ESSENTIAL PIXILATION AUTHORS - Jana Julínková
A lecture with screenings of films that employ an original means of shooting as well as the use of visual arts to influence the evolution of animation. The films of McLaren, Menville, Janson, Švankmajer and others who employ pixilation technique will be discussed.
There are some essential pieces of pixilation animation's past, present and future to be presented within the three screening blocks during this year's PAF. This technique is based on stop motion picture.
It is necessary to stress the fact that for most of the fi lm makers, pixilation is just one of the techniques they use – in both feature fi lm and animation. In fact, pixilation focuses mainly on the animation of real humans, though it often animates ordinary objects too. This year's PAF Rewind presents some elementary movies that employ pixilation, stop motion, in a revolutionary way, thus creating original and infl uential pieces for the world of animation.
The fi rst pixilation block is called PAST (The Essential Authors of the Past) and provides an opportunity to get acquainted with the authors of the early pixilation era (Norman McLaren), the authors who varied it (Chuck Menville), who experimented with it (Mike Jittlov) or those who let themselves be entirely charmed by it, made it the base of their own artistic conception and thus supported the uniqueness of the style (Jan Švankmajer). The screenings of the chosen fi lms will be supplemented with an expert commentary focused on the historical developement of the technique and its specifi cs.
Michaela Stránská
Screened films
WACHSEXPERIMENTE
dir. Oskar Fischinger | Germany | 1927 6 mins
VICIOUS CYCLES
dir. Chuck Menville, Len Janson | USA | 1967 7 mins
BLAZE GLORY
dir. Chuck Menville, Len Janson | USA | 1969 11 mins
MIRAGE
dir. Joel Fletcher | USA | 1982 | 5 mins
FOOD
dir. Jan Švankmajer | Czech Republic | 1992 | 16 mins
SERGEANT SWELL OF THE MOUNTIES
dir. Chuck Menville, Len Janson | USA | 1972 | 16 mins
