The first animation ever was "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" (1906) by newspaper cartoonist J. Stuart Blackton
The first "successful" cartoon ever was "Gertie the Dinosaur" (1914)
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These movies remind me of taking a tablet of paper and drawing a person or animal in different poses on each piece of paper and then thumbing through the tablet to make it seem as if the picture was moving. Pretty neat.
ReplyDeleteI love those things that tom was talking about in his comment. These videos do remind me of them too. I especially liked the first one with the faces. I enjoyed watching it and ive been exposed to more advanced films all my life imagine how facinating people found these videos when they first came out.
ReplyDeleteFor the 1900s this is pretty impressive. Gertie, the dinosaur moves and acts like a big dog. When I was very young I think the first movie my mom took me to see was “The Land Before Time” which was about dinosaurs. I don’t remember too much about the plot of it but I remember leaving the movie theater thinking dinosaurs were the coolest things ever. This led me to want to be a paleontologist when I grew up. Clearly I’m far from digging up dinosaur done but think of all the kids over the years who movies have inspired to dream. I guess this speaks to the possibilities movies have opened up for us.
ReplyDeleteKudos to the artist or artist's who put those cartoons together. It must have taken weeks to complete. Drawing a line and taking a picture, then drawing another line and taking another picture and so on and so forth until the pics were complete. Then they had to put them all together. To think the same work they did could probably be done in a few hours with todays computers and software.
ReplyDeleteYes, a pencil and a tablet of paper, it was amazing what they had to do to make an animated movie. The artist had a lot of work to do, to get every line on each page to add up to make a character. To get them to move. I liked the first one the best. The facial expressions on the characters. Everything back then was drawn by the artist, now with todays technology it can be done on a computer, in a record amout of time. The animated movies we see today are a piece of art, but it nice to see the way it all started: drawn by hand.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised that the first animation piece was that long and complex. I was expecting to see a 5 second clip of a cartoon walking and that being it. Certainly exceeded my expectations and I can only imagine people back then thought it was the coolest things they had ever seen.
ReplyDeleteFirst I would like to say that dinosaurs rock. This is a master piece, think for a minute about how Long it must of taken to make a cartoon like this back in the early 1900's. Much more credit is deserved back then, now a days you hit a few keys and you have a cartoon. Excellent job Winsor McCay.
ReplyDeleteWow! this was an amazing accomplishment I'm sure for the time produced. It is nice to see how it all began for animation. I was very impressed with the humorous faces on a chalk board none the less. Grats to you for finding such a great piece of history.
ReplyDeleteAmazing how much time and energy needed to be spent on drawing each scene and adding the animation. I think drawing something like this, to come up with something interesting such as the classic movies and this takes a lot of imagination and the ability to act upon it. I think in previous years it took a lot more effort, time and patience to get something lie this done.
ReplyDeleteThat was actually pretty interesting to watch. And i was quite impressed at the quality of the video for being in the early 1900's. Imagine still using a chalk board..
ReplyDeleteWow. How time consuming this process must have been. The artist would paint or draw every frame by hand. Although it seems silly to us this is a truly lost art.
ReplyDeleteDid you ever use an etch a sketch? Thats what it kinda reminds me of that. Drawing ever frame is what Disney use to have to do and they cold take a book and flip the pages and it would be like a movie film
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a little girl I remember coming home from school to watch cartoons and I loved the Saturday morning because it was hours of entertainment by the cartoons. Now a day cartoons are dead for a lot of the youngster. Kids now face things in the real world at a much younger age. They grow up too fast; by the time they turn 10 years old they think they are too cool to watch cartoons. The cartoons were made for children and adult not just adult. Most of the cartoons today are more for adults such as, the Simpson, Family Guy and Futurama these are not for young kids.
ReplyDeleteThe amount of work put into making an animated clip back then was amazing. We have come so far; now many animations are even done using 3D technology made to look like more classic animation. I can't imagine have to draw out each frame for anything more than a simple stick figure cartoon. Animations like this remind me of claymation; moving parts bit by bit to create movement.
ReplyDeleteThe art of cartooning and animation is the art of reduction. Blackton probably wasn't aware but he is responsible for creating a whole new grammar of storytelling and narrative that engages the viewer's imagination while combining an audio and visual medium.
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