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Animators

Winsor McCay (1871-1934)

McCay was the first filmmaker to bring sophistication to animation. A self-taught artist and cartoonist - he worked for New York newspapers - McCay was also a music hall performer who drew lightning sketches as part of his act.

In 1911, McCay made his first film, based on characters from his cartoon strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, which he incorporated into his stage performance. For Little Nemo he drew over 4000 individual drawings which were filmed at the Vitagraph studio, with live action introductory scenes featuring the artist taking on the project as a bet. Today, these live action scenes look stilted but the imagination, split-second timing and sheer virtuosity of the animation never fails to astonish. Little Nemo causes his friends to stretch and squash, then draws a Princess who comes to life; a rose grows, just in time to be plucked by Nemo to present to the Princess. The couple end up being transported away, seated on a throne in the mouth of a dragon. The film made a considerable impact, both on audiences and other artists. It plays between the naturalistic appearance of the characters and the fantastic transformations and distortions that occur- elements that became part of animation's core language.

McCay's next film How a Mosquito Operates (1912) was also based on a comic strip from his Dream of the Rarebit Fiend series. It features a sleeping fat man and a rapacious mosquito which grows enormous from the blood that it sucks from the man, until it finally explodes.

His best-known film is Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). This too was used in his stage act. McCay appeared as a ringmaster to direct the actions of the remarkably tame but slightly naughty dinosaur on the screen beside him. This was the first film where he drew backgrounds for the character, which were traced on to every drawing by his assistant, John Fitzsimmons. While making the film, McCay also devised the system, since used by every animator, of establishing the key poses or frames in each action, then working out the 'in-between' frames.

McCay's last major film is his most remarkable. The Sinking of The Lusitania (1918) was his version of the First World War incident in which a German submarine sank the British liner with the loss of 1200 lives. It took McCay two years to make and involved 25,000 drawings. The film shows the tragedy in a sophisticated way, with frequently changing points of view both above and below water, and dramatic editing. Animation of such complexity and subtlety would not be seen again until the early Disney features.

McCay was an individual artist and widely admired by animators but he did not fit in with the burgeoning animation industry. After 1921 he gave up making animation. At a dinner in his honour in 1927, he told animators, 'Animation should be an art. That is how I conceived it. But as I see what you fellows have done with it, is making it into a trade. Not an art but a trade. Bad Luck!'

Further reading

John Canemaker Winsor McCay: His Life and Art (Abbeville Press, US, 1987)

Selected films

Winsor McCay Animation Legend Connoisseur Video/BFI (1996). This video contains all of his films.

Web links

http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/mccay.htm

http://www.coconino-world.com/sites_auteurs/winsor/index.html