters (think through every frame of the cartoon) -Artists (make the cartoon beautiful) -Composers (select the music)

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One cartoon took from 3 months to 1 year to create. Any cartoon begins with a script. It takes a long time to write and is difficult, the dialogues change several times, some scenes are thrown out completely. And only when the whole film has been put together on paper can it be drawn.

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What the cartoon characters will look like in profile and from the front, front and back, what they look like in motion is decided by the film's production designer. He has to draw so much that an enormous number of pencils are worn out in a day.

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Then animators join the game, under whose hands the cartoon characters come to life. For example, in order for the hero to raise his hand, animators need to draw a considerable number of frames. There are 25 of them in one second. And if the cartoon lasts an hour and a half, you will need to create 135,000 frames.

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The result of the animators' work is picked up by the rendering artists. As a result, we have a color film. But there are not only heroes on the screen, they are surrounded by trees and cities. All these backgrounds are created by many other artists.

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And the most interesting thing is how the characters talk. The entire dialogue is recorded on a voice recorder. Then they count the time (down to milliseconds) per word in the dialogue. And under each letter you need to draw a mouth. So the characters move their mouths with each word. The actors' voices are recorded before the animators start working, that is, the characters first have voices, and only then they begin to animate them based on their lines. And what would a cartoon be without music and songs?

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The most common technology for creating cartoons is animation. Animation is the magical technology that makes inanimate objects move. For animation, the main thing is to create actions and effects that are impossible in reality. Only in this fairy tale world you can fly, change your appearance, recreate yourself. The animation of objects looks magical. It’s amazing how small grains of sand can form a sand castle on their own, or how a pencil can suddenly, without anyone’s influence, begin to draw bizarre images on paper.

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They can’t come to a common opinion, what was the very first cartoon in the world? Three cartoons at once can lay claim to the palm. These are "Phantasmagoria" by Emile Cohl, as well as "The Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" and "The Haunted Hotel" by James Stuart Blackton. Even before 1900, J. Stewart Blackton, along with Thomas Edison, made "moving drawings" and filmed them, thereby combining film techniques with graphics. The resulting film was called Humorous Phases funny faces" and presented to the French public on April 6, 1906.

Using the same dynamic animation technique, Blackton created another film in 1907, The Haunted Hotel. But in our understanding, these cartoons were still very imperfect, and only demonstrated some of the capabilities of the animation technique, which was then called the “American Movement.”

Later, these possibilities were used by the French cartoonist Emile Colas in the cartoon Phantasmagoria, shown by Gaumont in August 1908. Although “Phantasmagoria” lasts only one and a half minutes, many experts consider it to be the first full-fledged cartoon in the world. It was drawn on white paper and filmed in negative, with light lines on dark background created an unusual effect.

The first cartoons of Russia and the USSR

By the way, the very first cartoon was made in Russia in 1912, and first soviet cartoon published in 1924. It was called " Soviet toys"and, of course, promoted the Soviet system.

It came out in 1928 and was called Plane Crazy. Disney's very first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, premiered on December 21, 1937. It was a cinematic sensation. In the same year, for his first cartoon, Walt Disney received one full-length and seven small (according to the number of dwarfs) Oscar statuettes. Since February 4, 1938, this cartoon has been widely released and to this day occupies a high place among the best animated films.

On June 10, 1936, the largest studio of animated films in the USSR, Soyuzmultfilm, was created. Then it was called “Soyuzdetmultfilm”, and it was renamed “Soyuzmultfilm” in August 1937.

Whatever one may say, the best cartoons Soviet childhood we can safely call the work of the Soyuzmultfilm studio. Over the years of its existence, it has released great amount cartoons for every taste, which we show to our children and never tire of watching ourselves. In addition, most cartoons contain many secrets and details that are noticeable only to the most attentive. Let's get to know them.

Post sponsor: Cartoons for every taste.

Winnie the Pooh

The first film adaptation of the book about Winnie the Pooh belongs to the Walt Disney Studio: in the early 60s, several episodes were released about the funny little bear and his friends. Before starting work on the domestic Winnie the Pooh, Fyodor Khitruk had not seen the Disney version.

However, he wanted to move away from the images that were depicted in the book, to create his own, new and original characters. Of course, he succeeded. Everyone who has seen both the Disney and our versions clearly speaks out in favor of the latter.

