![]() He made his last film for the NFB, Narcissus, in 1983 and passed away in 1987. In the 1960s he became fascinated with dance and broke new ground with another Oscar-nominated film, the beautiful Pas de deux (1967), a black-and-white visual poem that uses multiple exposures. McLaren dazzled audiences around the world with his colourful, innovative films. Both the Oscar-winning Neighbours (1952 made with Grant Munro), and the Oscar-nominated A Chairy Tale (1957 made with Evelyn Lambart) were made this way. His "pixilation" (stop-motion) techniques of animating live actors were also extraordinarily imaginative. He widened the parameters of his art, employing unusual and diverse types of music and experimenting with abstract form. His technical innovations, drawing directly on film and eliminating the need for a camera, were revolutionary. Hen Hop (1942) and Begone Dull Care (1949 in collaboration with jazz great Oscar Peterson) are two good examples of his early work. He also began to recruit young artists from across Canada to assist him, thereby laying the foundation for the future success of the NFB.With a minimum of means, animators such as George Dunning, Wolf Koenig, Colin Low, Jim McKay, Evelyn Lambart, Grant Munro and René Jodoin produced films of charm and vitality.Īfter the Second World War, McLaren turned his attention towards more personal projects, leaving a legacy that is legendary. McLaren's effervescent imagination was applied to this task immediately. Shortly after John Gierson was appointed to head the NFB, he asked his friend and former colleague, the gentle Scotsman Norman McLaren, to join him in Canada for "forty dollars a week and a chance to make films." In 1942, McLaren was put in charge of the fledgling animation department to produce short propaganda messages for the war effort. With the founding of the NFB in 1939, conditions were established that would guarantee continuity of production free from commercial pressures. These early attempts were all necessarily sporadic and unconnected. Norman McLaren and the National Film Board of Canada Shortly afterwards, Fryer was forced to suspend his activities, and he moved into commercial production. Six years later he embarked on a new series, Shadowettes, producing 3 films using the silhouette technique made famous in Germany by Lotte Reiniger. In the 1920s a Toronto painter and illustrator, Bryant Fryer, began work on the first of a series of animated films called Shadow Laughs only 2 films in the series of 12 were completed, both in 1927. Other Canadian pioneers in animation were Walter Swaffield, Harold Peberdy and Bert Cob however, the first animated films, all predating 1920, have disappeared. Magoo and Bosustow won 2 Oscars for his cartoons. In 1945, he and several other disenchanted Disney artists formed United Productions of America (UPA). He worked with Ub Iwerks and Walter Lantz, and joined the Walt Disney Studios as an animator/writer in 1934. Victoria-born Stephen Bosustow (1911-81) began working professionally as a cartoonist in Hollywood in the early 1930s. He is credited with several early innovations to the process of animation, some of which remain in use today. Barré wrote, directed and animated more than 30 shorts from 1914-19 and in the 1920s he worked on the early Felix the Cat cartoons. He moved to New York where he founded one of the world's first animation studios in 1914. The Quebec-born pioneering animator and director, Raoul Barré (1874-1932), created the first strip cartoon for Montréal's La Presse in 1902. This reputation has been built since 1942 and is largely, though not entirely, based on the legacy of Norman McLaren (1914-87) and the films produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Canada commands worldwide respect for its animators and work in film animation.
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