Tecniche produttive di McLaren

Any technique of animation consists of stopping the camera between the taking of each frame of film, instead of letting it run on relentlessly at normal speed (that is, 24 frames a second). Once it is assumed that the actor being photographed by a movie camera can stop between any or every 24th of a second, a new range of human behavior becomes possible. The laws of momentum, inertia, centrifugal force and gravity, but what is perhaps even more important, the tempo of acting, can be infinitely modulated from the slowest speed to the fastest. Apart from the apparently spectacular feats of virtuosity that this makes the actor capable of, it is possible to use the technique in a concealed way behind what appears to be normal acting. Or, if used in a less concealed way, it can permit to the actor a caricature type of movement. In much the same way as a pictorial caricature can make comment on character and situation by distorting the static form of a drawing, so live-action animation can create a caricature by tampering with the tempo of human action, by creating hyper-natural exaggerations and distortions of the normal behavior, by manipulating the acceleration and deceleration of any given human movement. This type of caricature is, of course, often found in animated cartoons, but cannot be found in live-action films until an animation technique is applied to them. It is also possible to devise many new ways for a human being to locomote. Apart from new types of walking and running, a person may get from one place to another by sliding, (while silting, standing, balancing on one foot, or any other way) and appearing and disappearing, and a host of other ways. 1

Nella biografia sono state elencate le tecniche produttive usate da McLaren per realizzare i suoi lavori. Ora verranno definite una ad una.