It is curious that initially Winnie the Pooh was very shaggy, his ears looked a little “chewed”, and his eyes were of different sizes. At first, artists made Piglet look like a thick, appetizing sausage. A lot of different bear cubs and piglets were drawn before the characters acquired the appearance we are familiar with.

By the way, in the second and third series, the drawings of the characters were simplified: the black “glasses” on Winnie the Pooh’s face acquired clear outlines, and Piglet’s rosy cheeks began to be indicated by a single red line. While working on the cartoon about Winnie the Pooh, Fyodor Khitruk did not know about the existence of animated films about the funny bear from the Disney studio. Later, according to Khitruk, Disney director Wolfgang Reiterman liked his version. At the same time, since soviet cartoons were created without taking into account the exclusive rights to the film adaptation owned by the Disney studio, their showing abroad was impossible.

Baby and Carlson

The Soviet cartoon “Baby and Carlson” directed by Boris Stepantsev, based on the story by Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren and released on television in 1968, was enthusiastically received by both young and adult television viewers.

In total, two episodes about Carlson were released: “Kid and Carlson” (1968) and “Carlson is back” (1970). Soyuzmultfilm was going to make a third one, but this idea was never realized. The studio archives still contain film that was planned to be used for filming a cartoon based on the third part of the trilogy about the Kid and Carlson - “Carlson Plays Pranks Again.”

If you watch the cartoon about Carlson very carefully, you will notice the following detail: at the beginning of the cartoon, when the Kid is crossing the road, an Air France advertisement is visible on a passing bus.

The detectives from the cartoon about the adventures of the pig Funtik are very similar to the underwear thieves from the cartoon about Carlson. In addition, the Soviet parents of Uncle Fyodor from Prostokvashino are very similar to the Swedish parents of the Kid.

Leopold the Cat

The Soviet animated series about Leopold the cat and the hooligan mice pestering him was filmed on Creative association"Screen" from 1975 to 1993. At the time of the creation of the animated series there was no art workshop yet. Therefore, the first two episodes (“The Revenge of Leopold the Cat” and “Leopold and gold fish") were not drawn, but were made using the transfer technique.

Small details of characters and scenery were cut out of paper and placed under glass. After each frame, the details moved a tiny distance, which created the illusion of movement. Further episodes of the cartoon were realized using hand-drawn animation.

The creators of the cartoon spent a long time racking their brains over the name of the main character. The authors really didn’t want to call him too simply - “ordinary” Barsik or Murzik. According to their plans, the name had to sound beautiful and at the same time be easy to pronounce.

There is a version according to which the good-natured and charming cat was named by the son of the scriptwriter Arkady Khait. While working on the plot of the cartoon, the boy tried to do two things at once: follow the adults and watch “The Elusive Avengers” on TV. The name of White Guard Colonel Leopold Kudasov, one of the heroes of The Elusive Ones, gave rise to the idea of ​​naming the cat the same. Hooligan mice are also not nameless, as many people think. The plump gray rodent is called Motey, and the thin white animal is called Mitya. However, in the cartoon the mice are never called by name.

Cheburashka

The Soviet cartoon about Cheburashka was filmed by director Roman Kachanov based on the book by Eduard Uspensky, or rather, according to their joint script. And although Uspensky wrote 8 stories about Crocodile Gena, Cheburashka and their friends, a total of 4 episodes were made.

The cartoon image of Cheburashka, known today - a cute creature with huge ears, large trusting eyes and soft brown fur - was invented by cartoonist Leonid Shvartsman. This is exactly how he first appeared in Roman Kachanov’s cartoon “Crocodile Gena” (1969) and won the hearts of children and adults.

According to the preface to the book by Eduard Uspensky “Crocodile Gena and His Friends,” Cheburashka was the name given to the defective toy that the author of the book had in childhood, depicting an unprecedented animal: either a bear cub or a bunny with big ears.

According to the book, the author's parents claimed that Cheburashka is an animal unknown to science that lives in the hot tropical jungle. Therefore, in the text of the book, the heroes of which, as the writer claims, are Uspensky’s own children’s toys, Cheburashka really appears to readers as an unknown tropical animal.

