Review on Winsor McCay
Winsor McCay.
Winsor McCay started drawing at a young age and at the age of 13 was drawing detailed images, as mentioned on bpib.com. 'He was raised in Michigan, where he commenced drawing at a prodigiously early age. And never stopped. At the age of 13 he drew a picture of shipwreck on the school blackboard and it was photographed and copies sold. His attention to (and memory of) detail was amazing. Winsor McCay, the boy, loved to draw and was very good at it.' (bpib, 2000) McCay had spent most of his time working on cartoons, with some of the shorter ones taking up to a year to finish, as explained on digitalmediafx.com. 'McCay animated his films almost single-handed; from inception to execution each cartoon was his and his alone. He took the time to make his films unique artistic visions, sometimes spending more than a year to make a single five-minute cartoon.' (digitalmediafx, 2008)
How a Mosquito Operates.
His experimental animations captivated audiences with the short animations; How a Mosquito Operates and Gertie the Dinosaur. With Gertie the Dinosaur he interacted with unlike his previous works. This is mentioned on vegalleries.com. 'He followed this experiment up with "How a Mosquito Operates", again a success. Finally, in 1914 McCay developed "Gertie The Dinosaur". Rather then just showing the film as he had with his previous attempts, McCay actually interacted with Gertie, giving her life and charm. Gartie was an instant success and is the first original character developed solely for the animated cartoon and not based on a pre-existing comic strip.' (vegalleries, 2011)
Gertie the Dinosaur.
In 1918 McCay had produced an animation called; The Sinking of The Lusitania. Unlike his previous cartoons, this one was more realistic and strayed from that cartoon feel intentionally, as explained by Dan North on drnorth.wordpress.com. 'In The Sinking of the Lusitania, McCay continues to ground his animation within a realist framework, but in this case he wants to efface the superreal aspects of the medium as much as possible. He wants his film to stand as a dramatic reconstruction of the sinking, and he takes great care over the details of the ships massive weight being penetrated by an explosive force that almost overwhelms the image itself, but it never slides into abstraction: the aim is to stop the ship looking “cartoony”, and to convey a sense of palpable destruction.' (North, 2009)
The Sinking of the Lusitania.
List of Illustrations
Figure 1. Winsor Moniz, Ray (1906) Winsor McCay. [Photograph] At: http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/mccay.htm (Accessed on: 08.03.11)
Figure 2. McCay, Winsor (1912) How a Mosquito Operates. [Drawing] At: http://canonmovies.blogspot.com/2010_12_01_archive.html (Accessed on: 08.03.11)
Figure 3. McCay, Winsor (1914) Gertie the Dinosaur. [Drawing] At: http://sandycrum.com/animation.aspx (Accessed on: 08.03.11)
Figure 4. McCay, Winsor (1918) The Sinking of the Lusitania. [Drawing] At: http://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/33-sinking-of-the-lusitania/ (Accessed on: 08.03.11)
Bibliography
Been Publishing I'm Back (2000) Winsor McCay. http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/mccay.htm (Accessed on: 08.03.11)
Digital Media FX (2008) The History of Animation: Advantages and Disadvantages of the Studio System in the Production of an Art Form. http://www.digitalmediafx.com/Features/animationhistory.html (Accessed on: 08.03.11)
North, Dan (2009) Spectacular Attractions. http://drnorth.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/winsor-mccays-the-sinking-of-the-lusitania/ (Accessed on: 08.03.11)
Van Eaton Galleries (2011) A Brief Biography of Winsor McCay. http://www.vegalleries.com/winsorbio.html (Accessed on: 08.03.11)
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