Last night I watched an old German film from 1926 titled, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Arabic) مغامرات الامير احمد. It is probably the first ever full length animated feature film. Before computer animation, before color, even before talkies, Lotte Reiniger cut figures out of black paper then frame by frame, one fraction of a millimeter at a time, moved the little pieces of paper to tell an ancient story. It’s staggering to realize how much work went into every minute of this film. According to Wikipedia the director Lotte Reiniger had been fascinated by puppets ever since she was a child. The evidence of which is all over the stark and gorgeous silhouette animation. The most beautiful thing about this movie was the expressiveness contained in every movement of the silhouettes hands. I recommend this Arabian Nights inspired fairytale film to anyone even the slightest bit interested in animation or where animation came from to get to the CGI of today. The characters in this film give Woody and Buzz a run for the money in the beauty and expressiveness of their movement.
Thus inspired I had to try my hand at some papercut art. Thanks is owed to Ryan Berkley for shamelessly stealing his fox portrait to use as source inspiration.