In one of his interviews, Eduard Uspensky said that he once came to visit a friend who had a little daughter. At the time of the writer’s visit, the girl was trying on a fur coat, which was dragging along the floor. “The girl kept falling, tripping over her fur coat. And her father, after another fall, exclaimed: “Oh, I screwed up again!” This word stuck in my memory and I asked what it meant. It turned out that “cheburahnutsya” means “to fall.” That’s how the name of my hero appeared,” the author admitted.

Three from Prostokvashino

The animated series “Three from Prostokvashino” based on the story by Eduard Uspensky “Uncle Fyodor, the Dog and the Cat” was directed by Vladimir Popov. A total of three episodes were released. Much of what is in literary source, was not included in the cartoon, but the popularity of the film adaptation was several times greater than the popularity of Uspensky’s story.

The work on creating the screen images of the cartoon “Three from Prostokvashino” was divided between production designers at the request of director Vladimir Popov. The image of Galchonok did not work out for a very long time. Therefore, everyone who entered the artist’s room at Soyuzmultfilm was asked to draw this character. The artist Leonid Shvartsman, who came up with the cartoon Cheburashka, even had a hand in its creation.

Uncle Fyodor is the only type for which the team that worked on the creation of the cartoon “Three from Prostokvashino” never came to a common decision. Therefore, his on-screen image changes greatly from episode to episode. Such a move, which is unacceptable from the point of view of Western animation, was accepted in our country completely calmly.

By the way, Matroskin’s cat could have been named Taraskin. The fact is that when Eduard Uspensky wrote his story, he wanted to name this character by the name of Anatoly Taraskin, an employee of the film magazine “Fitil,” but he did not allow the use of his name. True, he later regretted it and admitted to the writer: “What a fool I was! I regretted giving my last name!”

Wait for it!

"Wait for it!" - this is not just an animated series, it is a real legend on which more than one generation has grown up. In 1969, “Well, wait a minute!” was a government order. Officials decided to give our answer to Disney cartoons and allocated a fairly serious budget. The customers' demands were limited to a request to do something funny.

With this request, the management of Soyuzmultfilm turned to famous comedians Alexander Kurlyandsky, Arkady Khait, Felix Kamov and Eduard Uspensky.

The creators of the cartoon had a lot of controversy about the 12th episode of the famous cartoon, when the Wolf finds himself in the sarcophagus of Pharaoh Ramses. It was even assumed that the Egyptian government might protest in this regard. But everything worked out.

In the animated series “Well, wait a minute!” amazing music selection, which uses popular recordings from Western and Soviet stage. But they were never specified in the cartoon's imprint. It was not accepted then.

The music that plays during the credits is the title track “Well, just wait!” - called Vizisi (“Water skiing”) and was published on a collection of Hungarian pop music by Melodiya in 1967. Its author is a Hungarian composer named Tomás Deák.

fell last year's snow

As composer Grigory Gladkov mentioned during his performance in the humorous program “Around Laughter,” the cartoon “Last Year’s Snow Was Falling” had the original working title “Fir-trees, sticks, thick forest,” and the main character in it was the janitor from “The Plasticine Crow.” Then the visual concept of the main character was finalized, as was the title of the film.

The role of the narrator in the cartoon “Last Year's Snow Was Falling” was originally planned to be given to Lia Akhedzhakova. She even voiced the cartoon, but director Alexander Tatarsky didn’t like it. As a result, both roles - the man and the storyteller - were given to Stanislav Sadalsky.

Sadalsky, who voiced the roles of the man and the narrator in the cartoon Last Year's Snow Was Falling, was not listed in the credits. Shortly before the release of the cartoon, the actor was detained in the restaurant of the Cosmos Hotel with a foreign citizen, after which a denunciation followed to the chairman of the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company S.G. Lapin. As a punishment for communicating with foreigners, it was decided to remove the actor’s last name from the credits.

The cartoon “Last Year's Snow Was Falling” could not escape the close attention of censors. “At the delivery of “Snow,” I was in a pre-heart attack state,” recalled the cartoon director Alexander Tatarsky. “They told me that I was disrespectful to the Russian people: you have only one hero - a Russian man, and he’s an idiot!..”

Publications in the Cinema section

The origins of Russian animation: 1920–40s

From film adaptations of Mayakovsky's poems and soundtracks from Shostakovich, the story of Gulliver the pioneer and copying of Disney techniques with the approval of Stalin himself - the first decades of Soviet animation were extremely interesting.

