JR Bray Studios
JR Bray Studios was an American film production company that dominated the cartoon market in the years leading up to World War I.
history
The company was founded in December 1914 by John Randolph Bray ; Bray was thus one of the first studio managers who devoted himself exclusively to the production of animated films. ( Raoul Barré , who made animated films for Thomas Alva Edison , had started production in his studio around the same time.) Bray's first series of films were the Colonel Heeza Liar films that he wrote, drawn and directed , but from the beginning he understood to attract a number of very talented illustrators, directors and writers, such as Earl Hurd and Paul Terry .
Hurd became Bray's business partner after his pioneering patenting of the Cel film process, which made the repeated creation of a complete scene background superfluous. Hurd's series was Bobby Bumps , Terry was in charge of Farmer Al Falfa . Other collaborators were: Wallace A. Carlson , Roland Crandall , Thomas A. Dorgan , Dave Fleischer , Max Fleischer , Clyde Geronimi , David Hand , George Herriman , Gregory La Cava , Walter Lantz , Ashley Miller , Frank Moser , Joe Rock , Pat Sullivan and Vernon Stallings .
In 1919 the rival company International Film Service had to give up, and its owner William Randolph Hearst commissioned Bray to continue the series of the IFS and to take over the employees of the dissolved company, such as Gregory La Cava. In order to be able to deliver the required amount of cartoons, Bray developed a system based on the division of labor: four working groups worked simultaneously on four different cartoons. Since the total time it took to make a cartoon was one month, the company was able to make one film a week. Bray's productions were first distributed by Pathé , then from 1916 by Paramount Pictures and since 1919 by Goldwyn Pictures . Since the increase in orders due to the collapse of the IFS , ten trick series have been produced at the same time.
Bray was constantly striving to grow his business so that he could deliver all kinds of animated films, not just funny entertainment. He financed the semi-independent studio of C. Allen Gilbert , which produced the artistically demanding Silhouette Fantasies based on classical themes. During the First World War, Bray produced training and educational animated films for the US Army , which were so successful that J. R. Bray Studios could hardly save itself from follow-up orders from the government and large companies. The company's Chicago and Detroit offices produced films for the auto industry only.
However, Bray did not understand how to limit the growing investments so that the company could make a stable profit. In January 1920, Samuel Goldwyn took advantage of the company's financial situation and acquired a majority stake in J. R. Bray Studios . The company was tightly reorganized and production was cut back to just two cartoons a week. The result was the departure of a large number of talented employees, so that the quality of the films quickly deteriorated significantly.
J. R. Bray meanwhile neglected animation production and doggedly pursued the unrealistic goal of breaking Hal Roach's supremacy in the field of slapstick short films. When that failed, Bray closed his company's entertainment division in 1927. The company made training films for government agencies and industry until 1963.
Series
- 1913-1917, 1922-1924: Colonel Heeza Liar
- 1914-1916, 1918: The Police Dog
- 1916: The Trick Kids
- 1916: Plastiques
- 1916-1922: Bobby Bumps
- 1916-1917: Farmer Al Falfa
- 1916: Silhouette Fantasies
- 1916–1917: Miss Nanny Goat
- 1916, 1918-1919: Out of the Inkwell
- 1917: Quacky Doodles
- 1917: Picto Puzzles
- 1917: Otto Luck
- 1917-1919: Goodrich Dirt
- 1919: Hardrock Dome
- 1919-1920: Us Fellers
- 1919–1920: Jerry on the job
- 1920: Lampoons
- 1920: Ginger Snaps
- 1920: Shenanigan Kids
- 1920–1921: Krazy Cat
- 1920-1921: Bud and Suzy
- 1920-1921: Happy Hooligan
- 1920-1921: Judge Rummy
- 1922-1923: Technical Romances
- 1922-1923: Ink Ravings
- 1924-1926: Dinky Doodle
- 1925-1927: Un-Natural History
- 1926–1927: Hot Dog Cartoons
- 1926–1928: The McDougall Alley Kids