Illusionists, Comic strip and Silhouette Animators

George Méliès

(Maries) George (Jean) Méliès was born in Paris in December 8, 1861 and passed away in January 21, 1938, but throughout these years he managed to make over five hundred films in total; with financing, directing, photographing and starring in nearly every single one of them.

George Melies is most famous for his films: A Trip to the Moon (1902), The Vanishing Lady (1896), The Impossible Voyage (1904) and The Haunted Castle (1896).

Méliès wives Eugénie Genin (married during 1885-1913) and Jehanne d'Alcy (married during 1925-1938) were often featured in his films. For example with his short film The Man with the Rubber Head (1901)

The Man with a Rubber Head featured his wife at the time as one of the mad scientists throughout the film.

The film was also pretty popular for its time as it was talked about quite a lot, not because all of it was ingenious at the time, but because of how he managed to pull it off. Here is a link to how Méliès managed to pull it off:
https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-man-with-the-rubber-head-1902/

Winsor McCay

Zenas Winsor McCay (c. 1867–71 or September 26, 1869 – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator, his most notable work are: Little Nemo (Launch date: October 15, 1905 - End date: December 26, 1926) and Gertie the Dinosaur (Released: September 14, 1914)
In 1909 McCay performed in a successful vaudeville act that featured him “speed drawing” his own cartoon characters, as well as caricatures of noted personalities. Inspired by the work of Emile Cohl and J. Stuart Blackton, McCay began to experiment with animated cartoons and produced an animated version of Little Nemo that proved a great hit in his stage act.
This cartoon film was followed by another well-received animated effort, How a Mosquito Operates (1912), and two years later McCay produced his most famous animated film, Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). Most cartoon characters of the early 20th century had their origins in newspaper comic strips; Gertie was the first featured character created specifically for the new medium. The film was composed of more than 10,000 drawings; for each, McCay drew backgrounds and inanimate objects anew, as no other method had yet been developed of keeping such objects stationary from frame to frame.

1911 Winsor McCay - "Little Nemo" (full animation in colour):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW71mSedJuU


Gertie on Tour (Winsor Mccay, 1921)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zdrZH0h67M

Lotte Reiniger

Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger (2 June 1899 – 19 June 1981) was a German film director and the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation. Reiniger made more than 40 films over her career, all using her invention. Her best known films are The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) – the oldest surviving feature-length animated film, preceding Walt Disney's feature-length Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) by over ten years – and Papageno (1935), featuring music by Mozart. Reiniger is also noted for devising a predecessor to the first multi-plane camera.
Lotte Reiniger herself is the prime genius behind all of her films. She had an astonishing facility with cutting--holding the scissors still in her right hand, and manipulating the paper at lightning speed with her left hand so that the cut always went in the right direction. She drew the storyboards and devised the plots and characters, which were closely linked. If a figure needed to make some complex or supple movement, it would have to be built from 25 or 50 separate pieces, then joined together with fine lead wire--as in the famous Falcon that Walter Ruttmann used to make Kriemhilde's dream sequence for Fritz Lang's 1924 feature Niebelungen. If a character needed to appear in close-up, a separate, larger model of the head and shoulders would have to be built--as well, possibly, as larger background details to stand behind it.


Lotte Reiniger - The Adventures of Prince Achmed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25SP4ftxklg