puppet animations. As a dancer and choreographer, Shiryaev had a special talent to create motion in his animated films. According to animator Peter Lord his work was decades ahead of its time. Part of Shiryaev's animation work is featured in Viktor Bocharov's documentary "Alexander Shiryaev: A Belated Premiere" (2003). Władysław Starewicz (Russian period) Polish-Russian Władysław Starewicz (1882–1965), started his film career around 1909 in Kaunas filming live insects. He wanted to document rutting stag beetles, but the creatures wouldn't cooperate or would even die under the bright lamps needed for filming. He solved the problem by using wire for the limbs of dried beetles and then animating them in stop motion. The resulting short film, presumably 1 minute long, was probably titled by the Latin name for the species: Жук-олень (Lucanus Cervus) (1910, considered lost). After moving to Moscow, Starewicz continued animating dead insects, but now as characters in imaginative stories with much dramatic complexity. He garnered much attention and international acclaim with these short films, including the 10-minute Прекрасная Люканида, или Война усачей с рогачами (The Beautiful Leukanida) (03-1912), the two-minute Веселые сценки из жизни животных (Happy Scenes from Animal Life), the 12-minute Прекрасная Люканида, или Война усачей с рогачами (The Cameraman's Revenge) (10-1912) and the 5-minute Стрекоза и муравей (The Grasshopper and the Ant ) (1913). Reportedly many viewers were impressed with how much could be achieved with trained insects, or at least wondered what tricks could have been used, since few people were familiar with the secrets of stop motion animation. Рождество обитателей леса (The Insects' Christmas) (1913) featured other animated puppets, including Father Christmas and a frog. Starewicz made several other stop motion films in the next two years, but mainly went on to direct live-action short and feature films before he fled from Russia in 1918. Willis O'Brien's early films Willis O' Brien's first stop motion film was The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy (1915). Apart from the titular dinosaur and "missing link" ape, it featured several cavemen and an ostrich-like "desert quail", all relatively lifelike models made with clay. This led to a series of short animated comedies with a prehistoric theme for Edison Company, including Prehistoric Poultry (1916), R.F.D. 10,000 B.C. (1917), The Birth of a Flivver (1917) and Curious Pets of Our Ancestors (1917). O'Brien was then hired by producer Herbert M. Dawley to direct, create effects, co-write and