International Film Service (IFS) was an American animation studio created to exploit the popularity of the comic strips controlled by William Randolph Hearst.
Despite their similar names "Hearst News" IFS, California, is not related to "International Film Service Company, Inc.", New York. [1]
In 1914, William Randolph Hearst expanded his International News Service wire syndicate into the International Picture Service, a syndicate formed to create newsreels, when newsreels were an entirely new idea. The success of the Hearst Newsreel led the media magnate to create International Film Service (IFS) in 1915. The purpose of this company was to translate Hearst's top comic strip properties into "living comic strips", to be added to the tail-end of the newsreels. For Hearst, the purpose of these cartoons was to be the same as the comics: to increase the circulation of his newspapers. The fact that former Hearst employees Winsor McCay, George McManus, and Bud Fisher were all doing very well with animated cartoons based on their Hearst comic strips ("Little Nemo", The Newlyweds, and Mutt and Jeff ) may have had something to do with it as well, since Hearst was a sore loser.
To lead this new studio, Hearst did what he usually did: lured the best talent away from his competitors with the promise of the kind of huge salary only a Hearst could afford. The supervisor was Gregory La Cava, who had animated for the Raoul Barré studio. La Cava was given director credit for all of the IFS cartoons. IFS cartoons were the first comic strip properties to give proper credit to the director and animators, as opposed to just the creator of the comic (their credit was in tiny print on the screen, but it was there). With him came William Nolan and Frank Moser, the fastest animators in the business. Hearst hired Raoul Barré, head of another animation studio, to animate his first series and teach the new hires how animation was done.
IFS jumped into eight different series right from the start. This was possible only because of La Cava's extraordinary organization skills. On the other hand, the quality suffered. IFS cartoons are indeed "living comic strips", with little motion and many dialog balloons instead of the intertitles used by most other animation studios. As a result, they are not very interesting to look at today. The studio did give birth to one enduring series, however: Krazy Kat . IFS was also the first studio for a whole host of future animation talent: Vernon Stallings, Walter Lantz, Ben Sharpsteen, Jack King, John Foster, Grim Natwick, Burt Gillett and Isadore Klein.
World War I proved the death-knell for IFS. Hearst had been pursuing an aggressive pro-German position for decades under the assumption that German immigrants were the core of his newspaper consistency. As a result, International News Service lost its credibility. The spiraling debt this created forced Hearst to cut out his least-profitable business, and that was IFS. The entire staff was laid off on July 6, 1918, a date referred to in animation history as "Black Monday", but Hearst still cared about his animated properties, so he licensed them to John C. Terry's studio. When that studio folded a year later, he licensed his former competitor, Bray Productions, to make the IFS cartoons. The deal lasted from 1919 to 21, when the IFS-Bray agreement broke off, with the final few cartoons released in early 1921.
Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery was an American animator, cartoonist, director, and voice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during the golden age of American animation. His most significant work was for the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, where he was crucial in the creation and evolution of famous animated characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Droopy, Screwy Squirrel, The Wolf, Red Hot Riding Hood, and George and Junior.
Walter Lantz Productions was an American animation studio. It was in operation from 1928 to 1972 and was the principal supplier of animation for Universal Pictures.
Walter Benjamin Lantz was an American cartoonist, animator, producer and director best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker.
While the history of animation began much earlier, this article is concerned with the development of the medium after the emergence of celluloid film in 1888, as produced for theatrical screenings, television and (non-interactive) home entertainment.
Animated films in the United States date back to at least 1906 when Vitagraph released Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. Although early animations were rudimentary, they rapidly became more sophisticated with such classics as Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914, Felix the Cat, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and Koko the Clown.
Gregory La Cava was an American film director of Italian descent best known for his films of the 1930s, including My Man Godfrey and Stage Door, which earned him nominations for Academy Award for Best Director.
Vital Achille Raoul Barré was a Canadian and American cartoonist, animator of the silent film era, and painter. Initially known as a political cartoonist, he originated the French Canadian comic strip, then crossed over into animated film and started his own studio, a pioneering effort. As a painter, he is considered an Impressionist, evoking atmosphere and light with visible, choppy strokes of paint, whose paintings are in the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.
Barré Studio was among the first film studios dedicated to animation and founded by Raoul Barré and William Nolan in 1914. The studio pioneered some early animation processes, including mechanical perforation of cels and animating special effects on glass.
Bray Productions was a pioneering American animation studio that produced several popular cartoons during the years of World War I and the early interwar era, becoming a springboard for several key animators of the 20th century, including the Fleischer brothers, Walter Lantz, Paul Terry, Shamus Culhane and Grim Natwick among others.
Arthur Davis was an American animator and director known for his time at Warner Brothers' Termite Terrace cartoon studio.
Burton F. Gillett was a director of animated films. He is noted for his Silly Symphonies work for Disney, particularly the 1932 short film Flowers and Trees and the 1933 short film Three Little Pigs, both of which were awarded the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and both of which were selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry.
Myron "Grim" Natwick was an American artist, animator, and film director. Natwick is best known for drawing the Fleischer Studios' most popular character, Betty Boop.
And Her Name Was Maud is a comic strip by Frederick Burr Opper. It first appeared in the Hearst newspapers on July 24, 1904. After work as a magazine cartoonist, Opper was hired by Hearst in 1899 to draw comic strips for the New York Journal, launching Happy Hooligan, Alphonse and Gaston and And Her Name Was Maud.
Bernard "Berny" Wolf was an American animator and television producer.
Emily Laverne Harding was an American animator and cartoonist.
Emery Otis Hawkins was an American animator, best known for his work during the Golden age of American animation, working in various studios in the industry.
William Charles Nolan was an American animated cartoon writer, animator, director, and artist. He is best known for creating and perfecting the rubber hose style of animation and for streamlining Felix the Cat.
The Grim Natwick Film Festival is an annual film festival, inaugurated in 2010. The three-day festival is held every summer in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin.
The Hearst-Vitagraph News Pictorial or Hearst-Vita graph was a short-lived company producing newsreels which were coupled with animated cartoons. It was established on 29 October 1915 by the Brooklyn-based Vitagraph Studios and the Hearst Corporation, and produced its first reel in February 1916, but folded in 1916. Previously, Hearst had produced newsreels together with the Selig Polyscope Company from 1914 on, and after the deal with Vitagraph ended Hearst teamed up with Pathé.
Judge Rummy was an American comic strip by Tad Dorgan published from 1910 until 1922. It featured an anthropomorphic dog. Between 1918 and 1922 the character was also the subject of a series of short animated cartoons.
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