CMYK (Clip 1)

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.

In this extraordinary short animation, Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren painted colours, shapes, and transformations directly on to their filmstrip. The result is a vivid interpretation, in fluid lines and colour, of jazz music played by the Oscar Peterson Trio.

This experimental short film by Norman McLaren is a playful exercise in intermittent animation and spasmodic imagery. Playing with the laws relating to persistence of vision and after-image on the retina of the eye, McLaren engraves pictures on blank film creating vivid, percussive effects.

In this short animation film, the "boogie" is played by Albert Ammons and the "doodle" is drawn by Norman McLaren. Made without the use of a camera, Boogie-Doodle is a rhythmic, brightly coloured film experiment.

Norman McLaren and Grant Munro use three different animation techniques to provide visual representations of canons in a film designed to teach viewers about this ancient musical form. The soundtrack combines both recorded classical music and sounds produced by a synthesizer.

Cut-out animation by Norman McLaren, and music for saxophones and synthetic sound by Maurice Blackburn. In a dream-like landscape drawn in pastel, inanimate objects come to life to disport themselves in grave dances and playful ritual.

This animated short by Norman McLaren features synchronization of image and sound in the truest sense of the word. To make this film, McLaren employed novel optical techniques to compose the piano rhythms of the sound track, which he then moved, in multicolor, onto the picture area of the screen so that, in effect, you see what you hear.

This wartime publicity trailer by Norman McLaren focuses on wartime inflation and the role of price control. Single-frame animation is used with pen drawings made directly on 35mm film stock. Music is by Louis Applebaum, a leading composer and advocate for the arts in Canada.

This abstract animated film is a tribute to the unique and long-established art form of patchwork quilting. Using computer animation, digital drafting, and experimental design techniques, this mesmerizing film choreographs quilt motifs and designs and sets them to music.

An animation film about a clarinet and a trumpet that meet, clash, compete, compromise and harmonize.

This animated short by Norman McLaren and René Jodoin is a play on motion set against a background of multi-hued sky. Spheres of translucent pearl float weightlessly in the unlimited panorama of the sky, grouping, regrouping or colliding like the stylized burst of some atomic chain reaction. The dance is set to the musical cadences of Bach, played by pianist Glenn Gould.