 Inspired by the flip books his son brought home , McCay said he " came to see the possibility of making moving pictures " of his cartoons . His first animated film , Little Nemo ( 1911 ) , was composed of four thousand drawings on rice paper . His next film , How a Mosquito Operates ( 1912 ) , naturalistically shows a giant mosquito draw blood from a sleeping man until it burst . McCay followed this with a film that became an interactive part of his vaudeville shows : in Gertie the Dinosaur ( 1914 ) , McCay commanded his animated dinosaur with a whip on stage . 
