Friday 27 February 2009

Lotte Reiniger - paper genius


having written about papercut illustration earlier this week, i thought this to be the perfect video-vendredi to pay tribute to Lotte Reiniger, the great German animator who created more than 70 paper animation films in her lifetime. The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) (arguably Reiniger's masterpiece) was the world's first feature-length animated film. However, given that Prince Achmed was made in Germany, and that it wasn't cartoon animation, Walt Disney was quick to snatch that distinction for Snow White, eleven years later. unfortunately, i was unable to find any suitable clips from Prince Achmed today. i did find it available for sale on dvd here, and i highly recommend that you buy, borrow or steal a copy. for you today, i have instead, a short documentary about Lotte's work which gives us a peek at her process; an example of the many advertising films she made (this one for the post office); and Jack and the Beanstalk, one of numerous fairytales that Lotte brought to life. I hope you enjoy these as much as i do!






No comments: