Images from PES's "Western Spaghetti."
A bunch of very fun and visually striking shorts are available on the aptly named website The Twisted Films of PES. In particular, I would recommend Western Spaghetti, Game Over, The Deep (produced for Showtime), and the commercial Human Skateboard.
Innovative animator Norman McLaren
Here is a recent interview with PES.
In this interview, he discusses his use of pixilation; as he explains, this is a method that has been used by filmmakers since the earliest years of cinema. One of the most important examples of its use is the classic short Neighbours, made for the National Film Board of Canada by visionary filmmaker Norman McLaren and featuring fellow animator (and performer) Grant Munro.
The works of PES and Norman McLaren can offer many interesting examples for educators as they explore questions of film forms that are raised in Chapter 5 of Moving Images. Other examples will be discussed in upcoming blogs: stay tuned!
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