Arizona

Very few artists can accurately say that they created a new genre. King Crimson with Progressive Rock, Black Sabbath with Heavy Metal, and Georges Méliès with several different genres. But there is one other filmmaker deserving of such a title, that being Oskar Fischinger. While in my previous blog I briefly touched upon his impact in film, I felt it only fair to take this post to go further into his legacy as both a filmmaker and an artist. Both contemporary artists, and artists from the 20th century will be talked about, to further emphasize the size and significance of Fischinger’s work after his passing. 

One artist that served as a direct successor to Fischinger, is Mary Ellen Bute. Born in 1906, she experienced a 25 year bubble of popularity, where her films were being shown across the country. Her primary inspiration was the work of Kandinsky, in the sense that her work was incredibly complex, with some films not even being finished. Her relation to Fishinger would come later in career, specifically with her film Dada. In 1931, Universal had run one of Oskar Fischinger's Studies in their newsreel. After seeing it, she proposed to Universal that they use one of her films similarly, but since they could use only two or three minutes, Bute made Dada, which Universal distributed in 1936. The film primarily consists of geometric shapes rotating on a central point, accompanied by music. Bute’s brief interaction with Fishinger would leave a lasting impact on her, as most of her work after this point was similar in form. But there were also plenty of contemporary artists also inspired by Fischinger.

First is Jeff Scher, a graduate of Bard College. His work is featured in the Museum of Modern Art, Academy Film Archives, Hirshhorn Museum, along with many more. Watching his films, you can clearly see the inspirations taken from Fischinger, even down to the method of which they were created. While his filmography extends into the 21st century, Scher makes it a point to use analog materials, much like his predecessor. Critics have described his films as “Moving still lifes,” from the level of detail and immersion present. His 2008 film Fly By Night shares the most in common with Fischinger’s work, featuring moving dots and lines dancing to music. The dots themselves were drawn with charcoal on paper, then photographed in negative. Scher has said that the purpose of the film is to invoke the feeling our ancestors felt seeing lightning bugs at night for the first time. While they don’t appear to be as synchronized as other works, the viewer still feels a sense of rhythm from each movement. However, Scher doesn’t seem to have the same level of popularity as artists like Bute did. Scher’s work in a sense feels more passion driven, having made movies for three decades, just out of pure passion for his craft. 

A second contemporary successor of Fishinger is Michel Gagné, a Canadian-American artist from Quebec, Canada. His career, beginning in 1986, includes providing work for companies such as Warner Bros., Disney, Pixar, Cartoon Network, and more. Michel has also written and illustrated several books and comics, published by several comic companies including DC, Fantagraphics, and more, which earned him a nomination for a  Eisner Award for his work in the comics field. But his inspiration from Fischinger is most prevalent in his 2006 film, Sensology. It, much like Fischinger’s work, features abstract shapes accompanied by music. But while Fischinger’s film required hundreds of paper cut-outs to be perfectly placed frame by frame, we see in Gagné’s film that he was able to use modern technology to create his film. The difference between Fischinger’s work and Gagné’s work in this case is their success. While Fishinger seldom made any money, or gained any popularity from his work, Gagné’s film received 2 winning awards, and 13 nominations for other categories. 

These are but three examples in a long and lengthy list of creatives who had varying levels of inspiration from Oskar Fischinger. Every single one of these artists has gone on to earn great success, whether that be external in the form of accolades, nominations and awards, or more internally, being able to create something so interpretive yet simple. It is far too often that visionaries and pioneers leave this world before they can see the full impact of their work. The fact that one person left such an impact is a testament to the power of artists, and the artistic world as a whole. 

Works Cited

Bute, Mary, and Jordan Belson. WEDNESDAY AUG 15, 7 Pm Oskar’s Legacy: Films Influenced by Fischinger over Many Decades, Dozens of Filmmakers Have Acknowledged Fischinger’s Influence on Their Work. We Present a Few of Their Films in Our Program Tonight.

Gagne, Michel . “Michel Gagné’s Official Homepage.” Www.gagneint.com, www.gagneint.com/index.html.

“Jeff Scher Collection - Collection - Harvard Film Archive.” Harvard Film Archive, 2019, harvardfilmarchive.org/collections/jeff-scher-collection. Accessed 20 Oct. 2025.

