Norman McLaren Movies

Animation featuring dancing black and white shadows.

A man sets a ping-pong ball into motion and it becomes fruitful and multiplies.

One of a series of French-Canadian folk songs, this film was illustrated by Norman McLaren for the Chants populaires series. White gouache drawings...

This joyful short animation features a dancing hen that transforms into an egg. The film was made without a camera by Norman McLaren, who drew...

A slow-motion study by Norman McLaren of the pas-de-deux adagio, one of the most exacting and difficult dances of classical ballet. A ballet...

Norman McLaren instructs Grant Munro on the movements he is to make. The film technique for Two Bagatelles is pixillation, where the actor is...

An experiment in pure design by film artists Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart. Lines, ruled directly on film, move with precision and grace against...

A film fantasy of dancing music and dancing color. Listen to the Mocking Bird played by an oldtime fiddler, brilliant patterns ripple, flow, flicker...

Early abstract 3d stereoscopic animation by Norman McLaren collaborator Gretta Ekman.

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

Norman McLaren made Scherzo early after his arrival in North America in 1939, but the film was subsequently lost. In 1984 the original materials were...

This animated short is a play on motion set against a background of multi-hued sky. Spheres of translucent pearl float weightlessly in the unlimited...

This publicity clip for Canada Post is Norman McLaren's first film for the NFB. For this animated short, McLaren drew symbols by pen onto clear 35 mm...

‘Too esoteric, even for me,’ said McLaren about his The Flicker Film. The famous animator’s most abstract effort is marginalized to...

In this pre-Christmas reminder to mail early, filmmaker Norman McLaren used an electric vibra-drill to engrave the images on black film, and included...

A documentary showing Norman McLaren working on the hand-drawn sound process he uses for his short film, Loops.

An experiment in pure design by film artists Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart. Lines, ruled directly on film, move with precision and grace against...

In this early film Norman McLaren shot crystal formations through a low-power microscope, using polarized light with the lower part of the picture...

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...

Perhaps the only film whose content is totally based on the musical form known as canon. The first sequence is a simple demonstration of the canon...