Canadian Designs in Motion

A wonderful book by John Halas and Roger Manvell called “Design in Motion” was compiled in 1962 and looks at examples of animation design styles from various parts of the world.

Unfortunately, little of the book is in colour.

Here are some examples from Canada.

Unlike the United States, Canada didn’t have huge movie studios that owned theatres and released or distributed features and short films. Pretty much all the movies in the Golden Age were American or British imports. Cartoons came from the U.S.

This situation brought about the Canadian government forming the National Film Board in 1939. Its function was to make films (generally short films) about Canada for Canadians, eventually allowing their release elsewhere. I’m sure there wasn’t a kid in the 1960s who didn’t see at least one NFB film at school.

Being a government agency, independent animators gratefully received federal funding for their work or experiments. Their work began to be exhibited at international festivals and receive praise. Here are some examples from the Halas/Manvell book:





Gerald Potterton has had a fine career. Besides his NFB work, he animated on The Yellow Submarine, directed Heavy Metal and contributed to Sesame Street and The Electric Company. My favourite film of his is the live-action The Railrodder (1965), a silent film starring Buster Keaton (with musical and effects accompaniment).

Norman McLaren headed the animation portion of the NFB in the early days, and later won an Oscar for Best Documentary for the stop-motion allegory Neighbours (1952).

Kaj Pindal, correct me if I’m wrong, directed or animated a series of anti-smoking public service messages that aired on Canadian TV some 45 years ago. The narrator on them was radio talk-show host Pat Burns, who smoked like a proverbial chimney in real life.

We’ve posted other bits from the book before (see some drawings of the NBC Peacock by Bill Littlejohn for Playhouse Pictures in this post. You can read the book at ARCHIVE.ORG.