Norman McLaren Movies

In this Oscar-winning short film, Norman McLaren employs the principles normally used to put drawings or puppets into motion to animate live actors....

A playful exercise in intermittent animation and spasmodic imagery. Playing with the laws relating to persistence of vision and after-image on the...

In this extraordinary short animation, Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren painted colours, shapes, and transformations directly onto their filmstrip....

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...

An ordinary looking chair refuses to be sat upon.

In this short film by Norman McLaren, dancers enact the Greek tragedy of Narcissus, the beautiful youth whose excessive self-love condemned him to a...

"Fly too high and you will burn, go too low and you won't breathe." Daedalus weaves a tale of ambition and caution through an ancient myth, set in a...

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

Russian artist Alexander Alexeieff illustrated the song "Et moi je m'enfouiyais" (En passant) using the pinscreen technique. Norman McLaren...

An animated film drawn entirely in pastels. Various fantastical plant-like things "grow" from the ground, eventually launching five spheres. The...

This wartime publicity trailer by Norman McLaren focuses on wartime inflation and the role of price control. Single-frame animation is used with pen...

This animated short by Norman McLaren is a publicity message for a war bond campaign. Symbols, a stick man and lettering are drawn directly on 35mm...

Norman McLaren was a cinematic genius who made films without cameras, and music without instruments. He produced sixty films in a stunning range of...

The third in a series of five colour films that offer an introduction to the basic techniques of film animation. McLaren explains and demonstrates...

A Cockney lad trains to be a messenger boy.

An abstract animation by Norman McLaren, who was born in Scotland in 1914. His interest in filmmaking began early in life after he became acquainted...

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...

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

In this short animation film, Norman McLaren presents the first 3 of the 5 categories of motion: constant, accelerated and decelerated. Various types...