Movies: Norman McLaren

An experimental short film of images and music made by Norman McLaren....

Made during WWII...

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 beco...

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....

The third in a series of five colour films that offer an introduction to the basic techniques of film animation. McLaren explains and demonstrates different aspects of movement that are essential to the animator’s art. In this case it is the pause an...

An animated film in which colored shapes dance to calliope music. The visuals were drawn by Norman McLaren directly upon the film with pen and ink. Simple forms dance about the screen to the discordant strains of an old-time circus calliope....

New Yorkers watch as Norman McLaren's animated promotional film for Canadian tourism plays on the giant pixelboard overlooking Times Square. The caption below the board reads: "Canada... Wonderful World At Your Doorstep". McLaren himself is a member ...

A portrait of John Grierson, the first Canadian Government Film Commissioner and founder of the National Film Board in 1939. Interweaving archival footage, interviews with people who knew him and footage of Grierson himself, this film is a sensitive ...

An animation film, made without the use of a camera, in which "boogie" played by Albert Ammons and "doodle" drawn by Norman McLaren combine to make a rhythmic, brightly colored film experiment. The main title is in eight languages....

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 third thematic mini documentary about revolutionary filmmaker Norman McLaren....

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

Experimental film showing a day's activities at the Glasgow College of Art....

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 seque...

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....

Norman McLaren instructs Grant Munro on the movements he is to make. The film technique for Two Bagatelles is pixillation, where the actor is animated frame by frame, as in the film Neighbours/Voisins....

An animated victory bond message with the advice, "Don't cash in your bonds."...

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Norman McLaren made Scherzo early after his arrival in North America in 1939, but the film was subsequently lost. In 1984 the original materials were found and the hand-drawn images and sound were reconstituted. Picture and sound dance triple-quick i...

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