Animators to know, from Aotearoa and the world

Animation needs patience, imagination and a willingness to try things nobody has tried before. These animators all found their own way of making things move.

Len Lye (1901–1980)

Len Lye was born in Christchurch and spent much of his life in London and New York. He was a pioneer of direct animation: instead of photographing drawings, he painted, drew and scratched straight onto the strip of film. His early film Tusalava (1929) took about 4,400 drawings for a film nine minutes long. Later films, set to jazz and drumming, are bursts of dancing lines and colour. The Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth shows his films and moving sculptures.

Fred O'Neill

In the 1950s, Fred O'Neill, from Dunedin, used money from his electroplating business to animate creatures made of plasticine. The government's National Film Unit noticed and funded short films, including Space Flight (1962), a plasticine space adventure made for the Health Department to encourage children not to smoke. A single early film took about a hundred hours of patient work.

The Pen

The Pen (2001) is a series of short stop-motion films about two sheep having deadpan conversations in their paddock. It was made by stop-motion animator Guy Capper with Jemaine Clement, and later appeared on television. It shows that a simple set and two characters can be very funny.

Around the world

Borrowing ideas

You can borrow an animator's technique (silhouettes, scratching, clay) without copying their characters. Invent your own characters and stories, and credit the people whose work inspired you.