All motion pictures depend on a few basic principles of animation.
Animation is the use of a sequence of still frames, each only slightly different from the previous one, to create the illusion of movement. The first major development in motion pictures occurred in 1872 when the governor of California hired Eadweard Muybridge to capture the motion of a racehorse. He tied a number of trip wires along a racetrack, each tied to an ordinary camera. Each time the horse ran through one of the wires, the camera tied to it would take a picture of the horse. Muybridge's work inspired Thomas Edison to begin experimentation with motion pictures in 1888.