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using pinscreen animation.]] 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. The technique has been used to create animated films with a range of textural effects difficult to achieve with traditional cel Animation . The technique was developed by Alexandre Alexeieff and his wife Claire Parker who were often guests of the National Film Board Of Canada . They made a total of 6 very short films with it, over a period of fifty years. Despite their short running time and their monochrome nature they won numerous awards over the years. The original pinscreen had 240,000 pins which were usually pressed with a small tool, one pin at a time or with other specialized instruments. The pin and frame assembly was built very solidly and mounted in a secure fashion to offer a stable image to the animation camera day after day, week after week as each image of the movie was painstakingly composed. Smaller, cheaper models have been made and a five by seven inch "play" version is sometimes sold in Science museums or through the Web and printed catalogs. According to Claire Parker, the images created by the pinscreen made it possible to make an animated movie which escaped from the flat, "comic" aspect of cel animation and plunged instead into the dramatic and the poetic by the exploitation of Chiaroscuro , or shading effects. ), a short film by Jacques Drouin .]] On August 7, 1972, Alexeieff and Parker demonstrated the pinscreen to a group of animators at the National Film Board Of Canada . This demonstration was filmed, and released by the NFB as ''Pin Screen''. This film appears on disk 7 of '' Norman McLaren : The Master's Edition'', along with ''Pinscreen Tests'' (1961). One animator who remains involved in pinscreen animation to this day is the National Film Board's Jacques Drouin . Many computer programs have been made with the goal of simulating the images generated by a physical pinscreen. PINSCREEN ANIMATION The pinscreen animation is a white screen that consists of thousands and thousands of pins in small holes. Light shines from the side of this platform causing each and every single pin to cast its own shadow. Each pin, being able to slide easily back and forth through the holes, can cast different shadows. The white screen becomes darker the farther the pins are pushed out. The more the pins are pushed in, the lighter the screen becomes, giving a grayish tone and eventually an all white screen again. Device Description To obtain the desired gray tones that are cast from the shadows of the pins, several methods are used. Frames are created one at a time, each frame modifying the one previous to itself. After each frame has been photographed, the images are strung together to create an image without pauses. This form of animation is extremely time consuming and difficult to execute, rendering it the least popular method of animation. An additional reason for its unpopularity is its expensive nature. Individually, the pins are relatively cheap; however, it is not uncommon that a million or more may be used to complete a single screen, quickly increasing the cost for manufacture. DIGITAL PINSCREEN ANIMATION One of the most intriguing advantages of using digital pinscreen animation is the fact that you can go back and change a frame without ruining the whole animation. The digital approach revolves around automation, an area where computers excel. The digital approach also saves time and money. Imagine as an artist who produces pinscreen animation, how much money and time you could save because all you have to do now is just type a couple numbers and you get a sequence of images. The most important aspect of the digital pinscreen animation is the recovery of images. With the traditional pinscreen, there was no way to recover an image except for creating it all over again, and even in doing so, there was no guarantee of perfection. With digital pinscreen, you can retrieve the exact same image and have the ability to alter it. EXTERNAL LINKS
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