100 years old, yet its copyright only expired five years ago—in the United States. In Europe and other life+70 regions, the film will remain copyrighted past 2050, even though Lotte Reiniger died nearly half a century ago!
The problem is that copyright is supposed to secure for the authors the benefits of a creative work for a limited time. If it's decades longer than the longest human lifespan, that's not "a limited time" in any sense that is meaningful to humans.
Part of the problem is that it wasn't possible to upload it to YouTube until recently (and someone from Germany could still demand for it to be taken down or made unavailable in Germany), while also, being almost 100 years old, it was not released commercially - which both conspired to condemn it to obscurity.
Animators (and storyboarders, layout artists, illustrators etc) are still taught to prioritise the clarity and readability of the character's silhouette, although they're usually working with a three quarter view (between side profile and front-on) rather than a profile like the shadow puppets here. Still I can't help thinking this film would be a good object of study.
Some of the forest scenes remind me of the original King Kong in their use of dark foreground shapes and framing devices to give an impression of scale.
Animation isn't just hand-drawn animation, it's any kind of movie composed from individual still images. And stop-motion animation is a subcategory of that, no matter if you use clay/putty (like in Wallace & Gromit), Lego figures or paper cutouts (like in this case or also on South Park).
100 years old, yet its copyright only expired five years ago—in the United States. In Europe and other life+70 regions, the film will remain copyrighted past 2050, even though Lotte Reiniger died nearly half a century ago!
What's the problem, here?
The problem is that copyright is supposed to secure for the authors the benefits of a creative work for a limited time. If it's decades longer than the longest human lifespan, that's not "a limited time" in any sense that is meaningful to humans.
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Part of the problem is that it wasn't possible to upload it to YouTube until recently (and someone from Germany could still demand for it to be taken down or made unavailable in Germany), while also, being almost 100 years old, it was not released commercially - which both conspired to condemn it to obscurity.
Says the guy using a registered trademark as his username.
Amazing film. (I discovered it via "1001 Movies to See Before You Die.")
Copies are on YT:
https://youtu.be/7V_8aFQUfBw
https://youtu.be/AbXjEoD_dIE
https://youtu.be/j6DaB0Is4jM
It can also be watched in full on Wikipedia, as is the case with many films that are public domain in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Prince_Achme...
Remarkable visuals. Could be an indie computer game.
I am not a gamer but there is an indie game I wanted to try — is it called First Light? — that is essentially a shadow puppet realm.
There's a game I did try that used silhouette visuals that are IMO very Reininger-inspired — Limbo.
For those interested in the subject, animation has quite a history before Disney came onto the scene. I suggest this book:
Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898-1928 by Donald Crafton
Personally, I remain impressed to this day with the pioneering work of Winsor McCay, the cartoonist who created Little Nemo. Perhaps the best example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW71mSedJuU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-TJvNBO1fw
17 min documentary showing Reiniger's technique/process
I’m shocked I never heard of this before.
Just watched the first couple minutes of The Adventures of Prince Achmed and it’s unlike anything I’ve seen before.
> it’s unlike anything I’ve seen before
It's a filmed shadowpuppet performance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_play
This is not true, it's a stop-motion animation.
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Looks like stop motion Scherenschnitte.
I first encountered it set to Radiohead's "Sail to the Moon," which pairs quite well with the eerie visuals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq-ggx0TlkA
There's app that allows you to do something quite similar in real time:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quikanimate/id6467067883
Animators (and storyboarders, layout artists, illustrators etc) are still taught to prioritise the clarity and readability of the character's silhouette, although they're usually working with a three quarter view (between side profile and front-on) rather than a profile like the shadow puppets here. Still I can't help thinking this film would be a good object of study.
Some of the forest scenes remind me of the original King Kong in their use of dark foreground shapes and framing devices to give an impression of scale.
https://youtu.be/j6DaB0Is4jM?t=1720
https://youtu.be/1vNv-pE8I_c?t=72
Starevich was doing stop motion animated films in 1912: "The Beautiful Leukanida" or "The Cameraman's Revenge".
The key part being "feature film". There's tons of animated short films from the 1910s.
I wonder if she knew of Henri Rivière and his "Ombres Chinoises."
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/henri-riviere-master-printm...
The Shadow Theatre at "Le Chat Noir" was fairly famous, no?
IIRC, that's the movie they play on loop at the kids section of Landesmuseum in Zürich.
It's The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926). IMDB page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015532/
Never heard about it before and just watched it on youtube. I have found it absolutely beautiful.
Amazing story!
I was unaware of her.
Thanks!
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Looking at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V_8aFQUfBw, the film is impressive and has merit.
Should we say that it's "animated?" I know it's an argument of semantics; yet it's nothing like the hand-drawn animation of early Disney movies.
Animation isn't just hand-drawn animation, it's any kind of movie composed from individual still images. And stop-motion animation is a subcategory of that, no matter if you use clay/putty (like in Wallace & Gromit), Lego figures or paper cutouts (like in this case or also on South Park).