See also: McLaren

Norman McLaren (April 11th 1914, Stirling, the United Kingdom - January 26th 1987, Montreal, Canada) is a British Réalisateur (naturalized American) of films, in particular of animation. He is regarded as one of the large Masters of the world cinema of animation.

Work

Companion of life of the director of the French section of ONF, Guy Clover, his work developed within the cultural and political boiling Québécois Cinéma of then. Some of its films will be done besides in French.

He tried out many techniques:

Scraping of film, Painting on film, and even painting of the sound on film, Pixilation, Taken of real sight, Stop motion, Cartoon.

Norman McLaren in particular took as a starting point the techniques of superposition of character on a decoration of Emile Courtet, in his techniques of scraping of film, as in Love one the Wing for example.

Of an overflowing creativity, McLaren tests constantly, with the manner of the visual artist in his studio. It uses the same starting images in its 2 films Horizontal lines and vertical Lignes .

It also innovates in the creation of the sound, directly drawing the optical sound track of its films. It creates for itself a system of reference mark, establishing correspondences between spaces of the features and notes of musics, to which it adds masks in order to create simple sound waves or more complexes. One sees his work on this level in With the Point of the Feather .

He worked within the National office of film of Canada.

Honors

Rewards

• 1952 - Oscar of best short-measuring, Neighbors
• 1958 - Special price with the BAFTA Awards in the Canada category with Claude Jutra for It was a chair
• 1958 - In Canadian Films Awards, Meilleur film in the category Arts and Experimental with Claude Jutra for It was a chair
• 1962 - Médaille of the royal Academy of arts of Canada
• 1972 - Prix Molson
• 1973 - Compagnon of the Ordre of Canada
• 1982 - Price Albert-Tessier
• 1985 - Knight of the National order of Quebec

Nomination

• 1958 - In Academy Awards the USA, Oscar in the category: Best Shorts Subject, Live Subjects Action, for It was a chair

Partial catalog of films

• 7 till 5 (1933, 9 min 27, n&b);
• Coils one the Wing (1936, 4 min, color);
• Hell Unlimited (1936, 14 min, n&b, dumb man);
• V for Victory (1941);
• Hen Hop (1942, 3 min, color);
• It is the Oar (1943, 3 min 20 S, n&b) Adaptation of the song “It is the Oar”;
• Dollar Dances (1943, 4 min, color);
• Whim Colors (1949, 9 min, color);
• With the Point of the Feather (1951, 6 min, n&b, documentary);
• has Phantasy (1952, 7 min, color);
• Close / Neighbors (1952, 8 min 10 S): received a Oscar;
• Blinkity Blank (1955, 5 min 15 S, color): received the gold Palm of the short film to the Cannes festival;
• Rythmetic (1956, 9 min, color);
• It was a Chair (1957, 10 min, n&b), music of (Ravi Shankar);
• the Blackbird (1958, 4 min, color);
• vertical Lines (1960, 6 min);
• Horizontal lines (1960, 6 min);
• Speech of Welcome of Norman McLaren (1961, 7min, n&b);
• Canon (1964, 9 min 13 S, color);
• Mosaic (1965, 5 min, color);
• Not of Two (1968, 13 min, n&b);
• Synchromie (1971, 7 min 27s);
• the Movement Image by Image , series in 5 parts Co-realized with Grant Munro, (1978, color);
• Narcisse , (1983, 22 min, color)

Bibilographic references

• Norman McLaren, precursor of the new images , Alfio Bastiancich, Editions Dreamland

• Norman McLaren: silence of Prométhée , Raphaël Bassan, in Books of experimental Paris , n° 17

External bond

• Its card with the ONF