“Mary Ellen Bute.” Wikipedia, 29 Oct. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ellen_Bute.

“Mary Ellen Bute: Seeing Sound.” Www.awn.com, www.awn.com/mag/issue1.2/articles1.2/moritz1.2.html.

We owe our thanks to arthritis for one of the most innovative inventions ever created, the photocopying machine, or the Xerox. From an early age, Chester Carlson had an interest in mass copying. He ran his own newspaper between his friends, and his most valuable item was his typewriter. Even early in his career, Carlson saw “a crying need ” for a mass copying machine, sketching hundreds of designs of inventions in notebooks during the Great Depression. By the end of the Great Depression, Carlson was deadset on creating a machine for mass copying. Even through setback after setback, involving spinal arthritis and his wife forcing him to conduct his experiments elsewhere, Carlson was only motivated further to achieve his idea. 

The breakthrough came one night in 1938. The words “10.22.38 ASTORIA” were written with India Ink. Using a zinc plate that was then exposed to electrostatic charge. The slide was then exposed to sulfur and bright lights, which left behind a perfect copy of the writing. Eventually in 1944, Carlson’s genius was recognized by the Battelle Memorial Institute, in Columbus, Ohio. They contracted Carlson to expand on his idea, spending five years doing so. The final step was the name, taking inspiration from the Greek word for “dry-writing” Carlson decided on the name Xerox. It became an overnight success, so much so that for a time being, people referred to making a copy as making a xerox. However, the Xerox company fought against this, mainly because the company could lose the rights to their name. But offices weren’t the only place that the Xerox machine improved. 

101 Dalmatians was full of innovations from Disney, simple backgrounds, with looser lineart, big washes of colors, and cardboard models serving as the first 3D models. They also swapped the large orchestra for a small jazz band. All of these were often cost-cutting methods, since at this point Disney was basically hemorrhaging money with film after film that disappointed at the Box-Office, they needed to do something cheap. One of the biggest innovations came from Ub Iwerks, who suggested using the Xerox machine to help produce the next film. This ended up being a double sword, since the pencil drawings themselves could be transferred into a black color, resembling the color of ink, this also completely removed an entire department from Disney Studios, both of which ended up in the film costing less. The result of using the Xerox resulted in a more sketchy feel to the animation, with the lines seeming more frayed and disorganized, but still retaining that “Disney Magic”. 

The film was a success, both financially and critically and helped pull Disney out of the hole they had been in. Disney would continue to use the Xerox film for twenty years, ending with The Little Mermaid, which coincided with the beginning of a new Disney era, often called the “Disney Renaissance.” However, while animators and audiences alike loved the Xerox machine, Walt Disney himself hated it, going so far as to say that the company’s art director Ken Anderson would be out of a job. It wouldn’t be until 1966 where Disney would forgive Anderson, never outright saying it, but by giving the man a certain look during Disney’s final trip to the studio in 1966.

Work Cited

“Chester Carlson.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 July 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Carlson.

“One Hundred and One Dalmatians.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Sept. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundred_and_One_Dalmatians.

Although he is always depicted wearing his iconic sailor outfit, military service is not the first thing that usually comes to mind when you think about Donald Duck. But for children in the 1940’s, this wasn’t the case. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States began gearing up to enter the war. This created a large problem for the animation industry, specifically for Disney. Most of his animators were men, and were drafted either into combat or to create propaganda for the war effort. This, combined with Disney’s sexism, barring women from working as animators, put further stress on a company that was already struggling. While it is often referred to as the “Golden Age” Disney’s first few films were often not a financial success, losing the company millions of dollars, leading to Walt Disney taking out more money for another film, only to lose it again; rinse and repeat. However, Disney’s luck began to change as the war progressed. 

The United States military occupied the Burbank studio, using it as an anti-aircraft base. This later proved beneficial to the company as they were soon contracted by the military to create short films for both the military and the general public. These films were often propaganda films, and paid the studio a flat rate. Short films seemed to be Disney’s specialty at this time, as they began to crank out film after film, quickly making most of the money that had been lost back. This would be the birth of the “Three Caballeros,” Featuring Donald Duck, José Carioca, and Panchito Pistoles. This series of films featuring the birds would almost always feature the glitz and glamor of Hispanic and South American culture, which would be used to promote good relations between them and the United States against the Axis Powers of the East. But there are two films that seemed to be the most interesting, and show two very different views on the war.