Avant-garde 20s

Although the first experiments in animation in Russia began to be undertaken even before the revolution (puppet cartoons by Alexander Shiryaev, short films by Vladislav Starevich, shot using stuffed insects), the starting point of the domestic animation tradition should be considered the first cartoon filmed in the USSR - “Soviet Toys” by Dziga Vertov (1924). The plot of the short film is based on political cartoons by the artist Denis published in the newspaper Pravda, ridiculing the enemies of socialist society. Other cartoons appearing at the same time were also aimed at adults, not children - “Humoresques” by the same Dziga Vertov, “German Affairs and Deeds” by Alexander Bushkin, “China on Fire” - a cartoon on which almost all the main animators of subsequent decades: Ivan Ivanov-Vano, Vladimir Suteev, Valentina and Zinaida Brumberg, Olga Khodataeva.

Vladislav Starevich (1882-1965). Photo: kino-teatr.ru

Dziga Vertov (1896-1954)

Ivan Ivanov-Vano (1900-1987)

First children's cartoon- “The Rink” by Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky (the animator in this short film was Ivan Ivanov-Vano) was released in 1927. The story about a boy who, wanting to punish a fat man who was pestering a beautiful figure skater, by chance won a speed skating competition, became very successful and laid the foundations for children's animation.

The same Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky also directed the first puppet cartoon - “The Adventures of Bolvashka” (1927). Then this direction will be developed by Maria Benderskaya, who released the films “Moidodyr” and “The Adventures of the Chinese.”

Another important cartoon of the time was "The Samoyed Boy", made by sisters Zinaida and Valentina Brumberg and Olga and Nikolai Khodataev in 1928. In fact, this is a seven-minute life story of an ideal Soviet citizen - the brave boy Chu, who first exposes the evil shaman, and then enters the workers' school in Leningrad in order to return to his native camp and change his life for the better. “Samoyed Boy” is also interesting aesthetically: it uses images of the original visual arts northern peoples.

In terms of visual aesthetics, the first Soviet cartoons were filled with the spirit of the avant-garde. Nikolai Khodataev, Mikhail Tsekhanovsky, sisters Valentina and Zinaida Brumberg, Ivan Ivanov-Vano, creating new art, were focused on finding new forms - both in graphics and in editing. Animation opened up hitherto unprecedented horizons for artists. As one of the founders wrote domestic animation Ivan Ivanov-Vano: “There is nothing inaccessible for animation. This is an art of possibilities not limited by technology, where reality is closely intertwined with fantasy and fiction, where fantasy and fiction become reality.”

Still from the cartoon “Soviet Toys”. 1924

Still from the cartoon "Rink". 1927

Still from the cartoon “Samoyed Boy”. 1928

Literary 20s

During these years, animation is elevated to the rank of a new art; it actively borrows literary images and ideas: cartoons based on the works of classical authors(“The Adventures of Munchausen” by Daniil Cherkes, Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Vladimir Suteev based on Raspe), modern children’s writers (“The Cockroach” by Alexander Ivanov based on a poem by Chukovsky, “Senka the African” by Daniil Cherkes, Yuri Merkulov and Ivan Ivanov-Vano based on fairy tales of the same Chukovsky). Among these cartoons, “Mail” by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky, a film adaptation of the book of the same name by Samuil Marshak, especially stands out. This cartoon went down in history as the first sound Soviet animated film.

Not only are they starting to collaborate with animated films best writers and poets (among them Evgeny Schwartz, Samuil Marshak, Korney Chukovsky, Sergei Mikhalkov, Valentin Kataev, Yuri Olesha) of that time, but also composers. Dmitry Shostakovich specially writes music for “The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda” by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky. Unfortunately, the film was not completed, and only one episode of it has survived.

Still from the cartoon “The Adventures of Munchausen.” 1929

Still from the cartoon “Senka the African”. 1927

Still from the cartoon "Mail". 1929

In many ways, this interest, in addition to those creative possibilities that animation provided was also associated with censorship pressure on screenwriters, novelists, and composers, who, in order to survive, looked for themselves in other areas - works for children, the stage. Although here, not everything was rosy. As artist Lana Azarkh, who collaborated with the Brumberg sisters, recalls: “They were absolutely not afraid to experiment. They were widely educated artists, knowledgeable about art from all over the world. Another thing is that they were restrained, tortured, prohibited. Grymz from the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences sat at the artistic councils and said that children would not understand this. But despite everything, real masterpieces came out.”

