| Gertie the Dinosaur | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Winsor McCay |
| Written by | Winsor McCay |
| Starring | Winsor McCay George McManus Roy McCardell |
| Release date(s) | September 14, 1914 |
| Running time | 12 minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | Silent film English intertitles |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 short animated film by Winsor McCay that inspired many generations of animators to bring their cartoons to life. Winsor McCay ( September 26 1867 (? – July 26 1934) was an American Cartoonist and Animator. Winsor McCay ( September 26 1867 (? – July 26 1934) was an American Cartoonist and Animator. Winsor McCay ( September 26 1867 (? – July 26 1934) was an American Cartoonist and Animator. George McManus ( January 23, 1884 &ndash October 22, 1954) is an American Cartoonist best known as the creator of Maggie Events 81 - Domitian becomes Emperor of the Roman Empire upon the death of his brother Titus. Year 1914 ( MCMXIV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year The United States of America —commonly referred to as the English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States The year 1914 in film involved some significant events Events The 3300-seat Strand Theater opens in New York City. The bouncing ball animation (below consists of these 6 frames Winsor McCay ( September 26 1867 (? – July 26 1934) was an American Cartoonist and Animator. Although not the first animated film, as is sometimes thought, it was the first cartoon to feature a character with an appealing personality. The appearance of a true character distinguished it from earlier animated "trick films", such as those of Blackton and Cohl, and makes it the predecessor to later popular cartoons such as those by Walt Disney. James Stuart Blackton ( January 5, 1875 - August 13, 1941) usually known as J Émile Cohl ( January 4, 1857 – January 20, 1938) born Émile Eugène Jean Louis Courtet, was a French Caricaturist Walter Elias Disney (December 5 1901 – December 15 1966 was a multiple Academy Award -winning American Film producer, director, Screenwriter The film was also the first to be created using keyframe animation. A key frame in Animation and Filmmaking is a drawing which defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition.
The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, and was named #6 of The 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time in a 1994 survey of animators and cartoon historians by Jerry Beck. The National Film Registry is the registry of Films selected by the United States National Film Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of The 50 Greatest Cartoons As Selected by 1000 Animation Professionals is a 1994 book by Animation Historian Jerry Beck, consisting of articles Jerry Beck (born February 9, 1955) is a well known animation historian with ten books and numerous articles to his [1]
Contents |
Vaudeville
Gertie the Dinosaur was originally created to be used in McCay's vaudeville performances. Vaudeville was a Genre of variety entertainment prevalent on the stage in the United States and Canada, from the early 1880s McCay started performing "chalk talks" on vaudeville in 1906, as a sideline to his regular newspaper cartooning. In 1911, he began presenting animated films on stage, first an animation of Little Nemo in Slumberland, then How a Mosquito Operates. Little Nemo is the main Fictional character in a series of weekly Comic strips by Winsor McCay (1871-1934 that appeared in the New York Herald Plans for Gertie were announced in 1912. The episode of McCay's newspaper comic In the Land of Wonderful Dreams published in newspapers on the 21st of September 1913 showed the reader some of the creatures from the upcoming film: a diplodocus, a sea serpent and a four-winged lizard. Little Nemo is the main Fictional character in a series of weekly Comic strips by Winsor McCay (1871-1934 that appeared in the New York Herald In January of 1914, the drawings were photographed by Vitagraph Studios. American Vitagraph was a United States Movie studio, founded by J The first presentation of the film was at the Palace Theater in Chicago on February 8, 1914; later performances were at the Hammerstein Theater in New York City. Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. Events 421 - Constantius III becomes co- Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Year 1914 ( MCMXIV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year The City of New York
The performance consisted of McCay interacting with Gertie, a cartoon Diplodocus. Diplodocus (dɪˈplɒdəkəs /daɪˈplɒdəkəs/ Diplodocus is among the most easily identifiable dinosaurs with its classic dinosaur shape long neck McCay would stand on stage in front of a projection screen, dressed in a tuxedo and wielding a whip. He would call Gertie, who appeared from behind some rocks. He then instructed her to perform various tricks, similar to a circus act. He would appear to toss a prop apple to her — McCay palmed the apple while Gertie caught an animated copy of it. Gertie was also seen to swallow a large rock, play with a Mastodon, and drink an entire lake dry. Mastodons or Mastodonts (from Greek μαστός and οδούς, meaning " Nipple tooth" are members of the extinct At one point, McCay would scold Gertie for misbehaving, at which she would begin to cry. For the finale, McCay disappeared behind the screen just as a cartoon version of him climbed onto Gertie's head and rode off.
Movie theaters
McCay's employer, William Randolph Hearst, was displeased with McCay's success outside of the newspapers, and used his contractual power to reduce McCay's stage activities. For other people named William Randolph Hearst see William Randolph Hearst (disambiguation William Randolph Hearst I (April 29 1863 &ndash In late 1914, William Fox offered to market Gertie the Dinosaur to moving-picture theaters. William Fox ( January 1, 1879 &ndash May 8, 1952) was a pioneering American Motion picture executive who founded the McCay accepted, and extended the film to include a live-action prologue and intertitles to replace his stage patter. In Motion pictures an intertitle (also known as a title card) is a piece of filmed printed text edited into the midst of (i This is the version of the film generally seen today; the original animation comprises roughly 5 minutes of the entire 12-minute film.
