Norman McLaren Review

Norman McLaren

Bio:

Born: 11th April 1914 Stirling, Scotland

Died: 26th January 1987 Montreal, Canada

1) Norman McLaren

Norman McLaren was a Scottish born, multi award winning Canadian animator. He attended the Glasgow School of Art where he drew inspiration from the films of Fischinger, Cohl and Eisenstein. He was fascinated with motion and realized the potential of film as art form. "I found painting and drawing not satisfying because they didn't have motion and movement in them. I saw film as a means of manipulating motion." (McLaren quote, Beck. 2004:102) After winning a prize at the Glasgow Amateur film festival, McLaren took a position with Britain's General Post Office Film Unit.

His first assignment was to film the Spanish Civil War, he then returned to London to animate two films. Many a Pickle (1938) explored the pixilation technique whereas Love on the Wing (1938) was made by drawing directly on to film. He then emigrated to America and continued to animate short films and joined the National Film Board of Canada in 1941. 

In 1949, McLaren created one of his greatest films, Begone Dull Care, an abstract film with bursts of colour and shapes which multiply and recede to a composition by jazz composer Oscar Peterson. This film established McLaren as an 'alternative method' animator. Alternative in terms of industrial production such as stop motion and the established "Disney" style. Begone Dull Care demonstrated McLaren's ability to use music and sound to enhance his visual style. Andrew Selby explains "...McLaren used the medium (animation) as a way of expressing ideas through sound and image and questioning the conventions surrounding two-dimensional sequential work in the process." "...Mclaren was an accomplished filmmaker but also hugely invested in the influence of music and sound." (Selby. 2009:13).

2) Still from Begone Dull Care

In 1953, McLaren returned to Pixilation, making his most famous film Neighbours. It tells the story of warring neighbours fighting over a flower sprouted on their borders a metaphor for his antiwar feelings. He continued to explore the connection between visual imagery and sound, making Horizontal Lines in 1962 in which a horizontal line bounces up and down the screen, splitting into multiple lines on musical cues.

3) Still from Horizontal Lines

McLaren continued making films using a variety of techniques until his death in 1987. What many consider to be his masterpiece, Pas De Deux, was made in 1967 and choreographs movements of dancers from Les Grands Ballet Canadiens. He filmed the dancers on a dark stage, back lighting them to highlight their form and optically treated their movements to create a visually stunning picture. Paul Wells explains "His experimental approach was informed not merely by the intention of exploring aesthetic and technical possibilities, but by focusing on a research question to analyse and resolve in the outcome of the work. Here, to create an optical effect that revealed the lyrical phases of dance motion as if it were a visible frame-by-frame continuity in animation."  (Wells. 2006:13).

4) Stills from Pas De Deux

McLaren had a tremendous impact on the world of film, animation and art and was widely regarded as "the poet of animation".

Bibliography

Beck, Jerry (2004). Animation Art From Pencil to pixel, the histroy of Cartoon, Anime and CGI. London, Flame Tree Publishing.

Selby, Andrew (2009). Animation in Process. London, Laurence King Publishing Ltd.

Wells, Paul (2006). The Fundamentals of Animation. Switzerland, AVA Publishing.

Illustrations

1) Norman McLaren http://www3.nfb.ca/objan/lrg/Personnes/M/McLaren_Norman_60.jpg Accessed 20/03/11

2) Still fromBegone Dull Care still http://deeperintomovies.net/journal/image08/begonedullcares.jpg Accessed 20/03/11

3) Still from Horizontal Lines http://digitalarts.bgsu.edu/faculty/cjoritz/Spring11/artc3000_1/history/images/1962_Lines.jpg Accessed 20/03/11

4) Stills from Pas De Deux http://www.body-pixel.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Pas_de_Deux_Mclaren.jpg Accessed 20/03/11

Lotte Reiniger Review

Lotte Reiniger

Bio:

Born: 2nd June 1899, Berlin, Germany

Died: 19th June 1981, Dettenhausen, Germany

1) Lotte Reiniger

Lotte Reiniger was an avant-garde animator and film director. Born in  Berlin, Germany in 1899, she began as a theater student at Max Reinhardt's school in Berlin. She created a title sequence for expressionist director Paul Wegener's Die Rattefarger von Hamelin (The Pied Piper of Hamlin) in 1917.

