Fake Gertie the Dinosaur - John Randolf Bray (1915)
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- Опубліковано 16 жов 2024
- Found in the film archive collection of the Montclair Public Library in Montclair, New Jersey, this 16mm print of Gertie the Dinosaur, released by Blackhawk films circa 1970, appears to be the rare plagiarized version perpetrated by animator John Randolf Bray in 1915, a year or so after the original Gertie the Dinosaur was created by animation pioneer, Winsor McCay.
This is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Gertie the Dinosaur:
"A fake version of Gertie the Dinosaur appeared a year or two after the original; it features a dinosaur performing most of Gertie's tricks, but with less skillful animation, using cels on a static background. It is not known for certain who produced the film, though its style is believed to be that of Bray Productions."
The Music accompanying this piece are two Edison Records from 1915 - "The Music Box Rag" performed by the Jaudas' Society Orchestra, and "The Porcupine Rag" performed by the New York Military Band.
Even though this gertie sketch is more accurate than the the old one, the original animation was much more talented and better
Right. This one feels soulless. Artificial. (Not to mention it botched the execution of the memorable funny moments that the original had.)
Original the Dinosaur, Do Not Steal!
“This is worse than that time I had to take care of a dancing dinosaur”
While Bray was a fantastic illustrator and gave Gertie a better anatomy, the same can't be said about the animation and frames. If he had drawn this to pay homage to McCay for creating the lovely friendly sauropod, he would've given himself a respectable image and good PR for his studio. Instead, he was a patent troll who tried to sue McCay for his own techniques and character! The only other man I know of who was unreasonably hostile to McCay was that newspaper publisher William Hearst.
Funny coincidence that both Bray and Hearst had the middle name "Randolph".
I was looking forward to Bray's approximation of the effects of water being shot into Gertie's face, but he didn't even go there. Thanks for posting!
Yeah, sad what never came to be!
This feels oddly unnerving and creepy.
Wow! A real, live plagiarization of Gertie the Dinosaur, the most well-known cartoon ever at the time!
Had to see this version in college almost 30 years ago.
This version is just scary with all the movements being so janky lol. Windsor McCay’s original version is by far better, even if the dinosaur is less accurate and less detailed.
Best comment about this
That was remarkable well done. Thanks for posting this.
Well this was very good, but really not on the level of McCay's work in Gertie of Little Nemo. Hard to understand how Blackhawk got this info so messed up.
It was a difference of 55 years, and there was no ready reference to verify like we're blessed with today.
It was the ‘70s. People believed in some insane stuff back then.
@@geoffreyrichards6079 They believe in some insane stuff today as well, but having said that, even if one had not seen the film, there were plenty of films stills in books of McCay's film that show it is clearly a different character design.
@@timsmythfilmsandanimations Hell, there was even an episode of the "Disneyland" show that had a reenactment of the Gertie show Walt attended as a boy - featuring footage of the actual cartoon. Did people assume Disney made the animation themselves for the episode?
Sad Story: the people in the 1600 in the 1700 and other low number years died without movies. In fact: the people starting in the 1800s died before the movies came out
think the actual name of the film was *Diplodocus*
More like Duplicitous, you mean!
Sounds like a good ol’ foil to Gertie, “The Duplicitous Diplodocus”
I am a bit torn really, this version's dinosaur has much more character than the original, and is actually proportioned more accurately in an anatomical sense, compared to an actual brontosaurus skeleton. The original Gertie was in some ways very stylized, with its bumpy back and pupil-less snake-eyes. The animation quality in the original is undoubtedly better, but this one exhibits better and more life-like draftsmanship, in my opinion.
I'm an animator since 80s. What you said (and I don't agree with you, McCay was 10 better in drawing than this guy) is 5% of an animation quality. The remaining, and most important, 95% is the fluidity of movements, which are PERFECT in McCay and absolutely mediocre here.
Reggie Postlethwaite I never said I was commenting on the quality of the animation. I said that this brontosaurus is drawn in a more life-like way, and it is, it has actual muscle-tone and more closely resembles an actual brontosaurus. McCay's gertie was stylized heavily, to the point where it didn't look as life-like. I am stating this as an illustrator and designer (I have qualifications too), one version is lifelike, and the other is stylized.
+Rhinogradentian What's important is not something being lifelike, but catching people's attention and making them sympathize. (and doing it first, of course)
xSpicexSugarx3 Depends completely on the genre of animation, many childrens cartoons are stylized, but some animated characters can be lifelike. All I am saying, ALL I AM SAYING, is that this version has actual muscle tone and accurate appearance for a Brontosaurus, compared to Gertie, which is a caricature.
Yes, McCay made more drawings, even if he used a lot of cycles. Bray used a lot of "holds" which McCay did not. The illusion of fluidity in the Bray version is more "mechanical" than McCay's.
I heard about this from Dino Diego and I’m trying to look for a colorized version of it.
This was on a Dinosaur program. I liked it when the dinosaur was balancing a ball on its nose, tossed it up and down, then ate it going yum yum yum yum.
I thought It was a pumpkin?
The song that was playing was all mixed up but if you piece them together it's The Smiler from 1907 the song
I do like the dino itself better but the og is goat for a reason
The fake version is still very good for its time, but Winsor's is much better at animation thing.
No offense but this Gertie the Dinosaur is more dinosaur believable than the 1914 version. Dinosaurs are my favorite real life animals and I can model and animate them in Blender.
Why are a copy of Gertie the dinosaur
This cartoon is...DOO-DOO!!!
This knockoff version of gertie the Dinosaur had And resemble Diplodocus well because the Long neck
Is cool
real of fake
00:01
_Musica estilo titanic_
even McCay´s dinosaur is better in animation and more fluid in movements, this cartoon is ot as bad as they say, at least it is animated at a quality of a flipnote animation
BOO!!!!
gartie
Doubt the wikipedia author compared the films side by side. I did, and don't need the gags to plainly see that Bray's dinosaur was superior in detail and anatomical design. Given a chance to develop better "tricks", or an entirely new dino character, Bray's advanced work easily would have outshined McCay's more simplistic line drawn Gertie...
I agree that Bray's Gertie is more anatomically designed and drawn with more detail, even shading, than McCay's--but remember, Bray was using clear celluloid frames, while McCay was re-drawing his Gertie, together with all the other visual elements, even including the background, on paper afresh for each frame. Even given that, I also feel that McCay's sense of motion, timing, and character performance are a bit more appealing than Bray's. Bray may have been a great animator in his own right, but the actual idea for Gertie--as well as the very animation techniques that enabled her to move--really do originate with McCay.
Cordelia Siporin Bray certainly had an advantage in using celluloid sheets over what McCay had to do with drawing every frame of the action.
+Dino Sauriana NO, McCay's hand is better, more precise, more elegant. It's not semplicistic: McCay didn't need to put a lot of shading to model figures, and this is what ALL we art school students learned in first year. Picasso at the age of 5 made incredibly tight portraits with only 4 lines. He already understood the Bray way is worst than the McCay one.
It should be realized that Bray's version came four or five years later. The techniques had advanced. So it's not a fair comparison. It is unfortunate that Bray consciously confused history, using the same title as McCay in the full knowledge that GERTIE THE DINOSAUR was never registered for a copyright, just as McCay never patented any of his processes, another issue that Bray took advantage of, then tried to sue McCay. The results were that McCay got the use of cels without having to pay Bray a license for their use when the court determined that McCay was "first to invent" (regardless of patents) due to having produced his films first.
The animation is amazing compared to the original
No
Definitely not.
Definitely no.