0:00:10 > 0:00:14I think he was a pioneer of so many different things.
0:00:14 > 0:00:18Norman McLaren will explain how that striking 3D effect was achieved,
0:00:18 > 0:00:20and without special glasses.
0:00:20 > 0:00:22I can't describe the excitement.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24We talked film all the time.
0:00:24 > 0:00:27Norman always went on about the "happy accident", you know?
0:00:27 > 0:00:29But it was just fantastic.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32A guy like McLaren always remained an explorer,
0:00:32 > 0:00:34was always doing experimentation.
0:00:34 > 0:00:38Each drawing is slightly different from the drawing before.
0:00:38 > 0:00:42Virtually any animator, including animators in Hollywood,
0:00:42 > 0:00:44he's one of their heroes.
0:01:00 > 0:01:05Norman McLaren is one of the greatest pioneers of cinema.
0:01:05 > 0:01:07Born in Scotland in 1914,
0:01:07 > 0:01:10he revolutionised the world of animation
0:01:10 > 0:01:12with his ground-breaking techniques.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22When Picasso saw his films, he exclaimed,
0:01:22 > 0:01:25"At last, something new in the art of drawing!"
0:01:25 > 0:01:28French film-maker Francois Truffaut said,
0:01:28 > 0:01:32"What he was doing was unique in the history of cinema."
0:01:32 > 0:01:36He won an Oscar, a BAFTA, and the Palme d'Or,
0:01:36 > 0:01:38and set up the now-legendary animation department
0:01:38 > 0:01:41at the National Film Board of Canada.
0:01:43 > 0:01:46He has been celebrated and applauded throughout the world,
0:01:46 > 0:01:49yet, in Scotland, the story of the shy young man from Stirling
0:01:49 > 0:01:51is relatively unknown.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02Norman's love of film began in 1933,
0:02:02 > 0:02:05when he went to Glasgow School of Art.
0:02:06 > 0:02:10'Film was a relatively new medium at the time,
0:02:10 > 0:02:13'and it was really capturing the avant-garde art movements.'
0:02:13 > 0:02:18I think it's safe to say he was pretty seduced by it as a...
0:02:18 > 0:02:19just as a material.
0:02:22 > 0:02:26'One of the teachers at the school, called William McLean,
0:02:26 > 0:02:32'had started a Kino club, which was to make films,'
0:02:32 > 0:02:36and then McLaren joined it, then he would go to screenings,
0:02:36 > 0:02:39and it was at one of the screenings he saw
0:02:39 > 0:02:42films by Eisenstein and Pudovkin,
0:02:42 > 0:02:45and he sat here and said, well, "Wow," you know?
0:02:45 > 0:02:48"Cinema is the art, painting is dead!"
0:02:51 > 0:02:55Norman and fellow art student Stewart McAllister
0:02:55 > 0:02:57were determined to make their own films.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03They managed to get hold of a 35mm film projector
0:03:03 > 0:03:05and some film stock,
0:03:05 > 0:03:08but they had one problem - no camera.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13So the idea to say, "OK, I am going to do a film without a camera,"
0:03:13 > 0:03:16so you have extremely strong constraints...
0:03:17 > 0:03:22..so it pushes you to be, er,
0:03:22 > 0:03:27completely... I mean, way more creative, in a way.
0:03:27 > 0:03:33I, er, begged an old print of a commercial film,
0:03:33 > 0:03:38soaked it in the family bathtub for about two weeks,
0:03:38 > 0:03:42so no-one could have a bath for two weeks,
0:03:42 > 0:03:45to get out the emulsion, to make it clear.
0:03:45 > 0:03:47And then I painted on it.
0:03:47 > 0:03:51That film was so popular in those kind of student societies
0:03:51 > 0:03:53that it just got worn out.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56It just... I mean, I don't think there's any record
0:03:56 > 0:04:01of what that would have been like because it...just got knackered.
