Pinscreen animation
Encyclopedia
Pinscreen animation makes use of a screen filled with movable pins, which can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows. The technique has been used to create animated films with a range of textural effects difficult to achieve with traditional cel animation
.
and his wife Claire Parker
who were often guests of the National Film Board of Canada
. They made a total of 6 very short films with it, over a period of fifty years. Despite the short running time and the monochrome nature of these films, they won numerous awards over the years.
On August 7, 1972, Alexeïeff and Parker demonstrated the pinscreen to a group of animators at the National Film Board of Canada
. This demonstration was filmed, and released by the NFB as Pin Screen. This film, along with "Pinscreen Tests" (1961), appear on disc 7 of the Norman McLaren
: The Master's Edition DVD collection.
One animator who remains involved in pinscreen animation to this day is the National Film Board's Jacques Drouin
.
Ward Fleming patented the vertical three-dimensional image screen, a toy which to date has sold more than 50 million pieces worldwide.
Smaller, cheaper models have since been developed as a 5×7 inch toy version called "Pin Art
", sometimes sold in Science museums or through the Web and printed catalogs.
, or shading effects. To obtain the desired gray tones that are cast from the shadows of the pins, several methods are used.
The original pinscreen used by Alexeïeff had 240,000 pins which were usually pressed with a small tool, one pin at a time or with other specialized instruments. Frames are created one at a time, each frame modifying the one previous to itself. After each frame has been photographed, the images are strung together to create an image without pauses. The pin and frame assembly was built very solidly and mounted in a secure fashion to offer a stable image to the animation camera day after day, week after week as each image of the movie was painstakingly composed.
This form of animation is extremely time consuming and difficult to execute, rendering it the least popular method of animation. An additional reason for its unpopularity is its expensive nature. Individually, the pins are relatively cheap; however, it is not uncommon that a million or more may be used to complete a single screen, quickly increasing the cost for manufacture.
One of the advantages of using digital pinscreen animation is the recovery of images. With the traditional pinscreen, there is no way to recover a previous image except for creating it all over again with no guarantee of precision. With digital pinscreen, the same image can be retrieved and altered without having to be recreated.
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
.
Origin
The technique was developed by Alexandre AlexeïeffAlexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker
Alexandre Alexandrovitch Alexeieff was a Russian-born artist, filmmaker and illustrator who lived and worked mainly in Paris...
and his wife Claire Parker
Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker
Alexandre Alexandrovitch Alexeieff was a Russian-born artist, filmmaker and illustrator who lived and worked mainly in Paris...
who were often guests of the National Film Board of Canada
National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...
. They made a total of 6 very short films with it, over a period of fifty years. Despite the short running time and the monochrome nature of these films, they won numerous awards over the years.
On August 7, 1972, Alexeïeff and Parker demonstrated the pinscreen to a group of animators at the National Film Board of Canada
National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...
. This demonstration was filmed, and released by the NFB as Pin Screen. This film, along with "Pinscreen Tests" (1961), appear on disc 7 of the Norman McLaren
Norman McLaren
Norman McLaren, CC, CQ was a Scottish-born Canadian animator and film director known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada...
: The Master's Edition DVD collection.
One animator who remains involved in pinscreen animation to this day is the National Film Board's Jacques Drouin
Jacques Drouin
Jacques Drouin is a Canadian animator and director most known for his pinscreen animations.-Biography:Jacques Drouin was born in Mont-Joli, Quebec province, Canada. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal for several years before leaving to study filmmaking at the UCLA in California.He...
.
Ward Fleming patented the vertical three-dimensional image screen, a toy which to date has sold more than 50 million pieces worldwide.
The pinscreen device
A pinscreen is a white screen that consists of thousands and thousands of pins in small holes. Light shines from the side of this platform causing each and every single pin to cast its own shadow. Each pin, being able to slide easily back and forth through the holes, can cast different shadows. The white screen becomes darker the farther the pins are pushed out. The more the pins are pushed in, the lighter the screen becomes, giving a grayish tone and eventually an all white screen again.Smaller, cheaper models have since been developed as a 5×7 inch toy version called "Pin Art
Pin Art
Pin Art or Pinscreen is an executive toy patented by Ward Fleming. It consists of a boxed surface made of a crowded array of pins that are free to slide in and out independently in a screen to create a three-dimensional relief. Other similar product names are "PinPressions" and "Pinhead"...
", sometimes sold in Science museums or through the Web and printed catalogs.
The animation technique
According to Claire Parker, the images created by the pinscreen made it possible to make an animated movie which escaped from the flat, "comic" aspect of cel animation and plunged instead into the dramatic and the poetic by the exploitation of chiaroscuroChiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro in art is "an Italian term which literally means 'light-dark'. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted"....
, or shading effects. To obtain the desired gray tones that are cast from the shadows of the pins, several methods are used.
The original pinscreen used by Alexeïeff had 240,000 pins which were usually pressed with a small tool, one pin at a time or with other specialized instruments. Frames are created one at a time, each frame modifying the one previous to itself. After each frame has been photographed, the images are strung together to create an image without pauses. The pin and frame assembly was built very solidly and mounted in a secure fashion to offer a stable image to the animation camera day after day, week after week as each image of the movie was painstakingly composed.
This form of animation is extremely time consuming and difficult to execute, rendering it the least popular method of animation. An additional reason for its unpopularity is its expensive nature. Individually, the pins are relatively cheap; however, it is not uncommon that a million or more may be used to complete a single screen, quickly increasing the cost for manufacture.
Digital pinscreen animation
Because of the cost and labor-intensive animation process, several computer programs have been made with the goal of simulating the images generated by a physical pinscreen.One of the advantages of using digital pinscreen animation is the recovery of images. With the traditional pinscreen, there is no way to recover a previous image except for creating it all over again with no guarantee of precision. With digital pinscreen, the same image can be retrieved and altered without having to be recreated.
External links
- National Film Board of Canada – Overview of the pinscreen animation technique
- The Pinscreen in the Era of the Digital Image by Pedro Faria Lopes
- Encarta Article on Animation
- Pinscreen animations by Alexandre Alexeieff at YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....