I really enjoyed the early cinema animation work we reviewed in class. I was particularly inspired by two examples and found both commonalities and differences in them. One was the shadow puppetry and the other was the magic lanterns. In terms of commonalities between these two artforms – something they both share is that they were used for entertainment purposes. Shadow puppetry and magic lanterns are both used to engage and entertain whoever interacts with them. Magic lanterns were given as gifts to children to entertain them and the shadow puppetry was put on for tourists. Another commonality is that they were no match for the advanced cinema technology and subsequently became obsolete with time. In terms of the biggest differences between both, shadow puppetry has its roots in China while magic lanterns originated in America/US. The time periods were also a big difference between the two since shadow puppetry can be found as early as the first millennium BCE and magic lanterns dated from the seventeenth century (around the time America was established as a nation).
Kelvin Cortez