0:04:04 > 0:04:06The Kino Club finally got their hands on a camera,
0:04:06 > 0:04:08borrowed from a local butcher,
0:04:08 > 0:04:12and set to work on live-action films.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15Seven Till Five - A Day In The Life Of The Art School
0:04:15 > 0:04:18caught the flavour of student life,
0:04:18 > 0:04:21and was swiftly followed by Camera Makes Whoopee.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24A film about the annual fancy dress ball,
0:04:24 > 0:04:26it was full of cinematic tricks.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30McLaren was starting to have fun with his new-fangled camera.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38At art school, Norman experienced both a cultural and political awakening.
0:04:38 > 0:04:40This was the era of the Great Depression,
0:04:40 > 0:04:42and the slum conditions in parts of Scotland
0:04:42 > 0:04:44sparked his social conscience,
0:04:44 > 0:04:48further roused by a trip to Russia in 1935.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52He believed in equality,
0:04:52 > 0:04:56and the idea that he had become a socialist, a communist,
0:04:56 > 0:04:58before he was 18,
0:04:58 > 0:05:02and that his father had offered to send him to Russia.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05You know, "Go and see Russia, and that'll sort you out."
0:05:05 > 0:05:07But that didn't really help, because he...
0:05:07 > 0:05:10Norman just sent postcards back from Russia saying, "It's great,
0:05:10 > 0:05:12"Russia's so well run."
0:05:15 > 0:05:17Back in Scotland,
0:05:17 > 0:05:20Norman became a fully paid-up member of the Communist Party,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23and demonstrated his political beliefs in his next film,
0:05:23 > 0:05:27the anti-capitalist Hell Unlimited, made with sculptor Helen Biggar.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32'Strangely enough, when you look at it,
0:05:32 > 0:05:35'you know, it's very amateurish, but it was, basically, the only real
0:05:35 > 0:05:39'independent work of political film-making written at that time.'
0:05:39 > 0:05:42Everything was sponsored, it'd be the GPO,
0:05:42 > 0:05:45or it would be, you know, the Pathe News.
0:05:45 > 0:05:49There was no kind of independent film movement,
0:05:49 > 0:05:51and particularly making political films,
0:05:51 > 0:05:54and so Biggar and McLaren made this film.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57'And it's still kind of recognised there
0:05:57 > 0:06:00'as being an important piece of work.'
0:06:03 > 0:06:06When Norman's films were shown at a local film festival,
0:06:06 > 0:06:09they caught the attention of fellow Scot and film-maker
0:06:09 > 0:06:13John Grierson, who decided to take the young McLaren under his wing.
0:06:14 > 0:06:18He offered Norman a job at the GPO, you know,
0:06:18 > 0:06:22telling Norman, you know, "You've got no discipline whatsoever,
0:06:22 > 0:06:24"we'll knock some discipline into you."
0:06:32 > 0:06:36McLaren arrived in London in the autumn of 1936
0:06:36 > 0:06:39to take up his post at Grierson's GPO film unit.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42Here's a departure message for the down postal.
0:06:42 > 0:06:47Grierson wanted to teach McLaren his documentary approach to film
0:06:47 > 0:06:51and despatched him to Spain, then in the middle of a brutal civil war,
0:06:51 > 0:06:54to work as cameraman with Ivor Montagu.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58'Grierson's relationship with Norman was very complicated anyway,
0:06:58 > 0:07:00'but he saw Norman as a kind of dreamer,
0:07:00 > 0:07:03'in a way, that he was not realistic.'
0:07:03 > 0:07:08And I think he wanted, you know, the young Communist
0:07:08 > 0:07:12to go and learn...something at the front.
0:07:12 > 0:07:14CANNON FIRES
0:07:15 > 0:07:17- REPORTER:- 'The Spaniards were the guinea pigs.
0:07:17 > 0:07:21'Men, women and children.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25'It was a long war, ended finally by hunger.'
0:07:28 > 0:07:30Away from home for the first time,
0:07:30 > 0:07:32Norman began writing to his parents,
0:07:32 > 0:07:36a habit he diligently maintained for the rest of his life.
0:07:37 > 0:07:40"December 2nd, 1936.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42"It is terrible.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45"And Franco is sending more and more aeroplanes
0:07:45 > 0:07:49"and has bombed all the hospitals in Madrid, except one.