First, is the film Donald gets Drafted, a short film in which Donald is drafted into the war, and we get to see what it’s like to be a part of the military. Donald starts off optimistic, but is then thrown into a rigorous medical examination to see if he’s fit to be in the military. Interestingly enough, Donald actually fails a few of the exams, but the doctors chock it up to being “good enough.” This raises a potential theory about the regulations for the military. It may show that the US was so desperate for soldiers that they were willing to bend the rules in order to have more men on the field. We then watch as Donald fumbles through his military training, almost gunning his drill sergeant Pete, before being sent to peel potatoes. At this point of the film, we are met again with a song that also played at the beginning of the film. “The Army is not the Army Anymore” tells the listener about the supposed glamor of the military, saying that soldiers can “Sleep until 11,” or that the “Generals say hello, as if they really knew ‘ya.” While this could possibly have been potentially satirical, as the army is infamous for being cruel, it also was most likely propaganda, to convince people to enlist by lying to them about what the army is like. While this film showed us how great the American army was, a second film by Disney instead takes the point of view of the enemy, in order to show how awful it is to be on their side.     

Released in 1943, Der Fuehrer’s Face is likely one of Disney’s most infamous films, especially out of context. Featuring Donald Duck again, the film opens with a marching band in Nazi Germany, where the houses resemble Hitler, and everything is adorned with Swastikas. The marching band consists of the leaders of the Axis Powers, along with high ranking Nazi officials, who pass Donald’s house. Having been awoken, Donald attempts to go back to sleep, but is both stabbed with a bayonet and splashed with water, before going to make breakfast, consisting of coffee, which Donald hides from a passing soldier, and a bottle that contains the scent of bacon and eggs shows the audience the food conditions present in Nazi Germany. We then see a looming factory, with a smog filled and red sky, while the narrator talks about how privileged someone had to be to “Work 48 hours a day for the fuehrer!” Donald begins to screw on the caps for munition rounds, having to shout “Heil Hitler” for each picture of Hitler that appears on the belt. The loyalty forced onto the German people during this time is something that has been parodied multiple times, but I think this is one of the best examples. Watching as Donald can’t even work without proclaiming his loyalty for the Nazis. Donald is eventually given a “vacation” that only lasts a few seconds, before Donald is forced back to work. The film ends with Donald waking up in his bed, revealing the previous events were a nightmare. Donald’s room is plastered with American memorabilia, even down to his stars and stripes pajamas. Comparing Nazi Germany to a nightmare was a great way to convey to the American people how awful it was to live there. 

Both films are excellent examples of propaganda targeted towards everyday people. Donald being drafted and going through the military made it seem “cool” to younger people, who would’ve been the ones going to war in the coming years. But even if they weren’t drafted for the Second World War, there is a chance they would have maintained their loyalty for the years to come, which would mean future wars could have had higher enlistment rates. While on the opposite side, showing Donald Duck struggling and being abused and oppressed in Nazi Germany could help reinforce the idea of who our enemy was during the Second World War. While the actual horrors of Nazi Germany, and the full weight of joining the military far exceeded the thinking capacity of young children, the Disney company was able to make two cartoons that showed everything they needed to in order to create wildly popular and effective propaganda for the masses. 

Work Cited

“Der Fuehrer’s Face.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Oct. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Fuehrer%27s_Face.

“Donald Gets Drafted.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 16 May 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Gets_Drafted.

Molly. “Walt Disney & the U.S. Military: A Century of Support for Veterans.” Disney Experiences, 8 Apr. 2025, disneyexperiences.com/disney-veterans/.

Known as “Walt’s Swiss-Army knife” Ub Iwerks was born in Kansas City 1901, and when he turned 18 he would meet a fresh-from-war Walt Disney. The pair would work together through thick and thin until the 1930’s, when Iwerks would leave Walt to pursue a new job with the prospect of more creative freedom. This was something Iwerks had felt limited in his time with Disney. However, unbeknownst to him, the person offering the job was the Co-founder of Paramount Studios, a direct rival of Disney. Ub tried to plead his case to Disney, explaining that he would never take a job from Paramount, had he known what company was behind the offer. But it proved too little too late, Disney would exile Iwerks from the company. Iwerks would eventually return to the company, this time as a technical effects technician. Iwerks would make several innovations which would earn him decades of praise. However, one of his inventions streamlined Disney as a company, that being the multi-plane camera.

