Ladislaw Starewicz

        Advancing from the pioneering work of Arthur Melbourne Cooper, Ladislaw Starewicz used the same stop motion technique to tell stories, often using dead bugs with wire limbs as his characters. Although this sounds somewhat macabre, there is an indescribable charm in seeing beetles, grasshoppers and dragonflies inhabiting their own miniature world.

        Starewicz's use of real insects stemmed from a desire to make a film for the Museum of Natural History in Kovno, Lithuania, depicting battling stag beetles. Yet the lighting he used prompted the nocturnal creatures to go to sleep. His solution was to create articulated 'puppets' and recreate the fight using these.

        From then on, his films developed from naturalistic to anthropomorphic. One such example is The Cameraman's Revenge (1911), in which a grasshopper is spurned by his dragonfly lover in favour of a beetle. The idea of a community of insects inhabiting a recognisably human world, going to the theatre, driving cars and dealing with issues such as jealousy, infidelity and love has been echoed in contemporary animations such as Pixar's A Bug's Life and Dreamworks' Antz, which demonstrate the far reaching appeal and influence of Starewicz's work.

        Considering that Starewicz began his animation career within a few years of Matches Appeal the quality of the animation is high, perhaps due to Starewicz's aforementioned interest in natural history. One reviewer of The Beautiful Leukanida (1912) believed that he was watching trained live insects rather than an animation.

        Starewicz also made films using more conventional puppets, such as The Tale of the Fox (1930, although not premiered until 1937 due to issues with the soundtrack), his first full length animated feature. Premiered shortly before Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, it was one of the first animated features with a soundtrack, and is considered some of his best work. Another of his puppet animations, The Mascot, was selected by Terry Gilliam as one of the 10 best animations of all time.

        However, it is Starewicz's insect animations which stick in my memory, as they are highly original, unusual and have an appeal which many other more technically advanced films just cannot equal.