Of the four films produced for the Festival of Britain celebrations (1951) and shown at The Telekinema Cinema, London, the Norman McLaren-National Film Board of Canada's animated Technicolor films "Around is Around" (1950) garnered the most praise. Both films used McLaren's trademark technique of direct drawing on to 35mm film. The former was designed to introduce the viewer to the concept of 3-D using shapes and sound and the latter depicted patterns made by an oscilloscope set to specially composed music. It seemed the medium was better suited to abstract form as the two live action films. Lines and figures come to life in an abstract way in this unique animated short (with 3-D supervision by Raymond Spottiswoode). The two films was presented in a beautiful dye-transfer Technicolor print.
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1951 saw the addition of Studio E (sponsored films) and Studio F (French-language films.) The development of a dual 35-mm 3-D camera, inter-ocular offset printing and projection system that year enabled Norman McLaren to make the three-dimensional films Around Is Around and Now Is the Time for the Festival of Britain. For Around is Around, McLaren developed a technique based on filming oscilloscope patterns pioneered by the American artist Mary Ellen Bute. McLaren photographed moving oscilloscope patterns given stereoscopic form through the control of different left-eye and right-eye image positions. Both 3-D films were also designed with stereo soundtracks and were both 10 minutes long.
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| McLaren's movie was described in technical detail in American Cinematographer. |
For both of these two films the tile followed by "put on your glasses" (Polaroid glasses).
3-D Films at The Telekinema Cinema, London as previously mentioned, was the main attraction showcasing of new cinematic technology stereoscopic films. This was not the first time 3-D films had been shown to the public; in 1924 a programme of films had been shown in London and the USSR had already perfected stereoscopic projection without the need for the audience to wear special glasses.
Norman McClaren is one of the most awarded filmmakers in the history of Canadian cinema, and a pioneer in both animation and filmmaking. Norman McLaren was born in Scotland in 1914. Studied at Glasgow School of Art, where he ran the Film Society. His early abstract film experiments and anti-war film Hell UnLtd, gained him an invitation from John Grierson to work at the GPO Film Unit, where he perfected his painting-on-film technique.
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| Moving oscilloscope patterns given stereoscopic form through the control of different left-eye and right-eye images. |
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A pacifist, he moved to the USA at the outbreak of War, working with Mary Ellen Bute in New York, before taking up what proved a life time's residency at the new National Film Board of Canada. McLaren's determination to explore new techniques resulted in a body of work that won him international renown. Over his career, he made 59 films, most leaning towards experimental animation, with music as an important element. McLaren's colleagues in Technical Services and Engineering invented a special camera and projector system to enable him to continue his experimentation. In 1951, thanks to their innovations, McLaren made two 3-D films, Around Is Around and Now Is The Time. Around is Around (1952) got a Special Canadian Film Awards from BAFTA Film Award Best Animated Film in 1968. And in 1968 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and promoted to Companion in 1973. In 1982, he was the first anglophone to receive the Prix Albert-Tessier, given to persons for an outstanding career in Québec cinema.
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| 1944 Norman McLaren, of the animation department, National Film Board of Canada, drawing directly on film. |
1951 Pen Point Percussion, 5 min. Norman McLaren explains how he makes synthetic sound on film. With an oscilloscope he first demonstrates what familiar sounds look like on the screen; next, how sound shapes up on a film's sound track; and then what synthetic sounds sound like when drawn directly on film. This technique is also demonstrated in Dots and Loops. Also in 1951 Norman McLaren's "Now Is the Time" - Photographed paper cutouts and images was drawn directly on film stock were given single-frame animation. Stereoscopy was achieved by photographing and drawing two visuals (one for the left eye, one for the right eye) with controlled displacement of the elements in relationship to each other. The hand-drawn sound was also composed and recorded on two separate bands for stereoscopic playing. The film was 3 minutes long.
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| 1951 Pen Point Percussion used oscilloscope sound patterns. |
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Festival of Britain celebrations (1951) - The Festival of Britain, from 3 May to 30 September 1951, hoped to provide some respite from the ongoing affects of the Second World War by celebrating the nation's past achievements in the arts, industry and science as well as looking ahead to a future of progress and prosperity. It also marked the halfway point of the century, a natural time to take stock and examine advances in British society. Britons were `promised a year "of fun, fantasy and colour," an interlude of "fun and games" after a long run of austerity' by the Director General of the Festival, Gerald Barry. Thus, the role of the film was integral to the Festival of Britain. It covered all three areas of concern the arts, industry and science and Britain's role in international film culture had already been established by the growth of the British Documentary Movement since the 1930s. The Festival of Britain therefore seemed a natural place to showcase British film production.
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| 1951 poster for the Festival of Britain celebrations. |
| The Telekinema: The Cinema of the Future - The London-based Festival of Britain site at the South Bank featured a purpose-built film theatre, the Telekinema, for big-screen public television broadcasts and the showing of specially commissioned Festival films. The Television pavilion also displayed a brief history of the new medium. Cinemas around the nation featured seasons of classic British filmmaking. The exhibitions themselves also used film as a tool for expressing concepts and processes that could not easily be displayed. So film was not only a medium for the exposition of ideas within the Festival of Britain exhibitions, it also contributed to the entertainment on offer. The demand for tickets to the Telecinema was so great that thousands of people were turned away each day. This was despite the Telecinema being the only exhibition area to charge for admission. Described as 'probably the most highly equipped cinema in the world', its futuristic quality caught the public imagination. The Telekinema later becomes the National Film Theatre. |
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| The Telekinema cinema described as 'probably the most highly equipped cinema in the world'. |
Three dimensional films at the Telecinema - Demonstrating the latest technology, the Telecinema combined film and full-screen television, and could show three dimensional films with 'stereophonic' sound. In the hour long programme, audiences enjoyed live television interviews and broadcasts, documentary shorts, and the specially made 'stereoscopic' films. These last were very popular. It was a new experience for audiences to wear strange glasses and enter the cinematic third dimension. 'I put on a pair of 'magic spectacles' yesterday - and saw a film in three dimensions instead of the usual two ... it was futuristic and fascinating.' Viewer, 1951.
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