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The oldest surviving animated feature film at 100 (bbc.com)
bentley 5 hours ago [-]
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!
johncoltrane 44 minutes ago [-]
What's the problem, here?
AnimalMuppet 7 minutes 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.
JKCalhoun 9 hours ago [-]
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

bentley 5 hours ago [-]
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...
MrBuddyCasino 1 hours ago [-]
Remarkable visuals. Could be an indie computer game.
dofm 31 minutes ago [-]
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.

1659447091 3 days ago [-]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-TJvNBO1fw

17 min documentary showing Reiniger's technique/process

klondike_klive 3 hours ago [-]
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

jimbokun 11 hours ago [-]
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.

thaumasiotes 7 hours ago [-]
> it’s unlike anything I’ve seen before

It's a filmed shadowpuppet performance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_play

tokai 5 minutes ago [-]
Looks like stop motion Scherenschnitte.
veltas 3 hours ago [-]
This is not true, it's a stop-motion animation.
thaumasiotes 2 hours ago [-]
Of what?
dofm 35 minutes ago [-]
They are jointed paper-cut figures (cut and then fastened with split pins and thread I think), laid out on multiple stacks of glass and ground-glass to simulate depth, and then back-illuminated (just as shadow puppets would be).

It's frame by frame stop-motion capture, for sure.

yiyus 5 hours ago [-]
Starevich was doing stop motion animated films in 1912: "The Beautiful Leukanida" or "The Cameraman's Revenge".
3 hours ago [-]
ginko 2 hours ago [-]
The key part being "feature film". There's tons of animated short films from the 1910s.
acoster 6 hours ago [-]
IIRC, that's the movie they play on loop at the kids section of Landesmuseum in Zürich.
bmacho 7 hours ago [-]
It's The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926). IMDB page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015532/
FpUser 3 hours ago [-]
Never heard about it before and just watched it on youtube. I have found it absolutely beautiful.
bsder 7 hours ago [-]
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?

ChrisMarshallNY 10 hours ago [-]
Amazing story!

I was unaware of her.

Thanks!

ostacke 3 hours ago [-]
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