Pre - film animation

Pre film animation is how they made 'films' before they were invented. 

Examples of pre-film animation:

Thaumatrope (1824)

A thaumatrope is a disk with a picture on each side with strings on either end, when the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the pictures on either side of the disk become one. This is due persistence of vision. 

Phenakistoscope (1831)

The Phenakistoscope used a spinning disc attached vertically to a handle. Arrayed around the disc's centre was a series of drawings showing phases of the animation, and cut through it was a series of equally spaced radial slits. The user would spin the disk and look through the moving slits at the disc's reflection in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept thme from simply blurring together so that the user would see a rapid succession of images that appeared to be a single moving picture. 

Zoetrope (1834)

This device produced the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing phases of that motion. The name zoetrope as composed from the greek root words life and turning. The zoetrope consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set sequenced pictures. As the cylinder spins, the user looks through the slits at the pictures across. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together, and the user sees a rapid succession of images creating the illusion of motion.

Flip book or a kineograph (1868)

A book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly, the pictures appear to animate by the simulating motion or some other change.