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The Birth of the Robot (1936)
Directed by Len Lye
Animation · 6m
This experiment was a “prestige advertisement” for Shell Motor Oil. As conventional animation became dominated by Walt Disney, many European filmmakers turned to puppets as an alternative, and Lye enlisted the help of avant-garde friends such as Humphrey Jennings and John Banting to make the amusing puppets. Exploring the still-complex color process, which involved the combination of three separate images, Lye creates such a vivid storm scene that reviewers hailed it as “proof that the color film has entered a new stage.” The music is Holst’s The Planets. - Harvard Film Archive
Crew
- Director
- Len Lye
- Writer
- C.H. David
- Director of Photography
- Alex Strasser
Details
- Release date
- 1936-10-01
- Runtime
- 6m
- Genres
- Animation
- Original language
- EN
- Spoken languages
- No Language
- Countries
- United Kingdom