For this class, we’re also focusing on experimental animation. In addition to Visual Music, we now have another animation technique called Pixilation. One of the featured artists of the lecture was Norman McLaren who became a part of the National Film Board of Canada. Not only did he take part in creating visual music animation but he also experimented with Pixilation. His most notable animation was “Neighbours” (1952) that features two neighbors fighting over a flower in the most exaggerated way. The flower is a three dimentional object and is stop-motion animated as well.
Pixilation is a stop motion technique where instead of objects or puppets, live actors are used as the frame-by-frame subject instead. This would be done by repeatedly posing while a frame is being taken every time the pose slightly changes. This technique is used as a way to blend live actors with animated ones in movies.
An example of this in recent times is a project done by the Swiss artist named, Guillaume Reymond. This is a pixilation video depiction of the video game “Space Invaders.” This was for the “Belluard Bollwerk International” festival. The sound effects are all voice acted which gives it a similar atmosphere of McLaren’s work as well.
Julia Reymundo
ANIM223 - HISTORY OF ANIMATION - FALL 2019 