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Unit: 5 Animation Essay off Lotte Reiniger By Amrit Chohan 20/04/12

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Contents Introduction..p3 Main Body.p4-6 Conclusionp6 List of Illustrations..p7 Bibliographyp7

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Introduction This assignment starts with what is animation? Then leading to Lotte Reiniger whose work is most inspired by Cinderella and snow white. Reiniger creative side is of silhouette making which is approached in her animations in the year 1923-1926. Research sources are The complete Animation courses the principles, practise, and techniques of successful animation (2003). This book focuses on what animation is also the way animation works by a frame at a time. The next focus is about the techniques use in an animation. The book is Animation a Guide to Animated Film Techniques (1998). The next focus is the artist Lotte Reiniger who has been admired by many other artists in animation. Aaron first started to create basic characters and being inspired by funny stories. This is from the book Animators unearthed A guide to the best of contemporary Animation (2010). Lastly the source of Film essays and criticism from author Rudolf Arnheim released in (1997).

Main body Animation is a series of individual movements of an image that is processed on an animation footage what is then played as an illusion. Patmore a journalist, states Animation is the art of capturing a series of individual movements, whether on film or in digital form and replaying them in rapid succession to have an illusion of movement.(Patmore, 2003:6) animation consist of many images which than creates movements which then is played in a software that is then generated in a rapid speed on a software. What is then made to be an illusion of different types of a character changing its body movements or action. It can be in an animation that a character which perform a movement then created by a step of frames this would be the first step. Capturing this movement of drastic style of a character and the actions changed. So for instant the silhouettes used in The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926). This shows the movement used in the film make the silhouette more fantasy like. It does make the characters such as the silhouettes become lifelike.

Animation is being able to use different type of media which drawing an image frame by frame. Robinson an author states, Independent art or personal animation avoids and are generally written, animated, directed and designed by a single artist. These films are usually self-contained and often use techniques rarely seen in mainstream animation (for example Camera less animation- which can involve scratching or painting on film, object animation, paint on glass, pixilation and speeding up or manipulating live action footage). (Robinson, 2010:2) The point of a camera less animation is using a sequence which is then created on paper frame by frame. Then created on speeding animation footage. Using different types of techniques such as the paint on glass. The sketches make the image bolder. Able to change an image by blurring and speeding it so the identity of the image is changed.

p4 In animation different techniques which involve a change of movement. Noake, author of title states Whichever of the many and varied techniques is used, making an animated film always involves constructing it frame by frame. When projected, these frames create an illusion of movement.(Noake, 1998:8) When starting an animation the techniques are being able to structure a frame which creates a story. That is then giving the illusion of a story which makes the story come to life. An animation is processed together in a huge amount of frames. It then depends on the story and the movement. This is the technique used in animation to create the illusion of movement.

Fig 1: Lotte Reiniger Lotte was born in Berlin of the year June 19th 1899-1981 was a German silhouette animator. (Kemp) Lotte from an early age showed an exceptional and, it seems, self-taught ability to cut free-handed paper silhouettes, which she used in her own home-made shadow-theatre in berlin (Kemp). One of her most famous films is The Adventures of Prince Achmed which often is credited to be a full animated film. The work was on developing in the year of (1923-1926) and Reiniger worked with Carl Koch, Walther Ruttmann and Berthold Bartosch. To work on the famous film The Adventures of Prince Achmed.

Lotte Reiniger is the most interesting animator seen because of Reiniger techniques. Kemp a writer states Among the great figures in animated film, Lotte Reiniger stands alone. No one else has taken a specific animation technique and made it so utterly her own. To date she has no rivals, and for all practical purposes the history of silhouette animation begins and ends with Reiniger. Taking the ancient art of shadow-plays, as perfected above all in China and Indonesia, she adapted it superbly for the cinema. (Kemp) in the world of animators Lotte Reiniger stands alone as a unique animator because of her style and the approach of her silhouette animation. The history of silhouette begins with Reiniger because of silhouettes produced by Reiniger is shown not to be an image of real believable images. Instead it shows that the work of images created are done flat but the detail comes from the shapes of patterns used within the silhouettes. This makes it quiet complex but Reiniger is able to do it to her own style.

