4 April 2013 Karl Magee - Norman McLaren an Animated Life

Stirling-born Oscar winner remembered

Stirling University archivist Karl Magee gave an insight into the ultra-talented life of experimental filmmaker Norman McLaren to members on Thursday evening.

Mr Magee told members that the archives now hold a fascinating collection of letters, illustrations and photographs covering much of Norman's personal life. These include his early years in Stirling, where he was born in 1914 and lived with his family at 21 Albert Street, opposite the Smith Museum - and then a 30-year span of some 400 letters to his family covering much of his professional life that was spent in Canada, working for the Canadian National Film Board.

Norman's embryonic film career was nurtured at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) during the 1930s, where he was spotted by pioneering Scottish documentary maker John Grierson. The pair collaborated on a number of projects during the ensuing years, including the 1936 documentary film The Night Mail about a mail train from London to Scotland, produced by the GPO Film Unit, which featured words by poet WH Auden. "That and a number of other Norman McLaren films can be seen on YouTube because they are relatively short," said Mr Magee.

Norman travelled widely throughout his life including 1935 when he visited Moscow. His family were hoping it would puncture his ideals of communism but it backfired spectacularly as he sent them a postcard saying: "Having a great time in every way here - One is quite free to wander anywhere here, and one can film almost anything." Then in 1936 he travelled to Madrid during the Spanish civil war. His first-hand experiences of the destruction wreaked in particular by German bombing raids affected him so profoundly, that he subsequently made an anti-war film entitled Hell Unlimited - and became a life-long pacifist.

Throughout his career, Norman experimented with animation, 3D and sound - at one point laboriously scratching sound on the edges of film stock frame by frame. He made a landmark painted/scratched film Beyond Dull Care featuring music from the Oscar Peterson Trio in 1949 that was produced for The National Film Board of Canada. And his outstanding talent was recognised in 1953 when his anti-war film Neighbours (1952) won the Academy Award for the best short film.

To mark the centenary of Norman McLaren's birth next year, a number of events are planned in Scotland including an exhibition in the Smith Museum, Stirling in April, which will then move to the GSA and then on to the Edinburgh Film Festival.