Typically consisting of three sheets of glass, with a camera above, the multi-plane camera completely changed how animation worked. Previously, animations either needed to have the backgrounds drawn on each frame, or space needed to be left to fill in for the main character. Neither of these options left much in terms of creative freedom. However, the multi-plane camera allowed for the background, middle ground and foreground to all be separate. This allowed for labor to be split up across multiple artists, and allowed for specific changes to be made on certain aspects of the animation. The original model, constructed by Ub Iwerks, was created using the spare parts of an old Chevy car. A more advanced version would be constructed in 1937, for use in Snow White, and the Seven Dwarves. Disney would use the multiplane camera until 1989, with the release of The Little Mermaid. 

While Iwerks had to use a stripped Chevy to build his camera, I’d argue that my materials were more restricted. In my previous class, we were put into groups and assigned to make our own version of the multi-plane camera. Our materials were small wooden blocks to separate the layers, plexiglass sheets to act as the layers themselves, and sheets of construction paper. Each group was given around an hour to complete their project, and we were given nearly complete creative freedom, aside from having to follow a prompt from a list. Our options were to create a silhouette film, something akin to Lotte Reiniger, or something involving music, like the work of Oskar Fischinger. 

My group and I decided on the musical prompt, selecting “Clair de Lune” as our music choice and beginning to brainstorm. We laid a sheet of black paper for the background, and created a cutout moon to serve as the middle ground. We also cut out several black shapes that when laid on top of the moon, gave the illusion of the moon shifting phases. Then came the music itself, we decided on using stars to convey the notes, which required us to meticulously construct and sync up the twinkling of the stars to the notes of the music. After around 45 minutes of animating, we ended up with about nine seconds of synced footage. All in all, I think the project was not only fun, but gave us a good look into how laborious and frankly, clunky, old animation used to be before the tools of today were invented. 

Work Cited

Fri, Posted on. “Ub Iwerks: Master of Animation and Technology.” The Walt Disney Family Museum, www.waltdisney.org/blog/ub-iwerks-master-animation-and-technology. Accessed 24 Sept. 2025.

“Multiplane Camera.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 May 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplane_camera.

Paint dripped on a canvas, 20 feet of red with two orange lines, a graffitied toilet. We’re all very familiar with the concept of abstract art. One of the most popular concepts around the many movements of abstract art is a critique of the establishment. The Dada movement, most popular in Switzerland before spreading across Europe, was a direct critique of the biggest event of the time, The Great War. By 1915, the war was reaching a peak, poison gas had been introduced into trench warfare and the RMS Lusitania would be sunk by a German U-Boat, killing nearly 1,200 people. Europeans were horrified by the carnage taking over their world, artists especially so. They began to use nonsense and irrationality in their art to directly criticize capitalism and the “Modern War”. Artists would also use this form of abstraction to show their support with far-left and radical politics. The name “Dada” itself was born from nonsense, with the most plausible origin being when an artist slid a paper knife into a dictionary, where it landed on the term, which referred to the french word for a toy horse. One of the primary ideologies regarding Dadaism was that the “Logic” and “Reason” of modern capitalism were the sources of war. The Dada movement would continue until around 1926, 9 years after “The War to end all Wars”.

Meanwhile, in Munich Germany, an up and coming filmmaker by the name of Oskar Fischinger was performing his own film shows which utilized multiple projectors and musical accompaniment. Born in 1900, Fischinger apprenticed at an organ-building firm until WWI had forced them to close down, Fischinger himself dodged the draft for being “too sickly”. In 1921, he would meet Bernhard Diebold, a film critic who would show Fischinger the works of Walter Ruttman, who was a pioneer in the now-extremely popular abstract film movement which was largely inspired by Dadaism. During this time, Fischinger was developing a new technique to develop backgrounds by using sliced wax. Ruttman showed great interest in this invention, licensing it to be used in  Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed, which is widely regarded as the first animated feature film. Fischinger would create his own film studio, performing a few of his own films and continuing his wax experiments for a few years before financial trouble forced him to move to Berlin. While in Berlin, Fischinger would establish his own studio and find success creating special effects for films; his own film ideas however, were largely rejected. Now with a steady income, Fischinger once again began to experiment and innovate, this time using charcoal and creating animations that were synced to popular and classical music of the time. A style that would continue into his later career. 

