The Kinetoscope was apparently completed by 1892. An early motion-picture device in which the images were viewed through a peephole.
David Robinson writes: It consisted of an upright wooden cabinet, 18 in. x 27 in. x 4 ft. high, with a peephole with magnifying lenses in the top...Inside the box the film, in a continuous band of approximately 50 feet, was arranged around a series of spools.
The first use of animation in movies was in 1899, with the production of the short film Matches: An Appeal by British film pioneer Arthur Melbourne-Cooper- a thirty-second long stop-motion animated piece intended to encourage the audience to send matches to British troops fighting the Boer War. The film contains an appeal to send money to Bryant and May who would then send matches to the British troops which were fighting in the Boer War in South Africa.
It was shown in December 1899 at The Empire Theatre in London.
This film is the earliest known example of stop-motion animation. Little puppets, constructed of matchsticks, are writing the appeal on a black wall. Their movements are filmed frame by frame, movement by movement.
