TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

One question that arises around experimental animated films produced by the NFB concerns the treatment of the original film stock. Although these films were made without a camera, they did not escape treatment in the laboratory or the manufacture of prints. The comparison often made by Normal McLaren between an animator drawing on film and a painter must thus be qualified.

Although artists do remain “alone with their film, as they do with their canvas,”^[1] and the stages of work around the drawing on film described by McLaren can be seen as the equivalent of “placing the canvas on the frame, preparing the palette and varnishing and framing the work,”^[2] this comparison no longer held with respect to making the work available, which was a part of the traditional film production process. The NFB having made the technique of drawing on film animation a specialty, it would be legitimate to enquire into the methods it instituted to produce prints and distribute films.

One stage appears to be shared by all films, no matter what their mode of production: that of making prints.^[3] Pierre Hébert spells this out: “The film strip resulting from the animator’s work is the original film in the full sense of the term. One must make a duplicate which will be used to make prints.”^[4] However the artists wishes his or her film to be screened (black lines on a white background, or vice versa), this laboratory stage is essential. McLaren confirms this:

The finished film that drops into the bin is the equivalent of an original picture negative in normal procedure. When finished it should be gently and carefully rolled up, and sent to a laboratory for a regular print. The print will have a white line image on a black ground (the opposite of the artist’s original, which was black line on a clear ground). … Either the white image on a black screen can be used or the black image on a white screen. In the latter case release prints are made, not from the original, but from the print from the original; in other words, the ‘third generation’ is used.^[5]

Already one can see that this simple choice determines a supplementary action (making a new print) which depends on what the filmmaker wishes to obtain.

In addition, although the films were for the most part shown in 35 mm, they were not necessarily made in this film gauge. For example, films could be conceived on 16 mm and blown up to 35 mm using an optical printer in the laboratory. This choice gave rise to specific visual effects in the shift from the initial action and its representation on-screen, as Isabelle Cossin has described: “These lines, which will be enlarged thousands of times over in projection, create a strange and aggressive sensation around every screening carried out using this technique.”^[6] The reverse scenario occurs when a film is made on 70 mm film stock (providing greater surface area for the drawing) and then reduced to 35 mm for exhibition. This is the process Caroline Leaf experimented with at the NFB in 1991 for her film Two Sisters: first she etched her images on 70 mm film stock (exposed to light and then developed) before photographing them in 35mm for projection.

A new stage could thus appear between the work on the film stock and making prints of the film: it was possible to re-film the drawing frame by frame, in keeping with the production logic of the traditional animated drawing. Pierre Hébert himself has described this possible approach, which is seemingly in contradiction with the inherent logic of the drawing on film animation technique:

It may appear surprising to speak of shooting with respect to a so-called cameraless technique. In fact the initial cameraless work yields a film which can be projected, but in order to avoid deterioration of this original film over time, a negative of it must be made. This operation is more than a mere technical formality. I call it shooting because it is in fact a process of filming the drawings, even though they are already on film. This offers many possibilities for altering the work, and requires the use of an optical camera.^[7]

In order to do this, NFB animators had at their disposal Oxberry equipment (cameras and optical printers). Hébert goes so far as to emphasize the contrast between the manual quality of working on the film stock and the technical quality of this final production phase. When he left the NFB, he would go on to posit a complete theoretical separation of the two stages, dividing his work into a photochemical phase (the work on the film stock) and a digital phase (filming each image with a digital camera, which transmits the images directly to his computer). For this work Hébert uses a moviola he himself has modified, one equipped with a frame counter and a camera connected to his computer, whose screen is located at the level of the moviola’s viewing window.^[8]