Jacques Drouin's revisits the spiritual landscape of his artistic mind through Imprints, his latest short animated film produced in 2004. This short is reminiscent of his earlier work, Mindscape, which also explored the relationship between the artist and his beloved medium, the pinscreen animation.
In the opening shot, Jacques Drouin enters the scene and carves out a chalk silhouette portrait of the artist's mind onto the back of his pinscreen. He twirls the screen around and, from there, composes a symphony of evolving images that twist and turn among a series of glowing nebulous clouds accompanied by fierce golden flames symbolizing the artistic spirit.
The image of spiraling sea shells combined with the golden flames speaks to the roots of the artist's drive and passion for creation; close-up shots reveal pixel-like needle points with screeching metallic sound effects that communicate the hard, unrelenting power this medium has held over its creator over the past thirty years.
After encountering the first pinscreen animation at the National Film Board of Canada almost thirty years ago, Jacques Drouin has once again shown himself to be the master of his craft and divinity from which his art has sprung forth.
What is Pinscreen Animation?
Pinscreen animation is an extremely time consuming and challenging form of animation involving a white screen consisting of thousands of pins whose length can be altered in order to cast varying degrees of shadows. These shadows render the white screen light or darker, thereby allowing the animator to create still images to be photographed in sequence for animation.
The pinscreen technique was developed by Alexandre Alexeieff and his wife Claire Parker. The couple was a frequent guest of the National Film Board of Canada and demonstrated this technique on August 7th, 1972.
Jacques Drouin - Writer, Director and Animator
Jacques Drouin was born in Mont-Joli, Quebec, Canada. Drouin studied art at the Ecole des beaux-arts in Montreal before leaving for UCLA, California to study filmmaking. During an animation exhibition in the late 60s, Drouin encountered pinscreen animation - an animation technique he has remained faithful to until this day. Drouin has also continued to produce short films for the National Film Board of Canada since he joined as an apprentice in the early 70s.
Films by Jacques Drouin
- 1974 - Three Exercises on Alexeiff Pinscreen
- 1976 - Mindscape
- 1986 - Nightangel (in colloboration with Bretislav Pojar)
- 1988 - A Sun Between Two Clouds (animator)
- 1990 - Nathael and the Sea Hunt
- 1991 - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (animator)
- 1994 - Ex-Child
- 1996 - A Life Like a River (animator)
- 2001 - A Hunting Lesson (adapted by Jacques Godbout'
- 2003 - Winter Days (in collaboration with other animators)
- 2004 - Imprints
National Film Board of Canada Online Streams Animation Free
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is proudly joined the next frontier in Canadian broadcasting – the Internet. The NFB has opened up its treasure chest of beloved favourites and forgotten classics for free online viewing. Canadians can also view new releases and subscribe to the NFB newsletter, RSS feed and blog. This site is funded in part by Heritage Canada’s Canadian Culture Online.
Credits for Imprints
- Animation, Direction and Writer: Jacques Drouin
- Music: Francois Couperin
- Sound: Denis Saindon, Geoffrey Mitchell, and Serge Boivin
- Produced by Jean-Jacques Leduc and Marc Bertrand
- Produced by the National Film Board of Canada
- Running Time: 6min 3s
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