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Pioneers of Film & Animation 1900-1910s

Explore the groundbreaking works of Edwin S. Porter, J. Stuart Blackton, Emile Cohl, and Winsor McCay in film and animation during the early 1900s, featuring state-of-the-art examples and key terminology.

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Pioneers of Film & Animation 1900-1910s

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  1. 1900-1910s Creating a Grammar for Film and Animation: Edwin S. Porter, J. Stuart Blackton, Emile Cohl and Winsor McCay

  2. Examples of State of the Art • “The Big Swallow” by James Williamson (1901) • “The Motorist” by Robert W. Paul (1906) • “Dreams of Toyland” by Arthur Melbourne Cooper (1908)

  3. Edison tries the narrative • The Great Train Robbery (1903) • Director: Edwin S. Porter • Had worked on “Jack and the Beanstalk” and “American Fireman” in 1901-1902

  4. Edwin S. Porter • Film distributor background • Edison's renaissance man for the industry after the doldrums of 1900 • Peaked by 1908

  5. The most famous director from the Edison Manufacturing Company, with over 250 films credited to his name. • Considered to be the first to use Continuity Editing – editing that puts together cuts and transitions that help smooth over and tell the narrative in the most logical way. • Continuity Editing and Film terminology: • Shot: Continuous footage from a specific camera position. • Take: The completed shot from start to finish. • Scene: Grouping of shots or a take that tells the narrative story in a single location and continuation of time. • Establishing Shot: A shot that provides a view of all of the space in which the action is occuring. • Fade-in/Fade-out: Editing technique that uses a transition to and from black, usually used at the beginning and end of a scene. • Dissolve: An overlapping transition from one shot to another that does not involve an instantaneous cut or change in brightness. • Cross-cutting: Cutting back and forth between shots from different locations. • Jump Cut: Cutting between shots that are so similar that a noticeable “jump” in image can occur. • Montage: Cutting between unrelated shots that can be connected through visual and intellectual themes.

  6. Connection to Animation • “Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend” (1906) • Based on a comic strip by Winsor McCay

  7. J. Stuart Blackton • Lightning sketch artist & newspaper cartoonist for the New York Evening World, who also performed on stage with stage magician Albert Smith. • Became a partner with Edison after he did an interview with him in 1896 where he premiered his Vitascope film projector. • Co-created American Vitagraph Company in 1897 with Albert Smith, an Edison licensee. Vitagraph was later purchased by Warner Brothers in 1925.

  8. Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) • essentially a film experiment • stop motion known at time • intended to be animated • basic ideas present

  9. A different style emerges… • stop motion • “The Sculptor’s Nightmare” (1908) • “The Teddy Bears” (1907)

  10. Emile Cohl • French born artist who by 1908 had earned a reputation as a cartoonist, political satirist and caricaturist. • Became known as the “Father of the Animated Cartoon” and “The Oldest Parisian.” • Around 1907, at the age of 50 he was introduced to the Gaumont Film Company– and instantly fell in love with the motion picture.

  11. Fantasmagorie (1908) • 90 seconds • Considered to be technically the first fully animated film. • It consisted of 700 drawings, in which at first each shot was double-exposed (shot on “twos”), then shot on “threes,” and finally on “fours,” as deadlines came and passed.

  12. Other titles and techniques • Multiple images • Stream of consciousness • “Deus ex Machina” (Latin for “God from the machine”) • Remnants of the “absurdist” artist

  13. Cohl's sad end • Forgotten by the 1920s. • Dies in January 1938 after being severely burned in an apartment fire. • Georges Melies dies the next day.

  14. The Election of 1908 - First series of debates in the “new media” – the phonograph

  15. Speaking of the phonograph...

  16. The Fantasy Comic Strip by Winsor McCay • He was also a lightning sketch artist and editorial cartoonist, familiar with vaudeville and the films of the time. • Animation pioneer using simple but strong line drawings and linear perspective. • Designed interactive cartoons for use on the Vaudeville stage. • His technical level of animation– its naturalism, smoothness and scale– was unmatched until Walt Disney’s feature films in the 1930s.

  17. Dream of the Rarebit Fiend

  18. Sammy Sneeze • A strange concept, with the gag being a recurring one – the kid sneezes

  19. Hungry Henrietta • A little awkward girl given food instead of affection...

  20. And then the mother lode – Little Nemo

  21. Still getting tributes...

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