Norman McLaren by Choua Lor
Norman McLaren was a Scottish-born Canadian animator and film director known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada(NFB). He was born in Stirling, Scottish and and studied set design at the Glasgow School of Art. He used scratching and painting in the film stock for his early film and animation since he did not have ready access to a camera. McLaren’s second film, Camera Makes Whoopee(1935), was a more elaborate take on the themes explored in Seven Till Five, inspired by his acquisition of a Cine-Kodak camera, which enabled him to execute a number of ‘trick’ shots. He used pixilation effects, super impositions and animation not only to display the staging of an art school ball, but also to tap into the aesthetic sensations supposedly produced by this event.
After McLaren finished his studies in Glasgow and making a few films in London, he moved to New York City in 1939, just as WWII was about to begin in Europe. He moved to Canada in 1941 to work for the National Film Board, to open an animation studio and to train Canadian animators. During his work for the NFB, McLaren created his most famous film, Neighbours(1952), which has won various awards around the world. McLaren worked with UNESCO in the 1950s and 1960s on programs to teach film and animation techniques in China and India.
McLaren is remembered for his experiments with image and sound as he developed a number of groundbreaking techniques for combining and synchronizing animation with music. The NFB honoured McLaren’s genius by naming its Montreal head office building the Norman McLaren Building .
In 1968 he made an Officer of the Order of Canada and promoted to Companion in 1973. In 1982, he was the first anglophone to receive the Prix Albert-Tessier. In 2006, the Film Board maarked the 65th anniversary of NFB animation with an international retrospective of McLaren’s restored classics and a new DVD box set of his complete works. In 2009,his works were added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme, listing the most significant documentary heritage collections in the world.
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