The turn of the century would mark not just a change in Fischinger’s life, but world history. By 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party had largely taken over Germany. They demonized what they considered “Degenerate Art”, which was really a catch-all for anything not favorable to the new government. Fischinger would spend another two years trying to create art under the Nazi rule, before an agent from Paramount Studios would provide him an escape to go work in Hollywood. Upon reaching America, Fischinger would receive a healthy salary alongside an English tutor and secretaries who spoke German. But while he was provided these commodities, a lot of his work would be drowned in American bureaucracy. The film he had been developing was intended for a black-and-white only release, unbeknownst to him. The studio refused to even test screen his film, which led to his eventual departure from Paramount. However, this would not mark the end of his creative struggles. In 1937, he created a film synchronized with Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody #2”, but received none of the profits from the movie. He would also work on a segment from Disney’s Fantasia, but left the project and removed his names from the credit due to creative differences between him and the studio. Frustrated, Oskar turned to oil painting as his main form of artistic expression, passing away on New Year’s Eve, 1967.

Watching Fischinger’s films, you can truly see how much love and effort was put into each frame. Specifically in his film with “Hungarian Rhapsody #2” one can begin to understand the dedication and passion needed to ensure each frame was perfect. While his life was marked by creative struggle, facing rejection after rejection, creative limitation after creative limitation, Fischinger never gave up. His legacy lives on to this day, inspiring dozens of filmmakers, with Jordan Belson claiming that Fischinger was a personal hero of his. Fischinger’s work can still be enjoyed today,  with his work in some of the prestigious museums including The Guggenheim in New York City, and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, a museum dedicated entirely to the support and preservation of screen culture. His work can also be found online, “An Optical Poem” can be viewed on YouTube for anyone wanting to experience a piece of film history. 

Work Cited

“About Us.” ACMI: Your Museum of Screen Culture, www.acmi.net.au/about.

“ART+FILM: Oskar’s Legacy | Filmmakers Influenced by Fischinger Tue 5 Jul at 6.30pm.” ACMI: Your Museum of Screen Culture, www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/artfilm/oskar-fischinger-influenced-filmmakers.

ilacwine85. “An Optical Poem, 1938, Oskar Fischinger.” YouTube, 5 Oct. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcHsysPGSt0.

Wikipedia contributors. “Non-narrative Film.” Wikipedia, 18 Aug. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-narrative_film#Abstract_film.

