 Gertie was McCay 's first piece of animation with detailed backgrounds . McCay drew the foreground characters , while art student neighbor John A. Fitzsimmons traced the backgrounds . McCay pioneered the " McCay Split System " of inbetweening , in which major poses or positions were drawn first , and the intervening frames drawn after . This relieved tedium and improved the timing of the film 's actions . McCay refused to patent his system , and was sued in 1914 by animator John Randolph Bray , who took advantage of McCay 's lapse by patenting many of McCay 's techniques , including the use of registration marks , tracing paper , the Mutoscope action viewer , and the cycling of drawings to create repetitive action . The lawsuit was unsuccessful , and there is evidence that McCay may have countersued — he thereafter received royalty payments from Bray for licensing the techniques . 
