Little Nemo (1911) aka Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics
- 9 years ago
Little Nemo, also known as Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics, is a 1911 animated short film by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. One of the earliest animated films, it was McCay's first, and adapted characters from McCay's comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland.
Inspired by the flip books his son brought home, McCay "came to see the possibility of making moving pictures" of his cartoons. He claimed that he "was the first man in the world to make animated cartoons", though he was preceded by James Stuart Blackton and Émile Cohl. Little Nemo's character animation set it apart from the earlier films of Blackton and Cohl. McCay made four thousand drawings on rice paper for the short, which were shot at Vitagraph Studios under Blackton's supervision. Most of the film's running time is made up of a live-action sequence in which McCay bets his colleagues that he can make drawings that move. Little Nemo debuted in movie theatres on April 8, 1911, and four days later McCay began using it as part of his vaudeville act. Its good reception motivated him to hand-color each of the frames of the originally black-and-white film.
The film's success led McCay to devote more time to animation. He followed up Little Nemo with How a Mosquito Operates in 1912, and his best-known film Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914.
Inspired by the flip books his son brought home, McCay "came to see the possibility of making moving pictures" of his cartoons. He claimed that he "was the first man in the world to make animated cartoons", though he was preceded by James Stuart Blackton and Émile Cohl. Little Nemo's character animation set it apart from the earlier films of Blackton and Cohl. McCay made four thousand drawings on rice paper for the short, which were shot at Vitagraph Studios under Blackton's supervision. Most of the film's running time is made up of a live-action sequence in which McCay bets his colleagues that he can make drawings that move. Little Nemo debuted in movie theatres on April 8, 1911, and four days later McCay began using it as part of his vaudeville act. Its good reception motivated him to hand-color each of the frames of the originally black-and-white film.
The film's success led McCay to devote more time to animation. He followed up Little Nemo with How a Mosquito Operates in 1912, and his best-known film Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914.