I believe many early animated films were based on print comics because many comics were already popular and have established characters that transferring them to a new medium was a safe way to ensure people will come to see your new film. Another reason I believe film were based on comics are that comics as a visual medium made it easier to draw the keyframes that would be needed to tell the films story. If you think in modern day, a comic strip works similarly to a storyboard where the pictures layout the framework of how the story will playout, and the role of animation is to create the motion from one panel to the next.
Daily Archives: February 19, 2025
2 posts
Winsor McCay’s “Gertie the Dinosaur” and Emile Cohl’s “Fantasmagorie” are both innovative breakthroughs in the history of animation in their unique ways. most modern animations made today are created with a linear pipeline like “make thing move!”, “make thing keep form!”, while that is widely accepted, it can easily be repetitive. Mr McCay and Cohl do something quite different.
Before any sort of video game was invented, Winsor McCay created a hand-drawn animation that would give us a first look into how we’d interact with a stylized environment in real-time. Well.. to some extent. “Gertie the Dinosaur” is the name of this hand-drawn animated film, where we’re taken to a world of pre-historic times to meet a tall friend of Winsor McCay, Gertie. When the film originally premiered Mr McCay would be on a stage next to the film for the whole film, why? Because McCay would be interacting with Gertie, asking Gertie to make gestures and obey his animator. It feels surreal and legit but the way this was done was innovative. The animation of Gertie and the animation’s environment would be choreographed well to the point where Mr. McCay’s actions can seamlessly be synced up with the timing of the animation. The animation’s environment/background had to be redrawn each frame, this was before the invention of cell animation where you can keep a consistent background.
Emile Cohl’s “Fantasmagorie” also is an early hand-drawn animated film, similar to “Gertie the Dinosaur” where you’re immersed in an other-worldly environment, you’re taken too.. various things. Unlike “Gertie the Dinosaur”, there’s not really a clear narrative or story going on, it is just a bunch of actions and morphs happening all at once, and fast. There doesn’t seem to be a background present in the film at all because of said morphs (it could’ve been really hard to do). But I guess a common trope between “Fantasmagorie” and “Gertie the Dinosaur” gives you a vision of things that aren’t possible in the real world.
