Norman McLaren
William Norman McLaren, LL. D. (11 April 1914 – 27 January 1987) was a Scottish-Canadian animator, director and producer known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).Rosenthal, Alan. ''The new documentary in action: a casebook in film making''. University of California Press, 1972. 267-8. Print. He was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including hand-drawn animation, drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound. McLaren was also an artist and printmaker, and explored his interest in dance in his films. His films garnered numerous awards, including one Academy Awards, Oscar, one , three BAFTA Awards and six Venice Film Festival awards. Early life Norman McLaren was born in Stirling, Scotland, on 11 April 1914. He had two older siblings, one brother, Jack and a sister, Sheena. At the age of 21, he travelled to Soviet Union for a holiday which confirmed his communist beliefs, although his fath ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Drawn-on-film Animation
Drawn-on-film animation, also known as direct animation or animation without camera, is an animation technique where footage is produced by creating the images directly on film stock, as opposed to any other form of animation where the images or objects are photographed frame by frame with an animation camera. History The first and best known practitioners of drawn-on-film animation include Len Lye, Norman McLaren, Stan Brakhage, then later artists including Steven Woloshen, Richard R. Reeves, Scott Fitzpatrick and Baerbel Neubauer, who produced numerous animated films using these methods. Their work covers the whole span between narrative and totally abstract animation. Other filmmakers in the 1960s expanded the idea and subjected the film stock to increasingly radical methods, up to the point where the film was destroyed in the process Movie projector, projection. Some artists made this destruction a statement, others went back one step and copied the original work film strip t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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A Chairy Tale
''A Chairy Tale'' () is a 1957 Canadian stop-motion pixilation short film co-directed by Norman McLaren and Claude Jutra for the National Film Board of Canada. Set to the music of Ravi Shankar and Chatur Lal, it comedically portrays Jutra's attempts to sit on an uncooperative chair. Synopsis The film begins with a seemingly normal chair onscreen. Jutra enters, carrying a book, and attempts to sit on the chair so he can read his book. The chair unexpectedly moves out from under him. The man's persistent become increasingly frenetic and violent to himself. Finally, the man realises that perhaps the chair will let him sit on it if he allows the chair to sit on ''him'' first. This gambit succeeds, resulting the man sits on the chair at the end. Filming The film took place on one indoor scene such as an empty stage and dark curtains in the background. The animated chair method involved using the traditional string-puppet technique with the exception of attaching the string horizon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Palme D'Or
The (; ) is the highest prize awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film. In 1964, the was replaced again by the Grand Prix, before being reintroduced in 1975. The is widely considered one of the film industry's most prestigious awards. History In 1954, the festival decided to present an award annually, titled the Grand Prix of the International Film Festival, with a new design each year from a contemporary artist. The festival's board of directors invited several jewellers to submit designs for a palm, in tribute to the coat of arms of the city of Cannes, evoking the famous legend of Saint Honorat and the palm trees lining the famous Promenade de la Croisette. The original design by Parisian jeweller Lucienne Lazon, inspired by a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The Oscars are widely considered to be the most prestigious awards in the film industry. The major award categories, known as the Academy Awards of Merit, are presented during a live-televised Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood ceremony in February or March. It is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony. The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929. The 2nd Academy Awards, second ceremony, in 1930, was the first one broadcast by radio. The 25th Academy Awards, 1953 ceremony was the first one televised. It is the oldest of the EGOT, four major annual American entertainment awards. Its counterparts—the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Senses Of Cinema
''Senses of Cinema'' is a quarterly online film magazine founded in 1999 by filmmaker Bill Mousoulis. Based in Melbourne, Australia, ''Senses of Cinema'' publishes work by film critics from all over the world, including critical essays, career overviews of the works of key directors, and coverage of many international festivals. Its contributors have included Raphaël Bassan, Salvador Carrasco, Barbara Creed, Wheeler Winston Dixon, David Ehrenstein, Thomas Elsaesser, Valie Export, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, Dušan Makavejev, Edgar Morin, Joseph Natoli, Murray Pomerance, Berenice Reynaud, Jonathan Rosenbaum, David Sanjek, Sally Shafto, David Sterritt, Robert Dassanowsky, and Viviane Vagh. The magazine's current editors are Amanda Barbour, Tara Judah, Abel Muñoz-Hénonin and Fiona Villella. Format Every issue of ''Senses of Cinema'' follows roughly the same format: about a dozen "featured articles," often related to a unifying theme, a special dossier often devot ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Graphical Sound
Graphical sound or drawn sound (Fr. ''son dessiné'', Ger. ''graphische Tonerzeugung'',; It. ''suono disegnato'') is a sound recording created from images drawn directly onto film or paper that were then played back using a sound system. There are several different techniques depending on the technology employed, but all are a consequence of the sound-on-film technology and based on the creation of artificial optical polyphonic sound tracks on transparent film. History The first practical sound-on-film systems were created almost simultaneously in the USSR, USA and Germany. In Soviet Russia Pavel Tager initiated the first developments in 1926 in Moscow. In 1927, just over a few months later, Alexander Shorin started his research in Leningrad. The popular version of his “Shorinophone”, widely used for field and studio sound recording, was based on a mechanical reproduction of gramophone-like longitudinal grooves along the filmstrip. Another version of Shorin’s system – � ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pixilation