Satirical 30s

In the early 30s, a satirical direction in animation began to develop: “The Tale of Tsar Durandai” by Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Zinaida Brumberg, “Organchik” by Nikolai Khodataev based on “The History of a City” by Saltykov-Shchedrin, “Quartet” by Alexander Ivanov and Panteleimon Sazonov based on Krylov's fable, "Black and White" by Leonid Amalrik and Ivan Ivanov-Vano is a film adaptation of Mayakovsky's poem of the same name.

Particularly notable is the film “The New Gulliver” by Alexander Ptushko (1935), where the classic plot is quite boldly rethought: Gulliver in the cartoon becomes a Soviet schoolboy who, instead of Swift’s Lilliput, finds himself in the capitalist world.

But all these cartoons were separate experiments that were created in scattered cartoon workshops at Mezhrabpomfilm, Sovkino, Moskinokombinat, Gosvoenkino, and Mosfilm. In 1936, they were all united into a single institute - Soyuzmultfilm. The studio staff included already well-known animators - Ivan Ivanov-Vano, Olga Khodataeva, Valentina and Zinaida Brumberg, Vladimir Suteev, Dmitry Babichenko, Alexander Ivanov and others.

Still from the cartoon “The Tale of King Durandai.” 1934

Still from the cartoon "The New Gulliver". 1935

Still from the cartoon "Black and White". 1932

As Fyodor Khitruk, who has worked at the studio almost since its founding, recalls: “Nothing happens without purposeful work. Soyuzmultfilm was looked after, the best personnel were selected for it, the artists were taken care of. In a word, they created tolerable conditions so that the created cartoons could then be successfully sold. Well, we must not forget that we were not particularly affected by censorship. There were some ridiculous moments when they insistently asked to change the overly pessimistic ending, but that’s just the little things. In general, there was no obscurantism; we were relatively free. We also constantly studied - we watched Western cartoons in industrial quantities.”

Pro-Disney 30s

Speaking of Western cartoons. In 1935, Walt Disney's Funny Symphonies was shown at the Moscow International Film Festival. This event greatly influenced the minds of Soviet animators. As the same Khitruk recalls: “The Disney film from the “Funny Symphonies” series did not fit into any framework of the usual consciousness. It was such a class of directing, such a fusion of plasticity, music, ideas and characters - amazing.<...>For me, these films were more than art, they were divination, witchcraft. In terms of movement, character, and acting, something more convincing happened to me than in feature films.”

Still from the cartoon “Kotofey Kotofeevich.” 1937

Still from the cartoon “Funny Symphonies”. 1935

Still from the cartoon "It's Hot in Africa." 1936

It was according to Disney canons that Soyuzmultfilm developed in the first years: for several years they mastered celluloid technology - a production conveyor like Disney's, new animators were trained according to American manuals. Now animators have a division of labor: instead of people who did everything at once, narrow specialists began to work - phasers, drafters, outliners, fillers. Of course, this speeded up the process and made production cheaper, but at the same time, in such cartoons it became more difficult to capture the artist’s individual style. They also borrowed from Disney the “éclair” or rotoscoping technology, which was based on filming the movements of live actors. Willy-nilly, Soviet animators also borrowed the style of Disney films.

Ivanov-Vano recalled this period like this: “How could this happen? I then asked myself this question many times until I found the correct answer. As sad as it may be, all of us at first in our work new studio They found themselves captive to the Disney method and were forced to copy not only the technology, but also some of the principles of character construction and movement. The fact is that training in the courses for cartoonists was carried out mainly on textbooks, developed by Disney for its animators. All the most expressive and characteristic forms the characters’ movements - walking, jumping, running, falling - were carefully recorded and recorded on special tapes, which were then used by the animators to save time in their work.”

Original 40s

That bright style of Soviet animation, which had already begun to take shape in the 1920s, was lost for a while. However, even during these years, interesting original works appeared - for example, films by Vladimir Suteev (“Noisy Swimming”, “Why does the Rhinoceros’s Skin Have Folds”, “Kolobok”, “Uncle Styopa”).