Reiniger had a huge passion for Chinese shadow theater and used this technique on her short films 'Das Ornament des Veliebten Herzens' ('The Ornament of the Lovestruck Heart') and 'Cinderella' in 1922. Adapting fairy tales for the shadow medium became a huge part of her career.

2) Cinderella, 1922

"Lotte Reiniger's creativity and imagination found expression through the exacting details of finely cut paper, and moved frame by frame."

"She had an astonishing facility with cutting - holding the scissors still in her right hand, and manipulating the paper with her left hand so that the cut always went in the right direction." (Beck, 2004:26).

3) Technique

Reiniger preceded Disney helping to pioneer and devise the first multi plane camera. In 1923, with her husband Karl Koch, she started work on her (and arguably the worlds) first feature-length animated film. Eventually released in 1926 due to distribution problems, Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed ( The Adventures of Prince Achmed) became a critical and popular success, premiering at the Cannes film festival. Reiniger added depth to the end product by filming the figures through shelves of glass. "....in her cut-out, silhouette animation - most particularly, her full length work, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) - (Reiniger) successfully combined abstract work with a visual narrative more accessible to wider audiences. (Wells, 2006:146).

4) The Adventures of Prince Achmed cover

Reiniger and Koch emigrated to London with the rise of the Nazi party but continued to adapt fairy tales for the shadow medium with the added beauty of colour and music. In her later life she would concentrate her energy on presenting lectures and workshops on shadow animations.

Bibliography

Beck, Jerry (2004). Animation Art From Pencil to pixel, the histroy of Cartoon, Anime and CGI. London, Flame Tree Publishing.

Wells, Paul (2006). The Fudamentals of Animation. Switzerland, AVA Publishing.

Illustrations

1) Lotte Reiniger http://www.animationarchive.org/pics/achmedreiniger.jpg Accessed 20/03/11

2) Cinderella https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyhgMIU8DuqwxjzBEU7U8OrDw-JsC4KOUIgFugSCxrzx6zocaysEPn19c8yUC3ieAcnc0tbyIy2l9zXhLbNDzBPYvFsm-phwExdVTa7JmU9_bN-xI1X5lJM5_a0G1z0Fc5bX6WU2yScFE/s320/cinderella+5.png Accessed 20/03/11

3) Technique http://blog-imgs-27-origin.fc2.com/c/h/i/chicaorixas/achmed2teaser-big.jpg Accessed 20/03/11

4) The Adventures of Prince Achmed http://www.garoo9.com/elevator-kart/EK_files/movies/cover_achmed.jpg Accessed 20/03/11

Bowling Ball 2D Animation

Bouncing Ball 2D Animation

Blink and you'll miss it....

Life Drawing Week 21

2 x 15 minute pencil

1 x 15 minute pencil

1 x 5 minute pencil

10 minute moving model pencil

10 minute moving model pencil

Winsor McCay review

Winsor McCay

Bio
Born: 26th Sept 1867, Spring Lake, Michigan, USA.
Died: 26th July 1934, Brooklyn, New York, USA.
Birth Name: Zenas Winsor McKay

1) Winsor McCay

Born in Michigan, USA in 1867, Winsor McCay worked in various museums and theaters in Cincinnati as a poster and display artist. He joined the Cincinnati Enquirer as an artist / reporter in 1900. He enjoyed reasonable success before moving to New York in 1903, taking the city by storm creating several comic strips including Dream of the rarebit fiend and Little Sammy sneeze.

2) Dream of the rarebit fiend

McCay depicted motion in many of his comic strips and went on to become a pioneer in animation. One of his creations was Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). The general release version of Gertie for movie houses, depicts McCay accepting a bet to create a living dinosaur. Mccay painstakingly produced over ten thousand frames to bring Gertie to life. He would stand next to the projection and interact with Gertie, ordering him to raise his feet or catch an apple. It is widely misconceived that McCay created the first animated cartoon, he was however, the first to introduce it to the masses and give his characters personality. "What Gertie the Dinosaur was the first universally popular cartoon release, and also the first to exploit the possibilities of "personality" animation, rather than merely offering a series of moving images (this emphasis on personality would, of course, later become the cornerstone of Walt Disney's success)." (Erikson, 2010).

3) Gertie the Dinosaur

McCay cut his teeth in animation by introducing his short film Little Nemo (1911) using established characters from his newspaper comic-strip. It was his first feature and revealed he was an artist who had now conquered the fourth dimension, time. His next feature, How a Mosquito Operates (1912)  was darker intone but demonstrated his range in storytelling. " He had the ability to amaze and amuse, to astound and inspire, to surprise with his skill, and to touch emotions hideously dark, joyously light and strangely indefinable." (Beck, 14:2004).

4) How a Mosquito Operates

In 1918, McCay's artistic talents were used as propaganda in his short film The Sinking of the Lusitania. It describes the last moments of the passenger steamer The Lusitania as it is sunk by a German U-boat in 1915. It was the first time McCay used experimental work in mixed media and cel animation. It demonstrated that animation could not only be used to bring cartoon characters to life, but could depict startling realism featuring smoke, moving water and people abandoning the doomed ship. "‘The Sinking of the Lusitania’ is an astonishing film, which may be the first animated propaganda film. It’s totally unique in its drama, and, despite its propaganda, an all time masterpiece of animation. (Grob: 2010).

5) The Sinking of the Lusitania

Winsor McCay was undoubtedly an extremely versatile, imaginative and talented artist who's skills were not really appreciated until recently. The International Animated Film Society (ASIFA - Hollywood) fittingly have bestowed their highest award the Winsor McCay award. Winsor McCay was, in the words of critic W. Almont LaPeer, "the Mozart of Cartoonland."

Bibliography

Beck, Jerry (2004). Animation Art From Pencil to pixel, the histroy of Cartoon, Anime and CGI. London, Flame Tree Publishing.

Erickson, Hal. New York Times overview. 2010.

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/151281/Gertie-the-Dinosaur/overview Accessed 10/03/11

Grob, Dr. Dr Grob's Animation review 22nd June 2010.

http://animationreview.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/the-sinking-of-the-lusitania Accessed 10/03/11

Illustrations

1) Winsor McCay http://library.osu.edu/sites/exhibits/cartoonists/images/mcCay/mccay-self.jpg Accessed 10/03/11

2) Dream of the Rarebit fiend http://http://library.osu.edu/sites/exhibits/cartoonists/images/mcCay/rarebit.jpg Accessed 10/03/11

3) Gertie The Dinosaur http://www.filmreference.com/images/sjff_01_img0194.jpg&imgrefurl Accessed 10/03/11

4) How a Mosquito Operates http://img.listal.com/image/694175/936full-how-a-mosquito-operates-screenshot.jpg Accessed 10/03/11

5) The Sinking of the Lusitania http://animationreview.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/the-sinking-of-the-lusitania-c2a9-winsor-mccay.jpg Accessed 10/03/11

@Phil Story ideas and initial sketches

Thinking about my one minute animation, I have had a couple of ideas revolving around my 'randy' broom. My first idea took shape around the purpose of a broom, to clean. I envisioned the character in a dirty back street alley, the broom ogling passing dust pans, ironically dwelling in area he should be cleaning.

For my second idea, I thought about the broom as a witches broomstick. The broom wants to be flown by the witch and gets over excited mid flight. Having thought about it I think this idea oversteps the line and come across as too seedy.

My third idea places the broom in a hardware store. It is night and the store is closed and the broom is moping around the store cleaning the floor. He looks up to see a new brand of hoover on an advertising stand. In a bid to impress the new hoover, he struts around the floor in an exotic dance, gathering a pile of dirt and dust. He triumphantly poses infront of his accomplishment, embracing the hoover he leans in for a kiss when the hoover springs into life and hoovers up the dust.

Of all my ideas so far, I think the third is the strongest. Thinking about the look of my broom, I have drawn inspiration from the Disney's Fantasia, the Sorcerers apprentice. To add a twist to the design, I tried to think about lewd, seedy celebrities, particularly ones with mustaches....

Using the above images as inspiration, I have tried to incorporate the mustache into the bristles of my broom.

I personally don't think the bristles will work as a mustache and the legs / feet of my character. Speaking to my writing partner Ollie, he suggested moving the tasche to the handle... I did a quick sketch before our lecture this morning...

I think I have a decision to make, maybe I should just drop the whole mustache idea...