Like many, I first encountered Scottish animator and filmmaker Norman McLaren whilst studying. Having come to the field from a background in history, with little experience and much to learn, I was instantly enamored. His inventiveness and flair for experimentation - delighting in pure abstraction, pixelation, and dance - helped shape my appreciation for what animation could be and contributed directly to my development as an animator and educator. With no less than 70 films spanning a career of 50 years, we owe much to his pioneering antics. In celebration of his birthday, though a little late, I thought it apt to share the piece that first introduced me to his work, claiming me as one of his own.

Produced in 1949 for the National Film Board of Canada, working alongside long-time collaborator Evelyn Lambert, Begone Dull Care is an audio-visual masterwork. Drawn directly on celluloid film, we are given an abstract expressionist view of graphic notation, capturing the energy not only of the sounds produced by collaborating jazz musicians, the Oscar Peterson Trio, but their movements in performance too. In three distinct acts, the piece moves from the establishment of instrument-corresponding motifs and showing the work’s potential, to a relaxed monochromitisation of forms, to a frenzied explosion of multimodal expression, exploring the depths of colour, harmony, texture, and rhythm. If music is the universal language, then animation must be the instrument of its projection.

I adore this piece, it’s truly captivating, and I will never tire of it. If you only ever manage to see one of the 70, let it be this one.

As I hold no copyright over these spotlighted works, links may break from time to time, but where this is the case, I ask you - seek them out. It’ll be worth it.