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Dreams of Toyland (1908)
 

BFI

Main image of Dreams of Toyland (1908)
 
35mm, black and white, silent, 329 feet
 
DirectorArthur Melbourne Cooper
Production CompanyAlpha Trading Company

A young boy dreams that his toys come to life.

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Arthur Melbourne Cooper's animation showing a boy's dream of his toys coming to life uses a live action framing device for the dream sequence which uses stop motion techniques to animate a child's toys. Evidently he shot this on an outdoor stage, as the careful viewer might notice from the strange movement of the shadows as he reposition the dolls. This device, book-ending the animation with a live action story, had been used the previous year by W.R. Booth in his film Dreamland Adventures, which showed two children travelling to the North Pole with their toys grown to life size. Melbourne-Cooper made several other films using this form.

Bryony Dixon

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Video Clips
Complete film (7:12)
GALLERY / SCRIPTS / AUDIO
SEE ALSO
Dreamland Adventures (1907)
A Year in Film: 1908