Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
The Sinking of the Lusitania
The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) is an American silent animated short film by cartoonist Winsor McCay. It is a work of propaganda re-creating the never-photographed 1915 sinking of the British liner RMS Lusitania. At twelve minutes, it has been called the longest work of animation at the time of its release. The film is the earliest surviving animated documentary and serious, dramatic work of animation. The National Film Registry selected it for preservation in 2017.
On 7 May 1915, a German submarine (SM U-20) torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania near Ireland; 128 Americans were among the 1,198 dead. The event outraged McCay, but the newspapers of his employer William Randolph Hearst downplayed the event, as Hearst was opposed to the U.S. joining World War I. McCay was required to illustrate anti-war and anti-British editorial cartoons for Hearst's papers. In 1916, McCay rebelled against his employer's stance and began work on the patriotic Sinking of the Lusitania on his own time with his own money.
The film followed McCay's earlier successes in animation: Little Nemo (1911), How a Mosquito Operates (1912), and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). McCay drew these earlier films on Washi paper, onto which backgrounds had to be laboriously traced; The Sinking of the Lusitania was the first film McCay made using the new, more efficient cel technology. McCay and his assistants spent twenty-two months making the film. His subsequent animation output suffered setbacks, as the film was not as commercially successful as his earlier efforts, and Hearst put increased pressure on McCay to devote his time to editorial drawings.
The film opens with a live-action prologue in which McCay busies himself studying a picture of the Lusitania as a model for his film-in-progress. Intertitles boast of McCay as "the originator and inventor of Animated Cartoons", and of the 25,000 drawings needed to complete the film. McCay is shown working with a group of anonymous assistants on "the first record of the sinking of the Lusitania".
The liner passes the Statue of Liberty and leaves New York Harbor. After some time, the SM U-20 slices through the waters and fires a torpedo at the Lusitania, which billows smoke that builds until it envelops the screen. Passengers scramble to lower lifeboats, some of which capsize in the confusion. The liner tilts from one side to the other and passengers are tossed into the ocean.
A second blast rocks the Lusitania, which sinks slowly into the deep as more passengers fall off its edges, and the ship submerges amid scenes of drowning bodies. The liner vanishes from sight, and the film closes with a mother struggling to keep her baby above the waves. An intertitle declares: "The man who fired the shot was decorated for it by the Kaiser! And yet they tell us not to hate the Hun."
Winsor McCay (c. 1869–1934) produced prodigiously detailed and accurate drawings since early in life. He earned a living as a young man drawing portraits and posters in dime museums, and attracted large crowds with his ability to draw quickly in public. He began working as a newspaper illustrator full-time in 1898, and in 1903 began drawing comic strips. His greatest comic strip success was the children's fantasy comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, which he began in 1905. In 1906, McCay began performing on the vaudeville circuit, doing chalk talks—performances during which he drew in front of a live audience.
Inspired by the flip books his son brought home, McCay said he "came to see the possibility of making moving pictures" of his cartoons. His first animated film, Little Nemo (1911), was composed of four thousand drawings on Washi paper. His next film, How a Mosquito Operates (1912), naturalistically shows a giant mosquito draw blood from a sleeping man until it burst. McCay followed this with a film that became an interactive part of his vaudeville shows: in Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), McCay commanded his animated dinosaur with a whip on stage.
Hub AI
The Sinking of the Lusitania AI simulator
(@The Sinking of the Lusitania_simulator)
The Sinking of the Lusitania
The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) is an American silent animated short film by cartoonist Winsor McCay. It is a work of propaganda re-creating the never-photographed 1915 sinking of the British liner RMS Lusitania. At twelve minutes, it has been called the longest work of animation at the time of its release. The film is the earliest surviving animated documentary and serious, dramatic work of animation. The National Film Registry selected it for preservation in 2017.
On 7 May 1915, a German submarine (SM U-20) torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania near Ireland; 128 Americans were among the 1,198 dead. The event outraged McCay, but the newspapers of his employer William Randolph Hearst downplayed the event, as Hearst was opposed to the U.S. joining World War I. McCay was required to illustrate anti-war and anti-British editorial cartoons for Hearst's papers. In 1916, McCay rebelled against his employer's stance and began work on the patriotic Sinking of the Lusitania on his own time with his own money.
The film followed McCay's earlier successes in animation: Little Nemo (1911), How a Mosquito Operates (1912), and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). McCay drew these earlier films on Washi paper, onto which backgrounds had to be laboriously traced; The Sinking of the Lusitania was the first film McCay made using the new, more efficient cel technology. McCay and his assistants spent twenty-two months making the film. His subsequent animation output suffered setbacks, as the film was not as commercially successful as his earlier efforts, and Hearst put increased pressure on McCay to devote his time to editorial drawings.
The film opens with a live-action prologue in which McCay busies himself studying a picture of the Lusitania as a model for his film-in-progress. Intertitles boast of McCay as "the originator and inventor of Animated Cartoons", and of the 25,000 drawings needed to complete the film. McCay is shown working with a group of anonymous assistants on "the first record of the sinking of the Lusitania".
The liner passes the Statue of Liberty and leaves New York Harbor. After some time, the SM U-20 slices through the waters and fires a torpedo at the Lusitania, which billows smoke that builds until it envelops the screen. Passengers scramble to lower lifeboats, some of which capsize in the confusion. The liner tilts from one side to the other and passengers are tossed into the ocean.
A second blast rocks the Lusitania, which sinks slowly into the deep as more passengers fall off its edges, and the ship submerges amid scenes of drowning bodies. The liner vanishes from sight, and the film closes with a mother struggling to keep her baby above the waves. An intertitle declares: "The man who fired the shot was decorated for it by the Kaiser! And yet they tell us not to hate the Hun."
Winsor McCay (c. 1869–1934) produced prodigiously detailed and accurate drawings since early in life. He earned a living as a young man drawing portraits and posters in dime museums, and attracted large crowds with his ability to draw quickly in public. He began working as a newspaper illustrator full-time in 1898, and in 1903 began drawing comic strips. His greatest comic strip success was the children's fantasy comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, which he began in 1905. In 1906, McCay began performing on the vaudeville circuit, doing chalk talks—performances during which he drew in front of a live audience.
Inspired by the flip books his son brought home, McCay said he "came to see the possibility of making moving pictures" of his cartoons. His first animated film, Little Nemo (1911), was composed of four thousand drawings on Washi paper. His next film, How a Mosquito Operates (1912), naturalistically shows a giant mosquito draw blood from a sleeping man until it burst. McCay followed this with a film that became an interactive part of his vaudeville shows: in Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), McCay commanded his animated dinosaur with a whip on stage.