 McCay said it took him about eight weeks to produce eight seconds worth of film . The claimed 25 @,@ 000 drawings filled 900 feet of film . Lusitania was registered for copyright on July 19 , 1918 , and was released by Jewel Productions who were reported to have acquired it for the highest price paid for a one @-@ reel film up to that time . It was included as part of a Universal Studios Weekly newsreel and featured on the cover of an issue of Universal 's in @-@ house publication The Moving Picture Weekly . Its première in England followed in May 1919 . Advertisements called it " [ t ] he world 's only record of the crime that shocked humanity " . 