1915 marked a boom in the animation industry, with the invention of “Cel Animation” by Earl Hurd. Cel animation consisted of thin celluloid sheets, or “cels”, being drawn on, painted on, inked and photographed in a series to create movement. An animator would take a sheet, draw and ink one side of the sheet before flipping it over and painting the backside to create a full image. The process would then be repeated several times, with each painting creating a frame. The frames would also be separate from the background, allowing the characters to be placed anywhere in the frame. Until this point, characters either needed to be drawn alongside the background, as seen in Winsor McCay’s film “Gertie the Dinosaur” Or the background needed to be drawn with blank spots to accommodate the character. This simple invention greatly expedited the animation process by cutting down on the time needed to make each background. This combined with the start of the industrialization of animation around this time, meant that studios now had the tools to create some of the greatest films of the 20th century. A lot of these films would come from the Walt Disney Company. Originally known as the “Disney Brothers Studios”, Roy and Walt Disney had begun to pursue their dreams of creating animations, starting with a series revolving around Alice from Alice in Wonderland. 1934 would be when the first feature-length animated movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, would be pitched to studio executives. It would take three years of production, but in 1937 Snow White debuted to raving reviews, becoming the highest grossing film of all time until 1940. It was animated completely on cels, and completely redefined what stories could be told with animation. Disney would continue to use cel animation until the late 2000’s. At this point, most of the animated movies had been created using 3D animation software, Disney’s last film using cels would be The Princess and the Frog, released in 2009. However, the transition away from traditional animation was not so dramatic. As technology advanced during the end of the 20th century and into the 2000’s, many companies began to blend the techniques they already knew, with the innovations they now had access to. The lines of the characters would still be drawn and inked by hand, but the colors would be done digitally. Now, traditional animation has been almost entirely moved to digital. Instead of hundreds of sheets of papers, animators now use graphic design tablets and software in order to create animations. Similar to cels, digital animation has the ability to separate the characters and backgrounds, with the added benefit of being able to sketch, ink and color, all in one singular workspace. There are also additional tools like tweening, which allows for a single drawing to be contorted in a way that conveys movement, without the need to draw each frame individually. There is also the added benefit of animation having a lower bar for entry than ever before. Anyone with a good enough computer, a tablet, and a desire to create can create their own animations, which has largely sparked the Indie Animation industry that seems to dominate the market today. Shows like Eddsworld, Atlas and the Stars, and Salad Fingers, are all examples of shows made by either a single person, or a small group of usually friends just creating something out of their own passion and dedication. Even though we have progressed so far from drawing on plastic sheets, the importance of cels lives on today. Collectors sometimes purchase the actual frames used in their favorite shows and movies. The rubberhouse style used during the dawn of Disney is still largely used today in games, movies and TV. Every animator sits on the shoulders of the ones who came before them, the ones who had to learn every tactic, every skill and then master them. Armed only with acrylic paints and sheets of plastic

Work Cited

Cel Animation Explained - Explore the Classic Disney Technique | Adobe, www.adobe.com/creativecloud/animation/discover/cel-animation.html. Accessed 11 Sept. 2025.

“Cel.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Aug. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cel.

“Disney History.” D23, 2 Mar. 2023, d23.com/disney-history/.

“Traditional Animation.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Aug. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_animation.

One cannot speak about early animation without mentioning Emilé Cohl. Born in 1857 Paris, Emilé Cohl was enrolled into the Ecole professionnelle de Pantin following the death of his mother, and absence of his father. It would be here where Cohl would discover his passion for the arts. But this passion would be quickly cut short due to the Franco-Prussian war, while initially a setback would later prove instrumental into his career. Following financial hardships from the war, his father was forced to send Cohl to a less expensive school, École Turgot. It would be here where Cohl would continue his love for art, coming in the form of a job as a political cartoonist, working during the Prussian Siege of Paris. His cartoons would provide much needed comfort and distraction to the citizens of France. The first peak of his career would come seven years after the war ended. During this time, Cohl had begun to work with the legendary Andre Gill. Gill and Cohl would meet when Cohl received a letter of recommendation telling him to meet Gill for the prospect of a job. The bond made between the two was almost instant, with Cohl becoming a close friend and pupil of Gill, supporting him until his death in 1885. While working under Gill, Cohl would make a name of himself, most notably so for his caricature of the then president Patrice MacMahon. Titled “Aveugle par Ac-Sedan”, the piece would depict the president as a blind beggar, with “Ac-Sedan” being a double entendre, being a homophone of the French word “accident”, and poking fun at the loss of the French at the Battle of Sedan. President MacMahon had already made it illegal to ridicule him in any way, and Cohl would be sentenced to 10 days in prison for this transgression. However, this act would have the opposite effect intended by MacMahon, Cohl’s popularity exploded seemingly overnight, while MacMahon had begun to become less and less relevant. It wouldn’t be until he was 50 that Cohl’s career would truly reach its full potential. The year was 1907, and Cohl's newest inspiration came from John Blackton, the creator of such films as “Humorous Phases of Funny Faces” and “The Haunted Hotel”. Which were some of the first animated films ever recorded on film. Cohl began to have dreams of creating his own animated films. There was only one issue, there was no “Animator’s Survival Guide”, or any YouTube tutorials. Instead, Cohl had to study each frame and camera trick to determine how the film was made. His result? “Fantasmagorie”. While it was only two minutes long and lacked any sound, it was incredibly innovative for the time. While Blackton’s films had chalkboards that were filmed and drawn on frame-by-frame, Cohl’s film was drawn on hundreds of pieces of paper, then reversing the negative to achieve the “chalk on a blackboard” look. “Fantasmagorie” would be an instant success, showing that animation was very much a profitable genre. Cohl would create two more animated films, but due to the fact that the process demanded prolonged labor and planning Cohl would move on to other creative endeavors. Cohl would be pulled into the animation world twice more throughout his life, with neither project gaining much fame or recognition. Cohl would pass away in 1938, but his legacy would live on.