0:07:49 > 0:07:52"The morgues are full of the bodies, children and women,
0:07:52 > 0:07:56"who are the majority of the victims of Franco's aeroplanes."
0:07:56 > 0:08:00'When Norman came back from Spain, he was so appalled by the experience,'
0:08:00 > 0:08:03he didn't leave the Communist Party but he questioned now
0:08:03 > 0:08:08this whole notion of the just war...
0:08:08 > 0:08:11and became a pacifist.
0:08:11 > 0:08:16Grierson's attempts to encourage him in the art of documentary backfired.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19When asked to make a film about airmail,
0:08:19 > 0:08:21Norman returned to animation
0:08:21 > 0:08:24to create a love affair between a letter and an envelope.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43'Well, what a great promotion for the Post Office!
0:08:43 > 0:08:47'I gather the Post Office decided that they were not going to
0:08:47 > 0:08:50'distribute it because they thought it was pornographic.'
0:08:50 > 0:08:53Maybe that's what we all like about it.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57It was true to its title, Love On The Wing, you know?
0:09:02 > 0:09:06But, in London, love wasn't just in Norman's imagination.
0:09:09 > 0:09:12Right, so it's a very naughty story.
0:09:12 > 0:09:13HE LAUGHS
0:09:13 > 0:09:18That is Norman...had fallen in love with ballet
0:09:18 > 0:09:24and he went to the ballet and, apparently, you know,
0:09:24 > 0:09:28you could stand at the back of the, er, the gods
0:09:28 > 0:09:30because it only cost a shilling to get in
0:09:30 > 0:09:33and also that's where the gays met.
0:09:33 > 0:09:38And...and Norman said, "I felt this hand on my thigh."
0:09:38 > 0:09:40HE LAUGHS
0:09:40 > 0:09:43He said, "I turned around and there was this young man."
0:09:43 > 0:09:46And he said, "We went and had a drink in the bar at the intermission."
0:09:46 > 0:09:49And he said, "We've been together ever since."
0:09:50 > 0:09:53The young man was actor and producer Guy Glover,
0:09:53 > 0:09:56who became Norman's lifelong companion.
0:09:58 > 0:10:02By 1939, Britain was heading toward another Great War,
0:10:02 > 0:10:06and so, with his films in his suitcase and accompanied by Guy,
0:10:06 > 0:10:09McLaren the pacifist emigrated to New York.
0:10:19 > 0:10:20WHISTLE BLOWS
0:10:22 > 0:10:24Norman may have escaped the war,
0:10:24 > 0:10:28but, with no job, no money, and no interest in his films,
0:10:28 > 0:10:30life in New York was tough,
0:10:30 > 0:10:33until a chance encounter changed everything.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39'It was hard, you know? And, as he said, "I was almost starving,"
0:10:39 > 0:10:41'when he was walking along the street one day
0:10:41 > 0:10:44'and he saw the Museum of Non-Objective Painting,'
0:10:44 > 0:10:47which was the forerunner of the Guggenheim,
0:10:47 > 0:10:49so he went in, you see.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53"Wow! This is a gallery devoted to non-objective art!"
0:10:53 > 0:10:55'And then he met the woman who ran the place,
0:10:55 > 0:10:57'Baroness Hilla von Rebay.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01'And, I mean, she supported all these artists, you know?'
0:11:01 > 0:11:04She supported Jackson Pollock, when they had no money and nothing,
0:11:04 > 0:11:08she gave every one of them money every week, 25 bucks a week.
0:11:08 > 0:11:12'It saved Norman's life, you know, artistically.'
0:11:13 > 0:11:17The Baroness commissioned McLaren to make two abstract films,
0:11:17 > 0:11:19Dots and Loops.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31Having secured a job in advertising,
0:11:31 > 0:11:34Norman worked tirelessly on his hand-made movies at night,
0:11:34 > 0:11:36returning to his camera-less technique
0:11:36 > 0:11:40of painting directly onto the film, frame by frame.
0:11:40 > 0:11:43'Well, I mean it's painstaking, but, as well,
0:11:43 > 0:11:48'it's so rewarding that every single frame leads to a result.'
