Lotte Reiniger was a German Animator, born 2nd June 1899 in Charlottenburg, Berlin. As a child she was inspired by the Chinese Art of Silhouette Puppetry, and would even create puppet shows for her friends and family to watch. Reiniger went into Theatre, during this time she would cut out silhouette shapes of other actresses, following her main passion of silhouette art. Eventually, she went on to create animated films using cut out silhouettes.
She made films such as Cinderella (Aschenputtel) in 1922, and Papageno in 1935 which featured music by Mozart. Her animations involve cut out silhouette figures, props and environments, over a 2D background. Her figures are strong so that they are more easily identifiable, and her clever use of negative space is done successfully throughout the animations. The principles of animation are captured well with timing, spacing and weight. Although some of the environment are silhouettes, she makes movement in them to connect to the characters and story. The background paintings look strong and in some of her films she creates a great level of depth in the background environments. She didn't stick to a simple and flat terrain, instead she created a strong sense of altitude and depth while moving characters up and down in scenes. Another approach she takes is using the silhouettes of the figures to show body language, which suggests emotion and mood in the way she presents it. This is important as it tells the story without it having to be read out to the viewer, and showing emotion in the figures brings the story to life. To emphasize the black silhouettes even more, she would use light backgrounds to increase the visibility of the shadows and makes them a point of interest. By pursuing her fascinations of Chinese Art of Silhouette Puppetry, she invented Silhouette Animation and is still appreciated and having her work used as examples today, long after her death in 1981.
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