Pal, George Walter Lantz Production

Description

This elf puppet without a face was created by George Pal and used in early animation. Elf costume is red and brown. There is an accompanying wooden box contains 16 faces, two eyes, and one pair of hands.George Pal was one of the pioneers of stop-frame puppet animation, a painstaking process achieved by moving figures and shooting each change on a single frame of motion picture film in a series of progressive steps. At each frame shot, the head, arms, and legs of a character were changed according to the motions needed. This creates the illusion of fluid motion when the film is viewed at normal speed. Pal was also the first producer-director to combine animated puppets with human actors.Pal was contracted by Paramount Studios in 1940 to produce a series of short-subject puppet cartoons which he had created in Europe, called Puppetoons. The Puppetoons adressed a wide variety of subject matters, such as fairy tales and jazz themes. George Pal was also popular for his work in feature films and had won eight Academy Awards.Currently not on view

Record Contributed By

National Museum of American History

Record Harvested From

Smithsonian Institution