One of the most important benefits of Cohl’s efforts was animator Raoul Barré. Born in Canada 1874, Barré would actually have a confrontation with Cohl through their political art. In 1898, French-Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus was removed from the army under suspicions of treason. Barré saw through the efforts of the French Government, seeing that the main cause was antisemitism, while Cohl did not see this, depicting Dreyfus being tarred and feathered. Barré would move back to Canada in the early 1900’s to continue his career. Barré began his advancements in the animation industry in 1912, with the pioneering of the “Peg System” which allowed drawings to be fixed into place, which made the animation process miles easier. This system would remain in place until the 1930’s when it was replaced with the “Cel Animation” style, by Earl Hurd. Barré’s next innovation would come three years following the Peg System. In 1915, Barré, now working as the co-founder of Barré-Nolan, released their first film with the help of Edison Studios. “The Animated Grouch Chasers” combined live action footage and animation to create a series that would last for 13 episodes. Later, in 1926, he would become an animator for the show “Felix the Cat”, and “Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure”, the latter of which was significant due to the fact that it was the first “Adult Only” cartoon, showing that animation had markets for both children and adults. Raoul Barré would retire from animation permanently in 1928 due to a nervous breakdown he suffered from. However, he never stopped giving back. When he wasn’t painting or making political cartoons, he was starting his own art school, so that generations of artists could be inspired and continue to make art. Raoul Barré would pass away due to complications from cancer in 1938 at the age of 58. At this point, I could continue to go on and on about the next artist that would be inspired by Raoul Barré, their impact on animation, the person they inspired, rinse and repeat. But ultimately this is about Emilé Cohl, and his impact. The mention of Raoul Barré is an example of how the animation world was forever changed, simply by two minutes of a clown abstractly dancing on screen. While Emilé Cohl and Raoul Barré only had a brief, non-direct encounter, it is impossible to say that Barré’s work was heavily shaped by the footprints of the man before him. Emilé Cohl was able to lay the framework for a new genre of art, entertainment, and film, all without a single textbook or guide.

I would like to personally thank Kjell Knudde for the amount of research that they have done and published regarding the life of Emilé Cohl, Raoul Barré, and Andre Gill. Without their efforts this paper likely would have taken much longer and not be as well informed.

Work Cited Cohl, Emilé “Fantasmagorie.” Gaumont, 1908. https://youtu.be/A0s4SmjhM7s?si=lSjwW9Ypuk01h1P2

Knudde, Kjell. “André Gill.” Lambiek.Net, 1 Jan. 1970, www.lambiek.net/artists/g/gill_andre.htm.

Knudde, Kjell. “Raoul Barré.” Lambiek.Net, 1 Jan. 1970, www.lambiek.net/artists/b/barre_raoul.htm.

Knudde, Kjell. “Émile Cohl.” Lambiek.Net, 1 Jan. 1970, www.lambiek.net/artists/c/cohl_emile.htm.

The year is 1797. France has been decimated by a revolution that would claim the lives of just short of a million people, and as the blood on the guillotine dried, Parisians were left with a single question: “What now?” The answer would come in the form of Étienne-Gaspard Robert, a Belgian physicist, and magician who went by the stage name “Robertson”. Becoming a professor of physics and specializing in optics, he spent the revolution completely embodying the spirit of the Mad Scientist, proposing to the French Government to use an archimedean invention to burn down British ships, also conducting public experiments with galvanism. 

While the idea of a mad scientist who had dreams of incinerating the British and who would electrocute frog corpses in broad daylight becoming the leading figure in entertainment doesn’t seem sensible, or at all like a good idea, Parisians at the time would disagree with you. Taking inspiration from the works of Ann Radcliffe, and utilizing the scenery of a decimated Paris, Robertson began to construct his masterpiece. 