0:11:48 > 0:11:52I think there is something unique even more
0:11:52 > 0:11:59when you see Norman McLaren drawing directly on the film.
0:12:03 > 0:12:05And, with no money for music,
0:12:05 > 0:12:08Norman came up with another innovative idea.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11'Well, if a sound will make a pattern on film,
0:12:11 > 0:12:14'a pattern on film will make a sound.
0:12:14 > 0:12:19'You can even create your own sounds by drawing directly on the film.'
0:12:19 > 0:12:21'You've got this kind of synchronisation
0:12:21 > 0:12:24'between the marks that he's painting onto the visual part
0:12:24 > 0:12:25'and the sounds on the soundtrack.'
0:12:25 > 0:12:30So, for him, this was a great opportunity to kind of...
0:12:30 > 0:12:35almost make real his experiences of hearing music.
0:12:35 > 0:12:38SOUND EFFECTS PLAY
0:12:38 > 0:12:41'The synthetic music that he was making,
0:12:41 > 0:12:44'he really wanted to try and work it all out.'
0:12:44 > 0:12:49I don't think he was even conscious of exactly how important
0:12:49 > 0:12:51some of these discoveries were.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55Norman's unique ability to bring sound and image together
0:12:55 > 0:12:59was expressed again with what is now one of his most popular films,
0:12:59 > 0:13:03Boogie-Doodle, only this time Norman provided the doodle
0:13:03 > 0:13:06and jazz pianist Albert Ammons the boogie.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09BOOGIE-WOOGIE PIANO PLAYS
0:13:12 > 0:13:16"November 30th, 1940.
0:13:16 > 0:13:20"Someday, I hope that all my very own efforts and ideas
0:13:20 > 0:13:23"about films will become something important."
0:13:24 > 0:13:28Norman's dream would eventually come true, but not in New York.
0:13:28 > 0:13:31When his old mentor John Grierson beckoned once more,
0:13:31 > 0:13:35Norman and Guy set off for a new life in Canada.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49In 1938, John Grierson was invited to set up
0:13:49 > 0:13:53a National Film Board of Canada,
0:13:53 > 0:13:57and began recruiting talented young film-makers.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01'The early Ottawa days, that was when it was really exciting,'
0:14:01 > 0:14:04cos we were discovering things.
0:14:04 > 0:14:06I mean, Grierson hired people
0:14:06 > 0:14:09right out of art school, right out of college.
0:14:09 > 0:14:11He didn't want them to have any experience.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13And we learned that way.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16'It's a family, and that's, I think, the critical thing,
0:14:16 > 0:14:18'and Norman was part of that family,
0:14:18 > 0:14:21'and he was sort of like an elder brother.'
0:14:21 > 0:14:23And he loved the place, yeah,
0:14:23 > 0:14:26because he helped to make it what it was, you know?
0:14:26 > 0:14:32If you weren't doing your best, you really couldn't sleep at night.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35His presence and the way he worked had that effect on you.
0:14:37 > 0:14:41Within a year, Grierson asked Norman to create an animation unit,
0:14:41 > 0:14:44ostensibly to make war propaganda films.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47But Norman had other ideas.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00Hen Hop is wonderful. The film only exists in a truncated version
0:15:00 > 0:15:01because the last verse,
0:15:01 > 0:15:04which is all about buying savings bonds,
0:15:04 > 0:15:08Norman cut it off at the end of the war and threw it away,
0:15:08 > 0:15:11the negative. He destroyed it
0:15:11 > 0:15:14so it could exist more or less just as a film about a dancing hen
0:15:14 > 0:15:19who... Who he imagined was Fred Astaire.
0:15:19 > 0:15:23COUNTRY FIDDLE MUSIC
0:15:26 > 0:15:28There's just an energy to those films, I think,
0:15:28 > 0:15:30that was very inspiring.
0:15:30 > 0:15:33And it's also quite inspiring that they're just
0:15:33 > 0:15:34fundamentally about movement.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40He was an extremely good animator.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43He succeeded to keep the edge
0:15:43 > 0:15:46and the raw aspect of the drawings
0:15:46 > 0:15:49with something very flexible
0:15:49 > 0:15:50and very bouncy.
