German film director and animator, Lotte Reiniger born in 1899 and died 1981 leaving behind her original invention of silhouette animation, which she used to make many animation shots such as Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, The Adventures of Prince Achmed etc. She goes down as a pioneer in animation history and in avante-garde.
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| Cinderella: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kku75vGDD_0 |
Silhouette animation is cutting out card and putting it against a screen, recording each movements sequenced together to create an animation. She wrote a book on her invention called 'Shadow Theatres and Shadow Films'. Her films are beautiful to watch as they have a particular charm, like puppetry in the movements and the still frames individually are a work of art, Dan North of Spectacular Attractions as “evocative and engrossing.”
When Reiniger was younger she had an affinity with fairy tales and at school experimented with shadow puppet productions - she was inspired by the Chinese art of puppetry and used to make her puppets act out scenes from Shakespeare. However getting into industry was difficult for Reiniger because at the time women did not have the same rights as men to follow whatever career path they desired, because of her signature style and talents she had the opportunity to work for the Berliner Institut für Kulturforschung experimentation studio where she met other avante-garde artists and her husband, there she worked more of an artist rather than film maker and began making her animation shorts.
During the 1930s her and her family fled Germany due to the world war and travelled from place to place where they finally settled down in London after the war, she made films for 'GPO Film Unit' but later on Reiniger made a dozen films for 'Primrose Productions' which sparked her career again lasting another decade.
Bibliography
Information found at:
- https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/02/lotte-reiniger-the-pioneer-of-silhouette-animation-google-doodle
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/01/lotte-reiniger-the-pioneering-film-maker-whose-shadow-puppets-in/
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