Utilizing a myriad of tactics, Robertson would cast his audience into a world of death and despair. Guests were often instructed to fast before a show, consume alcohol, and in some cases were even fed hallucinogenic drugs to heighten their nerves and increase the effects. Robertson would occasionally lock the participants in the completely dark theater, instilling a sense of “There is no escape”. Immediately, it was a massive hit. Parisians would go out by the dozen in the middle of the night to experience the show, and once Robertson learned that he could make the magic lantern used to project the images move on wheels, he began to expand his operations to locations around Paris. This lasted for six years, with audiences becoming more and more convinced of Robertson’s abilities, until he was ordered to stop by the police under fear that he had the ability to resurrect King Louis XVI. 

Paris wasn’t the only place where the citizens delighted in the macabre, Victorian England began to follow in its footsteps thanks to writers like Edgar Allen Poe and Mary Shelley. A secondary inspiration was Madame Tussaud, and her wax museum which featured a section dubbed the “Chamber of Horrors” filled to the brim with the decapitated sculptures of those involved with the French Revolution. These factors would establish the blueprints for horror-based attractions that would come up in later decades. Most notably in 1915 with the Orton and Spooner Ghost House. A revolutionary attraction featured in an Edwardian Fair, it was powered by steam, filled with a lot of similar aspects found in haunted houses today and the Phantasmagoria from almost 120 years prior. Guests entering the house would be met with dim and flickering lights, jets of air blowing at their feet and costumed scare actors. But most influential was the fact that people had to pay to get into the house. The commercial success of the Orton and Spooner Ghost House proved that horror had a marketable audience in the world.

This market would further be expanded by America during the Great Depression. The biggest concern of parents of teenagers in the 1930’s was if their child would join the vandalism that often took place on Halloween. Teens across the country would engage in various acts of vandalism, becoming exceptionally bad in 1933, where cars would be flipped and telephone poles would be flipped over, eventually becoming known as “Black Friday”, a play on the “Black Tuesday” that marked the stock market crash of 1929. The solution came in the form of small-scale haunted houses constructed from the basements of families, wherein children from around the block would be invited from house to house, being able to spook themselves and enjoy the night while under adult supervision. Another reason for their popularity was that they didn’t require anything that wasn’t already in their homes, which was appealing to the already families already dealing with poverty across the country. A 1937 party pamphlet described different methods people could use to create horror props with wet sponges, raw meat, and covering doorways so guests would have to crawl, with moans and groans surrounding them as they did. 

Toward the middle of the century, business began to capitalize on haunted houses, often using them as non-profits and fundraisers, with a popular example being the San Mateo Haunted House, built by the Children’s Health Home Auxiliary League. Companies and businesses started to see an American audience that wanted to be scared, most prominent of which would be Walt Disney, building his haunted house in 1969, which had over 82,000 in a single day not too soon after it opened. Today, haunted houses remain a staple of Halloween, now often being themed after pop culture horror icons, like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and more. One of the best examples is Universal Studios’ “Halloween Horror Nights” which this year features 10 unique haunted houses that range from original ideas, to Horror icons both mainstream and indie. My personal favorite is the Five Nights at Freddy’s exhibit, featuring the animatronic characters that once gave me nightmares. 

Works Cited

Dean, Jim. “Enter If You Dare: The History of the Haunted House | the Haunted Walk.” The Haunted Walk | Ghost Tours & Paranormal Adventures, 30 Oct. 2019, hauntedwalk.com/news/enter-if-you-dare-the-history-of-the-haunted-house. Accessed 27 Aug. 2025.

Heller, Chris. “A Brief History of the Haunted House.” Smithsonian Magazine, 31 Oct. 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-haunted-house-180957008. Accessed 27 Aug. 2025.

Kat Rembacki. “History of Haunted Houses: How Attractions Evolved over Time - HauntPay.” HauntPay, 15 July 2024, hauntpay.com/2024/07/history-of-haunted-houses-how-attractions-evolved-over-time. Accessed 27 Aug. 2025.

Little, Becky. “The Great Depression Origins of Halloween Haunted Houses | HISTORY.” HISTORY, 31 Oct. 2018, www.history.com/articles/halloween-haunted-house-great-depression. Accessed 7 Apr. 2025.

“Universal Orlando.” Www.universalorlando.com, www.universalorlando.com/hhn/en/us/haunted-houses.