0:15:50 > 0:15:52which you have in Disney,
0:15:52 > 0:15:56although in Walt Disney you don't have this sort of graphic rawness.
0:15:56 > 0:16:01When you animate, particularly when you're doing hand-drawn animation or even cut outs,
0:16:01 > 0:16:05but when you get down to the sort of thing he was doing, like drawing directly on film,
0:16:05 > 0:16:07it becomes, you know, a direct expression of your...
0:16:07 > 0:16:13of your muscles and your nerves. And so he was that hen.
0:16:13 > 0:16:17Um... I mean, there's one moment in where the hen
0:16:17 > 0:16:20wiggles its backside, and, well, that's Norman.
0:16:23 > 0:16:27It was when he saw Hen Hop that Picasso made his famous remark,
0:16:27 > 0:16:35"finally something new in the art of drawing."
0:16:36 > 0:16:43And in the creative hub of the NFB, McLaren continued to innovate.
0:16:43 > 0:16:47WOMAN SINGS IN FRENCH
0:16:53 > 0:16:56While working on a number of animations
0:16:56 > 0:16:59to accompany French Canadian folk songs,
0:16:59 > 0:17:03he developed a new technique using pastel drawings.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07During the photographing of the film, I would change the drawing.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10Then I'd stop drawing
0:17:10 > 0:17:16and let the cameraman shoot part of the picture in this condition.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20He'd blend it into the previous condition of the picture,
0:17:20 > 0:17:23and after he'd photographed this, we'd stop the camera
0:17:23 > 0:17:27And I'd start changing the picture again.
0:17:27 > 0:17:29I might lighten up the sky.
0:17:33 > 0:17:37So it's a series of constant changes to the same basic drawing.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40- That's right.- And you photograph each change.- Yeah.
0:17:46 > 0:17:51Another film suggests that McLaren never forgot where he came from.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56I think the horizon is like a replica of a Stirling horizon
0:17:56 > 0:18:00after storm, where the light's beginning to come through.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03And I think he'd grown up with it.
0:18:03 > 0:18:06His bedroom window had a view of the horizon over to the hills.
0:18:06 > 0:18:11So even though he spent most of his life outside Scotland,
0:18:11 > 0:18:15I think those early visual memories stay with you.
0:18:15 > 0:18:19I think they're part of your subconscious.
0:18:22 > 0:18:25McLaren continued to have regular correspondence
0:18:25 > 0:18:28with his family back home to tell them of his latest ideas,
0:18:28 > 0:18:30including what we now know as 3D.
0:18:35 > 0:18:37November the 27th, 1944.
0:18:37 > 0:18:41"I have been very busy doing a new type of drawing and painting.
0:18:41 > 0:18:45"It is absolutely revolutionary and all my own invention,
0:18:45 > 0:18:49"it is called stereoscopic drawing and painting."
0:18:52 > 0:18:57When I was invited to his place for dinner,
0:18:57 > 0:19:00there on the wall were two mirrors,
0:19:00 > 0:19:04and a drawing that he was doing.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08And you had to put your nose up to these two mirrors
0:19:08 > 0:19:13to see a thee-dimensional drawing. That was in 1945.
0:19:13 > 0:19:19And so his interest in 3D
0:19:19 > 0:19:24and the possibility of 3D in film, go way back.
0:19:29 > 0:19:33At the NFB, Norman found a kindred spirit in Evelyn Lambart.
0:19:33 > 0:19:38An animator in her own right, they proved a formidable partnership.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44BE-BOP JAZZ MUSIC
0:19:49 > 0:19:52In a way, a magical relationship,
0:19:52 > 0:19:57Eve Lambart was a no-nonsense, "let's get the job done,"
0:19:57 > 0:20:01and Norman was this dreamer who had these ideas
0:20:01 > 0:20:05and the two of them together
0:20:05 > 0:20:11developed a kind of chemistry that Norman recognised
0:20:11 > 0:20:14as being very precious for what he wanted to do.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18They did things like waving the film out the window,
0:20:18 > 0:20:19and they used sponges,
0:20:19 > 0:20:23and Evelyn got lace in a women's dressmaker's shop,
0:20:23 > 0:20:25put lace on the film and rolled paint over it,
0:20:25 > 0:20:28and then they painted on both sides of the film.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31I think they must have been extremely happy when they made that.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35BE-BOP JAZZ MUSIC
0:20:35 > 0:20:37With a soundtrack by Oscar Peterson,
0:20:37 > 0:20:40the images marry perfectly to the music,
0:20:40 > 0:20:43giving fuel to the theory that Norman's films
0:20:43 > 0:20:46were an expression of his synaesthesia.
