Norman McLaren

Pinscreen animation makes use of a screen filled with movable pins, which can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows.

A man sets a ping-pong ball into motion and it becomes fruitful and multiplies.

A slow-motion study by Norman McLaren of the pas-de-deux adagio, one of the most exacting and difficult dances of classical ballet. A ballet originally choreographed by the Russian ballet master Asaf Messerer is performed for this film by the internationally known Canadian pair, David and Anna Marie Holmes, to the music of Albinoni’s Adagio. A film to heighten the aesthetic appreciation of classical ballet and to afford observation of the technique and mechanics of the adagio movements.

"Fly too high and you will burn, go too low and you won't breathe." A 7 day vlog during the summer of 2023, a story of dreamers and drowners.

This short animation of linear symbols made from paper cutouts was created as a Canadian tourism publicity clip. Projected in New York's Times Square, the large signboard was made up of thousands of light bulbs activated by the film images. The film promotes the attractions of the country: the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Calgary Stampede, winter sports, the Canadian Rockies and more, all in McLaren's signature irreverent and playful style.

To the tune of a classic French-Canadian nonsense song, surreal blackbird made of lines loses body parts and gets them back threefold.

Norman McLaren attempts to give the opening speech for the first Montreal International Film Festival, but his microphone won't cooperate.

This documentary is a portrait of the animator of Le Paysagiste, from his childhood in Eastern Quebec to his career at the NFB. Trained at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Drouin became in some ways the heir to Alexandre Alexeïeff when he began working with the Alexeïeff-Parker pinhole screen in 1974. Recounting his relationship with the filmmaker and inventor, coming back with lucidity and precision on the whole of his own filmography, Jacques Drouin delivers here a precious testimony on creation. Enriched with numerous excerpts and unpublished images from the filmmaker's personal archives, Jacques Drouin en relief is both the adventure of a lifetime and a valuable lesson in cinema.

An animated short film about The Four Seasons by Norman McLaren.

This animated short is a play on motion set against a background of multi-hued sky. Spheres of translucent pearl float weightlessly in the unlimited panorama of the sky, grouping, regrouping or colliding like the stylized burst of some atomic chain reaction. The dance is set to the musical cadences of Bach, played by pianist Glenn Gould.

A playful exercise in intermittent animation and spasmodic imagery. Playing with the laws relating to persistence of vision and after-image on the retina of the eye, McLaren engraves pictures on blank film creating vivid, percussive effects.

Perhaps the only film whose content is totally based on the musical form known as canon. The first sequence is a simple demonstration of the canon "Frere Jacques" where four cubes dance and combine with one another on a checkerboard. The second sequence show four little human-like figures dancing in space. The third and most elaborate sequence shows a human going through several strange gesticulations. Through multiple printing we realize that the man, as in the previous sequences, is part of a visual canon and is making the gestures to himself. As we hear variations on the canonic theme so too do we witness visual variations: a woman and cat enters the canon. To show the musical technique of inversion, the image of the man is printed upside down.

The film's soundtrack is an original musical composition produced with synthetic sound - through photographing unusual geometric shapes and running them through an optical sound head. The images are an artistic rendering of this soundtrack.

Two ballet dancers perform a dance enhanced with surreal after-image visuals.

In this Oscar-winning short film, Norman McLaren employs the principles normally used to put drawings or puppets into motion to animate live actors. The story is a parable about two people who come to blows over the possession of a flower.

An animated film drawn entirely in pastels. Various fantastical plant-like things "grow" from the ground, eventually launching five spheres. The spheres drift in space while changing shapes and come back down to another setting, which eventually becomes more fantastical and symbolic than the opening one. The soundtrack has a jazz slant, with an ensemble of four saxophones and synthetic sound (i.e. sound created by drawing directly on the soundtrack).

An attempt to animate an abstract Charlie Chaplin-esque figure.

This wartime publicity trailer by Norman McLaren focuses on wartime inflation and the role of price control. Single-frame animation is used with pen drawings made directly on 35mm film stock. Music is by Louis Applebaum, a leading composer and advocate for the arts in Canada.

This joyful short animation features a dancing hen that transforms into an egg. The film was made without a camera by Norman McLaren, who drew directly onto 35 mm movie stock with ordinary pen and ink. Colour was added optically.

This animated short co-animated by René Jodoin and Norman McLaren was produced for inclusion in the Let's All Sing Together sing-along series. It illustrates the popular song Alouette, gentille alouette. The technique used is single-frame animation of paper cutouts.

An ordinary-looking chair refuses to be sat upon.

In this early film Norman McLaren shot crystal formations through a low-power microscope, using polarized light with the lower part of the picture masked off. The film was then rewound and a scene of dancers was filmed.

The Korean alphabet, illustrated with animation, spoken, and accompanied by music.

Images supered on a revolving barrel.