Thursday, November 04, 2004
This morning after election let us look at the 3 great questions of life;
The first two questions are easy, the answer is 42. The last one is a problem mainly because of Norman McLaren of the Canadian Film Board.
One of the lectures I take a real joy in delivering to my History of Animation classes depends heavily of Mclaren`s work to drive home this very question of what truly is and what is not animation.
Last week I delivered this lecture to my Cal State Fullerton class on the night of a quiz thus assuring a full house. (I do not give make up tests and missed deadlines is my one intolerance)
I started the class with Begone Dull Care Norman Mclaren`s 1949 masterpiece scratched and painted straight onto raw film stock and masterfully synced to the up tempo, almost ragtime, score of Oscar Peterson.
One of my favorite parts of the film is when Mclaren forces the perception of the audience to the view that 5 or 6 moving white dots on a totally black screen are the lights of living beings striving against same primordial darkness.
It is a masterfully done manipulation showing a true understanding of the minds of the audience and the power of the music. It never fails to spark controversy. When the lights come up all I have to do to get a heated class discussion is ask is;
And so on and so forth, on down to a bold pronouncement of a definition by one student who knows for a fact just what animation is. I smile to myself as my student firmly states;
Rarely have I had a class play so totally into my hands. I quickly start the video again playing Mclaren`s Pas de Deux. The film in which Mclaren uses live action footage of two ballet dancers and a film recorder to create a lyrical work where thousands of images dance, freeze, spin, and superimpose across time at an artificially established rates of speed within a high contrasted world of light and dark.
My student, of the defining statement of just what is and what is not animation, firmly states that because this film uses live action it was therefore definitely not animation but some kind of special effects!
The night is going well for me. The animated cinema gods are smiling on my endeavor. I quickly put on Mclaren`s 1952 Oscar winning short animation Neighbors in which the filmmaker uses actors as stop motion models making them float in the air and slide on their bellies in a manner impossible at that time without the frame by frame creation techniques that can only be called animation.
Sometimes we teachers get what is called in the trade a teachable moment (a lucky break) and we can come away from a class feeling that we have done something to change the minds of our students and maybe even open them up a little.
It still doesn`t make it any easier to face that stack of papers and tests I have waiting for me this morning from 5 different classes on this my so called day off.
larry@agni-animation.com
- What is the meaning of life?
- How many angles can dance on the head of a pin?
- What is animation?
The first two questions are easy, the answer is 42. The last one is a problem mainly because of Norman McLaren of the Canadian Film Board.
One of the lectures I take a real joy in delivering to my History of Animation classes depends heavily of Mclaren`s work to drive home this very question of what truly is and what is not animation.
Last week I delivered this lecture to my Cal State Fullerton class on the night of a quiz thus assuring a full house. (I do not give make up tests and missed deadlines is my one intolerance)
I started the class with Begone Dull Care Norman Mclaren`s 1949 masterpiece scratched and painted straight onto raw film stock and masterfully synced to the up tempo, almost ragtime, score of Oscar Peterson.
One of my favorite parts of the film is when Mclaren forces the perception of the audience to the view that 5 or 6 moving white dots on a totally black screen are the lights of living beings striving against same primordial darkness.
It is a masterfully done manipulation showing a true understanding of the minds of the audience and the power of the music. It never fails to spark controversy. When the lights come up all I have to do to get a heated class discussion is ask is;
Is it animation?
No, it is a light show. Anybody could create it with a computer editing program!
In 1949? There were no graphic computer programs. And what difference does it make if a work can be easily created or recreated?
And so on and so forth, on down to a bold pronouncement of a definition by one student who knows for a fact just what animation is. I smile to myself as my student firmly states;
These are sequential moving images on film that are not live action
therefore this is an animation!
Rarely have I had a class play so totally into my hands. I quickly start the video again playing Mclaren`s Pas de Deux. The film in which Mclaren uses live action footage of two ballet dancers and a film recorder to create a lyrical work where thousands of images dance, freeze, spin, and superimpose across time at an artificially established rates of speed within a high contrasted world of light and dark.
My student, of the defining statement of just what is and what is not animation, firmly states that because this film uses live action it was therefore definitely not animation but some kind of special effects!
The night is going well for me. The animated cinema gods are smiling on my endeavor. I quickly put on Mclaren`s 1952 Oscar winning short animation Neighbors in which the filmmaker uses actors as stop motion models making them float in the air and slide on their bellies in a manner impossible at that time without the frame by frame creation techniques that can only be called animation.
Sometimes we teachers get what is called in the trade a teachable moment (a lucky break) and we can come away from a class feeling that we have done something to change the minds of our students and maybe even open them up a little.
It still doesn`t make it any easier to face that stack of papers and tests I have waiting for me this morning from 5 different classes on this my so called day off.
larry@agni-animation.com