0:20:48 > 0:20:54He listened to music and he would see colour and forms.
0:20:54 > 0:20:57And, of course, Begone Dull Care is, as he said,
0:20:57 > 0:20:59"my colour music dream come true."
0:21:00 > 0:21:04I have synaesthesia. Let's say before you fall asleep
0:21:04 > 0:21:08you have, sort of, dots and colour bits
0:21:08 > 0:21:12you see when your eyelids are closed.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16So I always pay very much attention to that.
0:21:18 > 0:21:21The NFB was not only home for McLaren,
0:21:21 > 0:21:24but also provided a safe haven for him and Guy.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28In Canada in the 1950s, it wasn't easy being homosexual
0:21:28 > 0:21:29with a communist past.
0:21:32 > 0:21:36It's probably testament to how respected McLaren's work was,
0:21:36 > 0:21:39not just at the National Film Board Of Canada,
0:21:39 > 0:21:41but with the government of Canada,
0:21:41 > 0:21:44that his communist associations
0:21:44 > 0:21:47were kind of swept under the carpet during that time.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50Other heads rolled at the NFB
0:21:50 > 0:21:56due to the witch hunt, but Norman stayed.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03Norman was often concerned that most of his work lacked
0:22:03 > 0:22:07any political dimension, so it is perhaps no surprise that when asked
0:22:07 > 0:22:09if he could save just one of his films,
0:22:09 > 0:22:11his response was - "Neighbours."
0:22:27 > 0:22:29The story of two men who fight over a flower
0:22:29 > 0:22:31develops out of all proportion
0:22:31 > 0:22:35and is one of the few films that reflects his pacifism.
0:22:35 > 0:22:39He made it after spending time doing educational work in China.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43Two months after I went to China, the communists took over
0:22:43 > 0:22:46and I saw what was happening in our village because of them,
0:22:46 > 0:22:51and a lot of good things happened.
0:22:51 > 0:22:56And so I became fairly sympathetic to the new regime
0:22:56 > 0:23:00and when I came back to Canada
0:23:00 > 0:23:04it was just at the beginning of the Korean War,
0:23:04 > 0:23:11and I felt myself estranged to some extent,
0:23:11 > 0:23:14or being pulled between one culture and another
0:23:14 > 0:23:17and one side and another side.
0:23:17 > 0:23:24And the tension that built up in me because of this produced Neighbours.
0:23:27 > 0:23:32Norman introduced yet another pioneering animation technique,
0:23:32 > 0:23:36pixilation, where live actors are used as stop frame objects.
0:23:39 > 0:23:41We'd done a lot of pixilation tests
0:23:41 > 0:23:47and the things that seemed to look fairly easy were the most difficult
0:23:47 > 0:23:51and the difficult ones were fairly straightforward.
0:23:51 > 0:23:54There is something very violent and gory in this film,
0:23:54 > 0:23:58which is very much in contrast to all the rest of his work.
0:23:59 > 0:24:03My wife is in it. She gets roundly booted out of frame.
0:24:03 > 0:24:07And in fact she's holding our six-month-old son,
0:24:07 > 0:24:12and it was dear Grant Munro who lifted him above his head
0:24:12 > 0:24:15and threw him to the ground, and then kicked him,
0:24:15 > 0:24:19and then kicked my wife out, and all that was done frame by frame.
0:24:19 > 0:24:22I found it rather troubling, yeah.
0:24:24 > 0:24:29In 1952, Neighbours won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short,
0:24:29 > 0:24:33and is still widely regarded as Norman's most successful film.