The film features McCay with several of his cartoonist friends, such as George McManus (creator of Bringing Up Father), Roy McCardell, and Thomas A. Dorgan. George McManus ( January 23, 1884 &ndash October 22, 1954) is an American Cartoonist best known as the creator of Maggie Bringing Up Father was an influential comic strip created by George McManus that ran from January 12, 1913 to May 28, 2000 Thomas Aloysius Dorgan ( April 29, 1877 &ndash May 2, 1929) also known as "Tad Dorgan" was an American Cartoonist As the film opens, they are "on a joy ride", when their automobile suffers a flat tire in front of a museum. The cartoonists enter the museum, and see a "Dinosaurus" skeleton. McCay bets McManus a dinner that he can "make the Dinosaurus live again by a series of hand-drawn cartoons". He then spends six months making "ten thousand cartoons"; when McManus visits, McCay shows him the drawings, although an assistant trips and scatters a large pile of them over the floor (a gag also used in the Little Nemo film). The scene then shifts to a dinner party with the group of cartoonists. McCay begins by sketching a single drawing of Gertie. Someone complains that "your bet was that you could make it move", following which the film shifts to the original animated Gertie. McCay, through intertitles, tells Gertie to come out and bow, and continues through the same interaction as in the vaudeville show (although the "apple" that McCay throws to her is now referred to as a pumpkin, which was more appropriate for the size of Gertie's mouth). The film concludes with the group telling George (McManus) to pay for the dinner.
Production
Gertie the Dinosaur was produced before the introduction of later time-saving techniques such as cel animation. Traditional animation, also referred to as classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation, is the oldest and historically the most popular To create the film, McCay himself drew thousands of frames of Gertie on individual 6. 5 x 8. 5 inch sheets of rice paper. He hired neighbor and art student John A. Fitzsimmons to draw the backgrounds. Fitzsimmons carefully re-traced the rocks, lake and tree from a master drawing onto each sheet of rice paper.
In creating the film, McCay came up with a number of techniques that would later become standard in the animation industry. He used registration marks to keep the background aligned from frame to frame, so that it did not appear to "swim", as often happened in early cartoons. He avoided some repetitious work by re-using drawings, in what would later be called cycling. Traditional animation, also referred to as classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation, is the oldest and historically the most popular He devised what he called the "McCay Split System", the first occurrence of keyframe animation. A key frame in Animation and Filmmaking is a drawing which defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. Rather than draw each frame in sequence, he would start by drawing Gertie's key poses, and then go back and fill in the frames between. McCay was also very concerned with accurate timing and motion; he timed his own breathing to determine how to animate Gertie's breathing, and included subtle details such as the ground sagging beneath Gertie's great weight.
McCay was very open about the techniques that he developed. During production of Gertie, he showed all the details to a visitor who claimed to be writing an article about animation. The visitor turned out to be John Randolph Bray, who later patented many of McCay's methods and tried to sue him. John Randolph Bray ( 25 August 1879, Detroit - 10 October 1978, Bridgeport Connecticut) produced the first Animation McCay prevailed, however, and received royalties from Bray for several years thereafter.
Other versions
In 1921, McCay planned to make a second animated film featuring Gertie, titled Gertie on Tour. The film would have seen Gertie visiting New York and Washington, D.C., bouncing on the Brooklyn Bridge and attempting to eat the Washington Monument, among other scenes. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous Washington DC ( formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D The Brooklyn Bridge, one of the oldest Suspension bridges in the United States, stretches 5989 feet (1825 m over the East River connecting the The Washington Monument is a large tall sand-colored Obelisk near the west end of the National Mall in Washington D The film was never completed, and exists only in fragments and concept sketches.
A plagiarization of Gertie, from roughly 1915, was distributed for many years, incorrectly identified as McCay's film. Donald Crafton suggests that this other Gertie may have been created by Bray Productions, based on its graphical style. This is an article about the US animation studio See Bray Studios (UK for the studio where many Hammer Horror films were created [2]
McCay's son Robert, along with Disney animator Richard Huemer, recreated the original vaudeville performance for the Disneyland television program in 1955. The first incarnation of the Walt Disney anthology television series, commonly called The Wonderful World of Disney, premiered on ABC on October 27
Dinosaur Gertie's is a soft serve ice cream location at the Disney's Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World, Florida. Disney's Hollywood Studios is a Theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort. Walt Disney World Resort is the most visited and largest recreational resort in the world containing four Theme parks two Water parks twenty-three themed hotels Florida ( is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the The building is actually designed in the "California Crazy" architectural style, meaning it is shaped like Dinosaur Gertie. The shop is located on Echo Lake (across from the Giant Sorcerer Hat). See photo at http://images14.fotki.com/v206/photos/2/201236/2499400/100_3531-vi.jpg
Media
External links
See also
References
- John Canemaker (2005). Animated films in the United States date back to at least 1906 when Vitagraph released Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. Winsor McCay: His Life and Art. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-5941-0.
- ^ Jerry Beck, ed. (1998). The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals. JG Press, Inc. . ISBN 1-57215-271-0.
- ^ Donald Crafton (1982). Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898-1928. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-03083-7.
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic