Norman McLaren (1914-1987) was a significant
abstract filmmaker of the British inter-war period. He was born in Scotland and
in 1932 started the Glasgow School of Fine Arts, studying set design. When he
started to experiment with animation he scratched and painted film stock as he
didn’t have a camera. His earliest film was ‘Seven till Five’ (1933) “a day in
the life of an art school”. In 1935 he made a film called ‘Camera Make a Whoopee’
which expanded on the themes explored in ‘Seven Till Five’. He used a Kodak camera
and he was able to execute trick shots. He
moved around because of the war and in 1941, at the invitation of John Grierson, he moved to Canada to work for the National Film Board.
At the NFB he started to make propaganda
films but still experimented in his free time. He then founded the animation
department where he started to create his most famous work. This included ‘Neighbours’(1952) which won him an Oscar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_2_VYYl4-Y&index=14&list=PLE62BA969F0965EC2
He
used pixilation, which is where the camera films moving people and objects a
few frames at a time. He then went on to use a variety of styles and techniques
including optical editor to film ‘Pas de Deux’ (1968) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bXWWz5Tv_I
Filming
through a prism for the film ‘Lines Horizontal’ (1962) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDFWuvhqHo4
In the 50’s and 60’s McLaren worked with UNESCO to teach film and animation techniques in China and India. In the 70’s he then created a five part ‘Animated Motion’ which were short animations on the basics of film animation.
Len Lye (1901-1980)
Len Lye is another film maker who also established themselves
internationally in the inter-war era. Experimental filmmaking was what Lye was
most interested in. He was born in New Zealand which inspired him to look into
aboriginal art, this represented a ‘pre-rational’ artistic tradition. He then
moved to Britain where he joined the Seven and Five Society but did not like
that their style was static and so began to experiment in film more.
His first film was ‘Tusalava’ (1929)which involved 4000 separate
drawings and was not received well by viewers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flJOXMln4C0
‘Peanut Vendor’ (1933) was his next film but because he struggled
to find funding this was his last film before joining GPO Film Unit, Experimental
Animation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv6ma1qXNAg
He then went on to experiment with painting straight onto
celluloid. ‘Colour Box’ (1935) did not follow one line of movement and so had a
mass of complex and jumbled movements. This animation was more received by
audiences and he started to get more sponsors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPDWgpabc7U
As years went on Lye incorporated more ‘concrete’ symbols in his
work but still experimented with sound and colours.
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