0:24:42 > 0:24:44Towards the end of his career,
0:24:44 > 0:24:48Norman moved away from abstract animations to pursue live action,
0:24:48 > 0:24:51marrying his two great passions film and dance.
0:24:53 > 0:24:57The idea of constructing a film, a dance,
0:24:57 > 0:25:01was very, very difficult because the dancers literally could not see.
0:25:01 > 0:25:03They were, sort of, side-lit at the back,
0:25:03 > 0:25:08and the male dancer, Vincent Warren, told me it was terrifying.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11You leap in the air and have no idea where the ground was.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14And so Norman had hung, they had sort of black...
0:25:14 > 0:25:17They had some sort of cords so they'd could hit,
0:25:17 > 0:25:20when they jump, they'd hit their head and they'd know where they were.
0:25:24 > 0:25:28He experimented with the after-printing of the film
0:25:28 > 0:25:32to give all these layers so that you see where the dancer has been
0:25:32 > 0:25:35and where they're going to at the same time.
0:25:35 > 0:25:40And I think there's an incredible strength in seeing
0:25:40 > 0:25:44the movement of the dancer across the space.
0:25:44 > 0:25:48And a lot of people just are blown away by that film
0:25:48 > 0:25:52because of that playing with space.
0:25:54 > 0:25:57Pas De Deux received 17 awards
0:25:57 > 0:26:00including a BAFTA for Best Animated Film.
0:26:03 > 0:26:06Dance was again the subject of Norman's final film,
0:26:06 > 0:26:10where he attempted to deal with the demons that had burdened him
0:26:10 > 0:26:11throughout his life.
0:26:13 > 0:26:18His very last film, Narcissus, is dealing with conscience,
0:26:18 > 0:26:24and so McLaren, in spite of his reputation as a squiggly artist,
0:26:24 > 0:26:30had a deep and abiding conscience about moral values.
0:26:45 > 0:26:49With Narcissus, McLaren made extensive use of the blur,
0:26:49 > 0:26:54a photographic technique he had developed almost 3 decades earlier.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58The film is very bleak, it has a terribly bleak ending,
0:26:58 > 0:27:02because it expresses, unfortunately,
0:27:02 > 0:27:06this feeling of guilt that he had about being homosexual,
0:27:06 > 0:27:10about not having made the films he felt he should have been making.
0:27:18 > 0:27:20If he'd grown up in New York, for example,
0:27:20 > 0:27:24he may well have been given an opportunity to dance.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27But in Scotland, growing up in the '20s,
0:27:27 > 0:27:30that wasn't really something that boys got a chance to do.
0:27:30 > 0:27:34But then, when he was introduced to film, it's like he was given
0:27:34 > 0:27:38an opportunity to make movement that he'd never been given before.
0:27:43 > 0:27:47Shortly after completing Narcissus, Norman retired from the NFB.
0:27:47 > 0:27:50While he enjoyed a quiet life at home with Guy,
0:27:50 > 0:27:54this footage of him in 1986 shows that even in retirement
0:27:54 > 0:27:57Norman couldn't resist experimenting.
0:28:02 > 0:28:06He died of a heart attack in Montreal, January 1987.
0:28:08 > 0:28:11In a career spanning more than 50 years,
0:28:11 > 0:28:15Norman McLaren pushed the boundaries and possibilities of animation,
0:28:15 > 0:28:18from hand painting on film to pixilation.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21He was a pioneer of new technologies,
0:28:21 > 0:28:23from electronic music to 3D,
0:28:23 > 0:28:26influencing generations of film-makers.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39"That's the first drawing," he said, "you can do the rest of it."
0:28:39 > 0:28:42He would not take the pen off the paper.
0:28:42 > 0:28:45He talked about skating figures of eight...
0:28:45 > 0:28:48And then when they touch each other,
0:28:48 > 0:28:51- you have to go in another direction.- ..and balancing.
0:28:51 > 0:28:55- Let me mail your something. - He would just keep it going.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58- I mean, it's rubbish! - HE LAUGHS
0:28:58 > 0:29:01That's Norman McLaren.