All these films are black and white, although since 1937, when the first color cartoon was released (Sweet Pie by Dmitry Babichenko), many films have been released in two versions at once.

The years 1939–1941 are perhaps the most productive for Soyuzmultfilm of that period. Now a classic is coming to screens domestic animation: “Limpopo” and “Barmaley” by Leonid Amalrik and Vladimir Polkovnikov, “Moidodyr” by Ivan Ivanov-Vano, “Tsokotukha Fly” by Vladimir Suteev. These cartoons are becoming less and less like Disney films; the artists' signature style is clearly visible in them. It is from them that the original Soviet school of animation originates.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, animators, those who did not go to the front, switched to shooting propaganda film posters. The production of children's cartoons is proceeding extremely slowly - there are not enough materials, evacuation to Samarkand and return re-evacuation to Moscow takes a lot of effort and time, at some point the studio is even producing buttons and combs from film. Nevertheless, these years saw the release of “Yolka” and “Telephone” by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky, “The Stolen Sun” by Ivan Ivanov-Vano, and “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”

Traditionally, on Saturdays, we publish for you the answers to the quiz in the “Question - Answer” format. We have a variety of questions, both simple and quite complex. The quiz is very interesting and quite popular, we are simply helping you test your knowledge and make sure that you have chosen the correct answer out of the four proposed. And we have another question in the quiz - Based on which Krylov fable, Vladislav Starevich made one of the first domestic cartoons in 1913.

• A. “Quartet”
• B. “The Crow and the Fox”
• C. “The Cat and the Cook”
• D. “Dragonfly and Ant”

The correct answer is D. Dragonfly and ant

Yes, yes, don't be surprised! It was in 1913 that the Khanzhonkov Joint Stock Company made a cartoon based on Krylov’s immortal creation and duplicated it on different languages and was successfully shown throughout Europe))) Everything is as it should be: a silent black and white film, the music of a pianist behind the scenes...

“Did you know that this fable actually refers to an ant and a grasshopper? Yes, yes, a grasshopper, or as it is also called, a filly. The point is that in spoken language XVIII - early XIX centuries, the word dragonfly served as a general name for various insects: this was the name of both the grasshopper and the dragonfly... It is interesting that in ancient illustrations to this fable you can find images of a grasshopper.”

Animator Vladislav Starevich

Vladislav Starevich was born in 1882 in the city of Vilna (modern Vilnius) into a family of Lithuanian Poles.
Since childhood, Vladislav has been interested in studying insects and photography.
After graduating from high school, he served as an official.
In 1910, Starewicz decided to make a documentary about horned stag beetles and their battles for a mate. However, with the lighting required for filming, the males, alas, stopped fighting. Then Starevich made dummies from the shells of the stags and filmed the scenes frame by frame. As a result, the world's first puppet animation film was created, entitled “The Beautiful Lucanida, or the Fight of the Horned Horned Beetles” (“Lucanus Cervus” - translated from Latin as “Stag Beetle”). The film had a pseudo-romantic plot about the love of a longhorn beetle for the queen of horned beetles, the beautiful Lyukanida, and the jealousy of her stupid and rude husband, the king. The libretto for this supposedly romantic plot, voiced over the video by the distributors, was done with great humor.
Khanzhonkov recalled:
“His first production, made according to his own script, was a 230-meter-long picture called “Beautiful Lucanida” or “War of the Horned Men with the Barbels,” released in March (in the new style in April) 1912.

The picture made everyone who saw it not only admire it, but also think about the ways it was staged, since all the roles in it were played by beetles. This was the first example of volumetric animation, which was then unknown either here in Russia or abroad. It was not drawings that were taken, but miniature figures - artificial beetles, made with delightful verisimilitude. For each frame, the beetles had to be given a special position, and sometimes even an expression.”
The film was a great success among Russian and foreign viewers until the mid-20s. The stop-motion technique of puppet animation was completely unknown at that time, so many reviews expressed amazement at how such incredible things could be achieved by training insects.

Thus, the London newspaper Evening News wrote about the film: “How was all this done? No one who saw the picture could explain it. If the beetles are trained, then their trainer must have been a man of magical imagination and patience. What characters namely beetles, this is clearly visible upon careful examination of their appearance. Be that as it may, we stand face to face with an amazing phenomenon of our century ... "