Gertie the Dinosaur

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03/02/2016 While it has an incredible historical significance and is a technical achievement of the day, Gertie isn't much more than a dinosaur that moves back and forth in place. It's a glimpse of things to come. See more 12/11/2013 good early anime i live in the director's hometown, spring lake mi See more 04/16/2013 "Gertie the Dinosaur" is a short combination of live action and animation that still holds up even after nearly a hundred years. The short film starts off as a comedic silent film about our hero Windsor McCay that bets to one of his friends that he can "bring a dinosaurus to life" using thousands of drawings. We then see the short animated segment (about 5 mins or so) of McCay, who hand drew thousands of frames, interracting with "Gertie". He introduces her to the audience and gets her to perform tricks and show off a bit, she interracts with other prehistoric creatures and misbehaves more than once. The animation is well done, with details added in, like Gertie's chest moving while she breathes and clumps of dirt falling from the rocks she picks up. Compared to the animated films of the time, this one is pretty groundbreaking. The characters stay consistently on-model (so no distortions despite the movement that they make), it looks very professional (despite the fact that only two people worked on it, McCay and his assistant John A. Fitzsimmons who helped with the backgrounds) and McCay convincingly interracting with the film. It's quite funny and there's even charm in the fact that the dinosaur is totally inaccurate and some of the creatures we see interact with "Gertie" are completely fictious (the 4-winged lizard for example). If you're a fan of animation, a fan of dinosaurs or you're just curious and want to see what one of the earliest animated films looks like, check it out; most of the original footage can be found on Dvd (or on some public domain websites) and you can get a pretty good feel of what the show would have been like thanks to McCay's son Robert and Disney animator Richard Huerner. (Dvd, April 1, 2013) See more 10/29/2012 This is an odd little film featuring Winsor McCay--the creator of Gertie the Dinosaur and Little Nemo. And, just as in his first Little Nemo film, much of this film features Winsor McCay with his friends (all animators and lovers of animation) and only in the second half do you get to see Gertie. Ostensively, the film is about a bet Winsor made with his friends that he can make a dinosaur come to life--and he does in the form of a short cartoon featuring the lovable character "Gertie". While Gertie is very crude and simple compared to later color cartoons, there is still a lot of charm in the character and the film is a wonderful time capsule. Of great importance to Cinephiles and lovers of early animation. See more 03/14/2012 One of the first cartoons ever created, while it it fairly simple it is very interesting to see how it all was conceived. A sequel to this was also made but very little of it still exist. See more Read all reviews

Gertie the Dinosaur

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