24 Facts About Norman McLaren

Norman McLaren was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including hand-drawn animation, drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound.

Norman McLaren's films garnered numerous awards, including one Oscar, one Palme d'Or, three BAFTA Awards and six Venice Film Festival awards.

Norman McLaren was born in Stirling, Scotland, on 11 April 1914.

Norman McLaren had two older siblings, one brother, Jack and a sister, Sheena.

When Norman McLaren was 22, he left Stirling and studied set design at the Glasgow School of Art.

Norman McLaren's film Camera Makes Whoopee, was a more elaborate take on the themes explored in Seven Till Five, inspired by his acquisition of a Cine-Kodak camera, which enabled him to execute a number of 'trick' shots.

Norman McLaren used what would later be called 'pixilation' effects, superimpositions and animation not only to display the staging of an art school ball, but to tap into the aesthetic sensations supposedly produced by this event.

Norman McLaren's two early films won prizes at the Scottish Amateur Film Festival, where fellow Scot and future NFB founder John Grierson was a judge.

Norman McLaren worked at the GPO from 1936 to 1939, making eight films including Defence of Madrid, Book Bargain, Mony a Pickle, Love on the Wing, and News for the Navy.

Norman McLaren then moved to New York City in 1939, just as World War II was about to begin in Europe.

In 1941, at the invitation of Grierson, Norman McLaren moved to Ottawa in 1941 to work for the National Film Board and open an animation studio and to train Canadian animators.

Norman McLaren then worked on animated shorts as well as maps for Allied propaganda documentary films, followed by his War Bonds campaign films: V for Victory, 5 for 4, Hen Hop, Dollar Dance and Tic Tac Toe.

Norman McLaren found recruits for his fledgling animation unit at the Ecole des beaux-arts de Montreal and the Ontario College of Art, including Rene Jodoin, George Dunning, Jim McKay, Grant Munro and his future collaborator, Evelyn Lambart.

Norman McLaren trained these emerging animators, who would all work on cartoons, animated cards and propaganda documentaries before going on to make their own films.

Norman McLaren won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film for Blinkity Blank, which he later selected as his diploma piece when he was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1974.

Norman McLaren is remembered for his experiments with image and sound as he developed a number of groundbreaking techniques for combining and synchronizing animation with music.

The Montreal borough of Saint-Laurent, which is home to the NFB, has honoured Norman McLaren by naming a borough district after him.

In 2006, Norman McLaren was the subject of a short animated documentary Norman McLaren's Negatives.

Also in 2006, the Film Board marked the 65th anniversary of NFB animation with an international retrospective of Norman McLaren's restored classics and a new DVD box set of his complete works.

In June 2013, the NFB released an iTunes app entitled "Norman McLaren's Workshop," allowing users to create their own films using animation techniques utilized by Norman McLaren and providing access to over fifty of his films.

Norman McLaren's centenary was celebrated in Scotland with the Norman McLaren 2014 Programme of screenings, exhibitions, events and animation workshops.

In 1968, Norman McLaren was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and, in 1973, Companion of the Order of Canada.

In 1985, Norman McLaren was named Chevalier of the National Order of Quebec.

In 2009, Norman McLaren's works were added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme, listing the most significant documentary heritage collections in the world.