Len Lye was a New Zealand artist who became widely known for his experimental animation work in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s as well as his work with kinetic sculptures.
Len started to experiment with animation, more specifically stop-motion in the early 1930’s. One of his first works is a short music video called The Peanut Vendor (1933), in which a monkey-esque hominid sings, moves and dances to the peanut song. What is so remarkable about this short is the actual puppet itself. In the early days of stop-motion animation, the puppet’s themselves were mostly asinine and not the most appealing, but Len Lye managed to construct an armature that was able to pose in complicated ways. Rainbow Dance (1936) is a short five-minute animation that experiments with colour in various degrees. What sticks out to me is the blending between live-action and 2D colour animation, especially given the time period in which coloured film was quite rare. In this short, Len composites coloured imagery onto a dancing man, which is very reminiscent to Disney’s later film, Fantasia. The Birth of a Robot (1935) is perhaps my favourite short by Len Lye. It is another one of his early stop-motion animations. The short itself focuses on the God’s casting oil upon planet Earth, in which cars, machines and a robot are created and working with upmost high functionality. What is so interesting about this film is not only is it presented in colour, but also the intricate set and character design. The robot itself, while reminiscent of science-fiction machinery from that era, is merely a wooden art mannequin painted silver. Even though it’s very basic, it’s serves its purpose. I am very keen on Lye’s work, as I have thought about focusing my experimental film on animation and colour. Whilst I have done many animations in the past, I would like to further hone my skills at blending 2D animation with live-action footage just like Lye had done for Rainbow Dance.
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January 2020
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