Amazing. One can only wonder what other treasures from the earliest days of film and animation have been lost. I read a book on the silent era and it had a statistic that made me sick, stating that only approximately 15% of the films made in the silent era survive,the other 85% is gone forever, how truly tragic. Silent films are a true time machine looking back into past,to a different world.
This was made in 1921...? Oh my, what an amazing job, seriously! I would have never guessed something this amazing and of high quality could have been done so long ago... This certainly makes me want to check out all of the silent movies out there... Truly a work of art!
McCay was so incredible- he had everything except really believable movement- and it took the whole Disney company decades to really develop that. McCay didn't have timing down, but he had such control of his pictures that he could do convincing figures at any angle or position. If he'd had the flow and followthrough he would have had EVERYTHING... by the standards of any era, including the golden age.
McCay was the first genius of animation, the daddy of them all. He inspired all the others, Disney especially, though we still haven't caught up with his beautiful drawing style.
What's more amazing is I don't think Winsor McCay used rotoscoping. I know that Max Fleischer invented the technique in 1917, so it's possible, but I never heard that McCay used rotoscoping. -- Matt
The movement is definitely slow, I can't blame him for that, but Winsor still fascinates me with his memory of 3-dimensional form and perspective, and he was one of the first to apply that in animation. I especially like Gertie the Dinosaur, since it looks so life-like.
for spacial and proportional accuracy he was so competent. His movements look over deliberated though, as if he was plotting it out as he went. Disney had to sacrifice a lot of realism to achieve fluid motion, mostly by reducing everything to squashing and stretching spheres.
Walt Disney was an animation genius. He transformed the art-form in ways nobody had ever thought of and was responsible for film and animation technologies being developed that are commonplace today.
I profoundly disagree. First of all, this is an animation from 1921, the "Principles of Animation" that EVERYBODY uses (animators and non-animators (because of visual education acquired from watching cartoons, that follow this principles)) have not been dictated yet. You can't judge just like that, this is PURE talent. If Winsor had developed in 40s-60s he would had kicked some serious ass. I'll just say you're a terrible judge, that's all. And hope that you're not a terrible animator as well.
@avalanchesuperstar - Yes but unfortunately the cost of making copies has always been high and once a film went through it's initial run, that was it,most sat on shelves in cans and deteriorated,more often than not in un-air conditioned environments, there was no reason to transfer it to preserve it. But wouldn't it be amazing to watch the original 9 hour version of 'Greed' by Von Stroheim, or some of the other forgotten gems?We can only appreciate what did survive- lots of McCay fortunately!
In Greek mythology, centaurs are a symbol of untamed wild, and are known for their love of wine and women- much like the satyr. Most centaurs are depicted as in a constant state of drunken stupor, usually kidnapping and riding away with human women. Not to mention, female centaurs weren't even depicted in ancient Greek art and literature until much much later from the time the centaur appeared. Before then, male centaurs were rapist and theives. Read up on ancient Greek literature. . .
I dunno man. Just speaking as an animator, there isn't a lot of weight to any of their movements, there is no overlapping movement in the tail where there really ought to be some, and there is a lot of stopping of motion that there wouldn't be in a living creature. And oh god birds don't fly that way XD Plus, the character design seems rather lackluster, and you really have to think in order to make sense of the actions of all characters involved, but that's the '20s for you.
yeah, i mean, it's not like these principles were not around until the 40s or like he was a pioneer in animation who inspired great geniuses later on or anything...
You'd be surprized. :-) It wasn't until about 1930 with the adoption of the Hayes Code by Hollywood that there was any real uniformed censorship in Hollywood films. There are some mainstream silent films with nudity, for instance. -- Matt
how freaky that the guy picks up a rock and kills the bird flying through the air...! Anyone know from studying the work of this man what that's about? what d'ya suppose centaurs eat?
Well, foals are more developed at birth than human children. The thing at the end is what you'd get if you stuck a newborn baby's torso onto a newborn horse...
Ariel. . . from that Disney cartoon? I loathe Disney and it's distructive habbits on the way we know cartoons. What happened to old, wonderful animations like these? Why does Disney have to rewrite history, or butcher what little we know about it?
