Alexandre Alexeieff
Biography
Russian-born French experimental short artist who with his wife, American-born Claire Parker, invented the pinscreen animation technique. He is most known for designing the prologue sequence for Orson Welles's The Trial. He grew up in Constantinople, then the Ottoman Empire. His landmark work, Night on Bald Mountain (1933) was a fusion of musical piece and imagery, seven years before Wait Disney attempted the same piece as part of Fantasia (1940). Two years later he would produce the first promotional film in France made in color.
Known For & Full Filmography4 Titles
Movie - 1973, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
Pinscreen animation makes use of a screen filled with movable pins, which can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows.
Movie - 2024, 2h 15m • as Archive footage
The Pinscreen is a tool that was created in the 1930s to make animation films. Although it no longer provides any technical advantages, a handful of animation directors still use it. This film explores why it is so important to create something handmade with constraints, in a time when everything is turning towards instantaneous digital technology.
Movie - 2009, 2h 15m • as Archive Footage
This documentary is a portrait of the animator of Le Paysagiste, from his childhood in Eastern Quebec to his career at the NFB. Trained at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Drouin became in some ways the heir to Alexandre Alexeïeff when he began working with the Alexeïeff-Parker pinhole screen in 1974. Recounting his relationship with the filmmaker and inventor, coming back with lucidity and precision on the whole of his own filmography, Jacques Drouin delivers here a precious testimony on creation. Enriched with numerous excerpts and unpublished images from the filmmaker's personal archives, Jacques Drouin en relief is both the adventure of a lifetime and a valuable lesson in cinema.
Movie - 2002, 2h 15m • as Self (archive footage)
Alexander Alekseev, Alyosha, Alfeoni ... artist, animator, inventor. The author of "Night on Bald Mountain" — one of the most mysterious films in the history of animation and the inventor of a unique device — a needle screen . He did the first color commercials and the prologue to the Orson Welles film "The Trial". He made dreams come true and subordinated reality to his own imagination.