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Fig 2: The Adventures of Prince Achmed

This is an image from Lotte Reinigers The Adventures of Prince Achmed released in 1926. The art of the silhouette creates the gracefulness of the way the silhouettes move. A silhouette is a dark shape and its outline is seen against a lighter background. Reiniger uses this in her work, but she uses dark colours as this make the background Reiniger crates more mysterious. Also the amount of detail used in the shape of the rounded structure. As the colours used are black and white this shows it is simple but elegant. It drives the silhouette character to the lamp. It shows a very magical atmosphere.

In the beginning shadow puppets are developed and shown in ways where you use black as the character and white as the background. Before cinema came into being, shadow puppets were the be-all and end-all of hi-tech visual entertainment. Ever since there was a fire and a cave wall, variations on the technique have been delighting (admittedly small) audiences, but only Reiniger's silhouette films carried on the tradition into the new-fangled era of film. (O'Neill) These simple techniques create the story and the environment. In Malaysia, shadow puppet plays means Wayang which is shadow or imagination, while Kulit means skin and refers to the leather those puppets are made from. Stories presented are like fairy tales who relate to mythical & morality tales. Reinigers has created a new fashion and art of silhouette. Inventing a style of complex craft designing to a story which Reiniger is known to being traditional and world influential to film and how it can be stylised differently.

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Fig 3: The Adventures of Prince Achmed

Reiniger uses her techniques to making her silhouettes not three-dimensional. Arnheim an author states Lotte Reiniger utilizes the ideal technique, the silhouette film. The silhouette is not as close to reality as a three-dimensional thing, no matter how imaginatively it may be thought out. It thus spares the viewer, particularly the child viewer, and the fear that sets in when the fairy tale passes a certain point of vividness and becomes tangible reality. (Arnheim, 1997:141) as imaginatively Reinigers work is it shows that the silhouettes created have a different theme to her animations. This is another style that Reiniger has made to being her own. So the use of detail designs in the buildings and how crafted her characters are made to be every step taken into account. The viewers of children would see the work as fairy tale. Reiniger has approached the art of being believable but not realistic. But able to touch and imagine of being there.

Conclusion Lotte Reiniger is an artist well creative and an inspirational designer. The work of Reiniger is to a unique style as she is traditional to also being influenced by shadow puppetry. Reiniger works with colour in a simple way. Using black paper for the characters and foreground as this brings at the background with the light bold colours which creates the magic in her environments. Reinigers work is shown to not be three dimensional but her work is inspired by the rich use of the silhouettes which makes her stories work of defined movement. Understanding Animation to be structured and creating a sequence at a rate of frame per second. An animation is seen as movement and visually to be an illusion.

p7 List of illustrations: Fig: 1 Lotte Reiniger URL at: http://pigeon-gillian.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/lotte-reinigerpaper-silhouette-animator.html (Accessed on 08/04/12) Fig: 2 the Adventures of Prince Achmed URL at: http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2011/06/15/watch-me-move-barbican-centre/4-lotte-reinigeradventures-of-prince-achmed-barbican/ (Accessed on 08/04/12) Fig 3: the Adventures of Prince Achmed URL at: http://cizgilimasallar.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/lotte-reiniger-adventures-of-prince.html (Accessed on 09/04/12) Bibliography: Arnheim Rudolf (1997) Film essays and criticism United Kingdom: London URL at: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QblxFody490C&pg=PA141&dq=lotte+reiniger+essay&hl=en&sa =X&ei=K_96T9bHG8W0QXqg6CaCQ&ved=0CEwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=lotte%20reiniger%20essay&f=false (Accessed on 09/04/12) Noake Roger (1998) Animation A Guide to Animated Film Techniques United Kingdom: London Phelim O'Neill (2008) URL at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/nov/29/lotte-reiniger-fairy-tale-films (Accessed on 08/04/12) Patmore Chris (2003) The complete Animation course the principles, practise, and techniques of successful animation United states: Canada Robinson Chris (2010) Animators unearthed A guide to the best of contemporary Animation United kingdom: London Kemp Philip screen online URL at: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/528134/ (Accessed on 08/04/12)