Humorous Phases of Funny Faces

Content

In the cartoon, animated hand-drawn scenes appear on a chalkboard, such as a clown playing with a hat and a dog jumping through a hoop. In the beginning, though, the cartoonist's hands are included, too, as he draws the first several lines on the chalkboard in standard live action. From there, the stop-motion technique is used to show what appears to be drawings completing—and then moving—by themselves with no artist on screen.

Techniques

Stop-motion as well as cutout animation are used, just as Edwin Porter moved his letters in How Jones Lost His Roll, and The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog. However, there is a very short section of the film where things are made to appear to move by altering the drawings themselves from frame to frame.

The film moves at 20 frames per second.