Born in Michigan in 1867,
McCay worked different jobs such as producing woodcuts for circus and theatre
posters, before later moving to Ohio where he worked as an artist for Kohl and
Middleton’s Vine Street Dime Museum. He’d then later begin doing chalk talks in
1906. Moving back to New York in 1903, McCay began to develop and create more
of several comic strips such as Little
Nemo and Dream of a Rarebit Fiend.
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| Winsor McCay |
Whilst working on the
comics, he decides to under the name of “Silas” and since then his works have
become more successful. Since McCay’s comic strips show motion, he went on to
become a pioneer in animation. Through this he made Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), this depicted McCay himself betting to
create a living dinosaur. Producing tens of thousands frames to bring a
character to life, Gertie the Dinosaur became famous for “giving a character
life” as mentioned by Rovi Hal Erickson,
writer for NYtime’s movies section says, “ What
Gertie the Dinosaur was the first universally popular cartoon release, and
also the first to exploit the possibilities of "personality"
animation, rather than merely offering a series of moving images (this emphasis
on personality would, of course, later become the cornerstone of Walt Disney's
success)”. (Erickson, 2010)
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| Gertie the Dinosaur |
Another one of his works, McCay introduced his short film, Little Nemo (1911) based on his
characters from his comic strip. He’d then later developed his next feature
film, How a mosquito operates (1912)
which from both films became successful in terms of storytelling even though
the story’s fantasy was dark. Dr Grob, a reviewer for drgrobsanimationreview.com explains about the storytelling used
in both films, one revealing real life events and the other fictional. “Unlike McCay’s first film, ‘Little Nemo‘,
a long live action intro is absent, and more important, this one tells a real
story. These are both great improvements. Yet, the action is painstakingly
slow, and there’s a lot of reverse animation, reusing the same drawings in
reverse order.” (Grob, 2010).
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| The Sinking of The Lusitania |
With
the success of both films, McCay decides to create a film promoting to inspire
America to join the 1st World War, The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918). This time, McCay aims to make a
reconstruction of the events prior to the ships sinking making the animation as
realistic as possible. The ship which at that time, crossed between the waters
of Britain and Germany were risking destruction. However Germany showed no
mercy and set off torpedoes at the innocent ship, sending thousands of innocent
people to their deaths. Described by Dan North, reviewer of
drnorth.wordpress.com, states that “He
wants his film to stand as a dramatic reconstruction of the sinking, and he
takes great care over the details of the ships massive weight being penetrated
by an explosive force that almost overwhelms the image itself, but it never
slides into abstraction: the aim is to stop the ship looking “cartoony”, and to
convey a sense of palpable destruction.” (North, 2009)
List of Illustrations:
Hart,Reg (2011) The History of Animation- Winsor McCay (online):
Contix, (2006) Gertie il dinosauro (online):
Kininsberg, A (2007) Alan Kininsberg: Redefining Animation Documentary (online):
Bibliography:
Hal Erickson, R (2010) Gertie
the Dinosaur (online):
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/151281/Gertie-the-Dinosaur/overview
- (Accessed on 10/03/2012)
Grob, Dr (2010) How A
Mosquito Operates (online):
http://drgrobsanimationreview.com/tag/1912/
- (Accessed on 10/03/2012)
North, D (2009) Winsor
McCay’s The Sinking of The Lusitania (online):
http://drnorth.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/winsor-mccays-the-sinking-of-the-lusitania/
- (Accessed on 10/03/2012)
Ah looking good :) Hey I need some help with my ideas if you could comment on my blog or if you see me (which im sure you will) do you mind if we have a little chat?
ReplyDeleteAnyways have a nice day now!