Claire Parker (August 31, 1906 – October 3, 1981) was an American engineer and animator. A graduate of

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

, her best-known contribution to the history of cinema is the Pinscreen (''Écran d'épingles''), a vertically-mounted grid of between 240,000 and 1 million sliding metal rods that are first manually pushed into position to create lit and shaded areas, then filmed frame by frame. While the hand-operated, mechanical Pinscreen superficially shares characteristics with early

optical toys Optical toys form a group of devices with some entertainment value combined with a scientific, optical nature. Many of these were also known as "philosophical toys" when they were developed in the 19th century. People must have experimented with op ...

like the

zoetrope A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. It was basically a cylindrical variation of the phénak ...

, it is distinguished by being one of the first devices ever to produce animation by reconfiguring a set of individual picture elements, later called

pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the ...

s. A model with sufficient pin "resolution" can be used to create a

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 ...

of photorealistic images, a painstaking process analogous to modern

pixel art Pixel art () is a form of digital art drawn with graphical software where images are built using pixels as the only building block. It is widely associated with the low-resolution graphics from 8-bit and 16-bit era computers and arcade video g ...

. Parker shared directing credits for her films with her husband and collaborator, Russian animator

Alexandre Alexeieff Alexandre Alexandrovitch Alexeieff (Russian: Александр Александрович Алексеев;Alternative transcriptions include Alexander Alexeieff or Alexander Alexeïeff or Alexandre Alexieff 18 April 1901 – 9 August 1982) was ...

; however, the 1935 French and 1937 U.S. patents on the Pinscreen were made in her name alone. Alexeieff and Parker's Pinscreen films include ''Night on Bald Mountain'' (1933) and ''The Nose'' (1963), as well as the opening title sequence for

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

' film ''

The Trial ''The Trial'' (german: Der Process, link=no, previously , and ) is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. One of his best known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and p ...

'' (1962). , the last known original Pinscreen still being used in animation production is maintained at the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

's main campus in Montreal. A second screen was constructed and put into production in 2018.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parker, Claire 1906 births 1981 deaths Stop motion animators American women animators 20th-century American women artists Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni

Further reading

References