Norman McLaren Movies

It's midnight in a graveyard. The principal characters are spooks, ghosts, bats, bells, and, at the end, the sun. As midnight strikes, 12 spooks...

To the tune of a classic French-Canadian nonsense song, surreal blackbird made of lines loses body parts and gets them back threefold.

Norman McLaren was a cinematic genius who made films without cameras, and music without instruments. He produced sixty films in a stunning range of...

Norman McLaren's first film with a drawn soundtrack.

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...

This animated short from Norman McLaren features a human skull cautioning Canadians to “keep their mouths shut” in an effort to end...

The film's soundtrack is an original musical composition produced with synthetic sound - through photographing unusual geometric shapes and running...

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 experimental film in which both sound and visuals were created entirely by Norman McLaren drawing directly upon the film with ordinary pen and...

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...

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

The third in a series of five colour films that offer an introduction to the basic techniques of film animation. McLaren explains and demonstrates...

So is this what the kids of today are into? Well, as long as it’s safe.

An animated film drawn entirely in pastels. Various fantastical plant-like things "grow" from the ground, eventually launching five spheres. The...

This uncompleted film uses a technique invented by McLaren in the 1930s; the travelling zoom. McLaren's intention was to make the corridor gradually...

The Korean alphabet, illustrated with animation, spoken, and accompanied by music.

Three separate sequences related to Christmas, animated in different styles: cutout animation of children dancing in the snow to "Jingle Bells,"...

In this short film by Norman McLaren, dancers enact the Greek tragedy of Narcissus, the beautiful youth whose excessive self-love condemned him to a...

An attempt to animate an abstract Charlie Chaplin-esque figure.

Shows the production of the London telephone directory.