Pixilation is a stop motion technique in which live actors are used as a frame-by-frame subject in an animated film, by repeatedly posing while one or more frame is taken and changing pose slightly before the next frame or frames. This technique is often used as a way to blend live actors with animated ones in a movie. Early examples of this technique are included in Segundo de Chomón's ''Cuisine magnétique'' and '' Hôtel électrique'', both from 1908, and Émile Cohl's 1911 movie ''Jobard ne peut pas voir les femmes travailler'' (''Jobard cannot see the women working''). The term is widely credited to Grant Munro (although some say it was Norman McLaren) and he made an experimental movie named "Pixillation", available in his DVD collection "Cut Up – The Films of Grant Munro." Films * Norman McLaren's Oscar-winner ''Neighbours'', '' A Chairy Tale'' (1957) and ''Two Bagatelles'' * Chuck Menville and Len Janson's trilogy of pixilated short films '' Stop Look and List ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Abstract Film
Abstract may refer to: *"Abstract", a 2017 episode of the animated television series ''Adventure Time'' * ''Abstract'' (album), 1962 album by Joe Harriott * Abstract algebra, sets with specific operations acting on their elements * Abstract of title, a summary of the documents affecting the title to a parcel of land * Abstract (law), a summary of a legal document * Abstract (summary), in academic publishing * Abstract art, artistic works that do not attempt to represent reality or concrete subjects * '' Abstract: The Art of Design'', 2017 Netflix documentary series * Abstract music, music that is non-representational * Abstract object in philosophy * Abstract structure in mathematics * Abstract type in computer science * The property of an abstraction * Q-Tip (musician), also known as "The Abstract" * Abstract and concrete In philosophy and the arts, a fundamental distinction exists between abstract and concrete entities. While there is no universally accepted definition, comm ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Visual Music
Visual music, sometimes called color music, refers to the creation of a visual analogue to musical form by adapting musical structures for visual composition, which can also include silent films or silent Lumia work. It also refers to methods or devices which can translate sounds or music into a related visual presentation. An expanded definition may include the translation of music to painting; this was the original definition of the term, as coined by Roger Fry in 1912 to describe the work of Wassily Kandinsky. There are a variety of definitions of visual music, particularly as the field continues to expand. In some recent writing, usually in the fine art world, visual music is often conflated with or defined as synaesthesia, though historically this has never been a definition of visual music. Visual music has also been defined as a form of intermedia. Visual music also refers to systems which convert music or sound directly into visual forms, such as film, video, comput ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hand-drawn Animation
Traditional animation (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation of the 20th century, until there was a shift to computer animation in the industry, such as digital ink and paint, a modern form of traditional animation methods, and 3D computer animation. Process Writing and storyboarding Animation production usually begins after a story is converted into an animation film script, from which a storyboard is derived. A storyboard has an appearance somewhat similar to comic book panels, and is a shot by shot breakdown of the staging, acting and any camera moves that will be present in the film. The images allow the animation team to plan the flow of the plot and the composition of the imagery. Storyboard artists will have regular meetings with the director and may redraw or "re-board" a sequence many times before it meets final approval. Voic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Animator
An animator is an artist who creates images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games. Animation is closely related to filmmaking and like filmmaking is extremely labor-intensive, which means that most significant works require the collaboration of several animators. The methods of creating the images or frames for an animation piece depend on the animators' artistic styles and their field. Other artists who contribute to animated cartoons, but who are not animators, include Page layout, layout artists (who design the backgrounds, lighting, and camera angles), storyboard artists (who draw panels of the action from the script), and background artists (who paint the "scenery"). Animated films share some film crew positions with regular live action films, such as director, producer, sound engineer, and editor, but differ radically i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Narcissus (1983 Film)
''Narcissus'' is a 1983 Canadian short musical and experimental film directed by Norman McLaren and produced by David Verrall, visualizing the legend of Narcissus in a modern way.Alex Davidson"10 great Canadian lesbian, gay and transgender films" British Film Institute, March 12, 2019. It was produced for the National Film Board of Canada. Cast * Jean-Louis Morin as "Narcissus" * Sylvie Kinal as "Nymph" * Sylvain Lafortune as "A friend" Production The film had a budget of $702,607 (). Awards * International Film Festival of India, New Delhi: Golden Peacock for Best Short Film of the Festival, 1984 * Dance on Camera Festival, New York: Gold Star Award, 1984 * Yorkton Film Festival, Yorkton: Golden Sheaf for Best Experimental Film, 1984 * American Film and Video Festival, New York: Honorable Mention, Visual Essays, 1984 * Columbus International Film & Animation Festival, Columbus, Ohio: Honorable Mention, 1984 * Cartagena International Film Festival, Murcia, Spain: Special Menti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |