UCLA Preserved Silent Animation website

Last night, Bill Kroyer and I participated in an animation panel at the Hammer Museum, which followed a screening of some newly restored silent era cartoons by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Those films have now been posted online on a new website established by the UCLA Library.

An initial eleven films are now available to view or download, with titles including Blackton’s Enchanted Drawing (1900), tinted prints promoting The Lost World and other interesting obscure shorts and orphan films. They can be viewed silent or with a choice or musical scores (with audio commentary by composer Michael Mortilla), some with Preservationist audio commentary (by Jere Guldin), each with historical notes (by me, Jerry Beck), an Historical Overview essay by Mark Langer and a Study Guide prepared by UCLA which notes much of their animation holdings, papers, prints and materials available for further study.

If the early history of animation is of interest to you, this is a good site to know. And I’ve been told the Archive will be adding more material to it as time goes on. Check it out, here.