Cinema Canada (Aug-Sep 1973)

_ —_— oo Hee errr. ne rrr gg es ce ee Eg — i 1947 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1956 1957 1958 1959 ““Fiddle-De-Dee”’, color, 35 mm, 3% min, sound (cameraless abstraction, made largely without reference to the frame divisions in the film, set to a Gatineau Valley old-time fiddler’s spirited rendition of “‘Listen To a Mocking Bird”’) “La Poulette Grise”, Kodachrome, 16 mm, 5% min, sound (CP series) (illustration of Anne Malenfant’s rendition of the folk song, with pastel method animation) “Begone Dull Care”, color, 35 mm, 7% min, sound (codirected with Evelyn Lambart) (similar to “‘Fiddle-De-Dee”’, set to music played by the Oscar Peterson jazz trio) Goes to China to work on a UNESCO experiment in fundamental education and trains many Chinese students in the art of simple animation techniques (supervises several student films) “Pen Point Percussion’, bw, 35 mm, 7 min, sound (a documentary showing McLaren’s technique of hand-drawn sound on film; designed as an introduction to “Dots” and “Loops’’) “Chalk River Ballet”, color, 35 mm, sound (uncompleted) (an abstraction bearing homage to the uranium-bearing river, in collaboration with Réné Jodoin) “Around is Around”’, English Technicolor, 35 mm, 10 min, sound (an experimental 3-D film made for the Festival of Britain; a co-production of the NFB and the British Film Institute) (abstract stereoscopic animation using cathode-ray oscillograph to generate mobile patterns; assisted by Evelyn Lambart) “Now is the Time’’, English Technicolor, 35 mm, 3 min, sound (an experimental 3-D film made for the Festival of Britain; a co-production of the NFB and the British Film Institute) (paper cut-outs and direct drawing on film, with stereoscopic animation and stereophonic sound) “A Phantasy”, Kodachrome, 16 mm, 7 min, sound (begun in 1948) (a semi-abstract, semi-surrealist essay made by the pastel method and using some cut-outs; music for saxophones and synthetic sound by Maurice Blackburn) “Two Bagatelles”, Kodachrome, 16 mm, 2% min, sound (two short films in which the principles of animation normally used to put drawings into motion are used to animate live actors, i.e. frame-by-frame animation of human beings) (the two films are a short Waltz, “On the Lawn” — a male dancer performs gliding Waltz steps to the accompaniment of animated synthetic sound — and a fast march, “In the Backyard”, with a racing accompaniment by a calliope) “Neighbours”, Kodachrome, 16 mm, 8 min, sound (this film, using frame-by-frame animation of humans, is a simple parable about two people who come to blows over the possession of a flower; won an Oscar in 1953) Leaves for India to participate in another UNESCO project “Blinkity Blank’’, color, 35 mm, 6 min, sound (image flashes of fantastic animals mating and fighting one another in intermittent animation; scratched at intervals on blank 35 mm film, with instrumental music of Maurice Blackburn supplemented by McLaren’s drawn sounds) “One Two Three’’, uncompleted (a film used as a test for “Rythmetic’’) “Rythmetic’’, color, 35 mm, 8% min, sound (cut-outs of numbers given life and motion to prompt interest in classrooms and literacy programs; assisted by Evelyn Lambart) “A Chairy Tale’, bw, 35 mm, 9% min, sound (co-directed with Claude Jutra) (live actor animation showing pas de deux of man and chair; Eastern music on Indian instruments by Ravi Shankar) “Le Merle”, color, 35 mm, 4 min, sound (paper strips animated to illustrate actions of the blackbird in the folk song) “Serenal’’, color, 16 mm, 3 min, sound (semi-abstract illustration of a West Indies drumband tune, etched directly on 16 mm film with a vibra drill and colored, largely without reference to the frame divisions of the film) “Short and Suite’’, color, 35 mm, 5 min, sound (abstract cameraless animation, in the manner of ‘“Fiddle-DeDee’’, etched on film with a vibra drill; music is an ensemble of jazz by Eden Rathburn) “Mail Early for Christmas’’, color, 35 mm, 30 sec, sound (another version of an earlier film, this time with cameraless ‘ * animation etched on film with a vibra drill) 1960 1961 1962 1964 1965 1967 1969 1971 Makes credit titles for the television show, “The Wonderful World of Jack Paar” “Lines Vertical’, color, 35 mm, 5% min, sound (experiment in pure design by Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart — lines, ruled directly on the film, move against a background of changing colors in response to music) “Opening Speech”, bw, 35 mm, 7 min, sound (originally made for the official opening of the Montreal Film Festival; McLaren attempts with absolutely no success to deliver a speech via a recalcitrant microphone) “New York Lightboard — Welcome to Canada”, bw, 35 mm, 8 min, silent (publicizing film for the Canadian Tourist Bureau) (cameraless animation combined with frame-by-frame animation of individual drawings on small pieces of paper and with cut-out letters; the film was designed for use in a special advertising lightboard on Times Square in New York City) “Lines Horizontal”, color, 35 mm, 5% min, sound (abstract variation based on a single line; made by optically turning each frame of “‘Lines Vertical” by ninety degrees; music by Pete Seeger) “Christmas Crackers’’, color, 35 mm, 9 min, sound (animation of a human being) “Canon’’, color, 35 mm, 10 min, sound (Norman McLaren and Grant Munro demonstrate by animation and live action how the musical canon is constructed; with cubes, cut-out silhouettes, human beings, and one cat) “Mosaic”, bw and color, 35 mm, 5% min, sound (“op” art in film; a single tiny square, tossed on the screen by McLaren himself, divides into many segments, eventually forming a colorful mosaic; made by combining parts of “Lines — Vertical and Horizontal” to produce a ballet of points) “Pas de Deux”, bw, 35 mm, 13% min, sound (a film of two ballet dancers; by exposing the frame as many as ten times, a multiple image of the single dancer and her partner is created) “Spheres’’, color, 35 mm, 7% min, sound (a play on motion, against a background of a multi-hued sky; by Norman McLaren and Réné Jodoin) “Synchromy’”’, color, 35 mm, 7% min, sound (a film on the pyrotechnics of the piano keyboard, with novel optical techniques to compose the rhythms on the soundtrack) V. Bibliography 1. Jordan, William E. “Norman McLaren: His Career and Techniques” Quarterly of Film, Radio, and Television, V//J (1), 1954 2. McWilliams, Don “Talking to a Great Film Artist Norman McLaren” McGill Reporter, 7 (35), April 28, 1969 3. ““Norman McLaren” Journées Internationales du Cinéma d’Animation Cinématéque Canadienne, Montréal, 1965 4. Elliott, Lawrence “Norman McLaren: Gentle Genius of the Screen” Reader’s Digest, August 1971 , 5. Morris, Peter, editor “The National Film Board of Canada: The War Years” Canadian Film Archives, Canadian Filmography Series No. 3 Canadian Film Institute, Ottawa, 1965 6. National Film Board of Canada Film Catalogue, 1971-1972 7. Glover, Guy “Nine Film Animators Speak”’, section by Norman McLaren ArtsCanada, April 1970 Cinema Canada 49