In this especially nerdy episode, we’re going back to the land before time (the silent era) to discuss the work of Winsor McCay! Learn about where animation comes from and just how much McCay changed it.
Host/Producer: J.D. Hansel
Guest: Kristi O.
Cartoon Content Warning: smoking.
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Notes
The source I relied on the most for my understanding of silent era animation was Of Mice and Magic by Leonard Maltin. The Maltin quote about cave drawings is from page 2 of the revised and updated edition, as is the quote about the zoetrope; “One might say that Gertie launched an entire industry” is from page 5. I also paraphrased another statement from page 5: “For years Gertie has been named in film histories as the first animated cartoon. With all its impact, it might as well have been.”
The Charles Solomon quote about Gertie and the development of character animation is from page 17 of his book The History of Animation: Enchanted Drawings.
For my explanation of straight ahead action and pose-to-pose animation, I relied on The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. I was also influenced by this tutorial video.
I got a little bit of additional info about McCay from this video of his biographer, John Canemaker – I mostly used it for clarification about his Split System.
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