Lotte Reinger

After seeing only a few seconds of the clip from Prince Achmed, I was very intrigued by Lotte Reinger's silhouette style of animation. It seemed so simple yet complex, in lieu of detailed character drawings she opted instead for fluid joint movement and realistic animations. It seemed like a painstaking process, but as shown in the final behind-the-scenes clip it's shown to be relatively painless, with the puppets' joints connected by a series of hinges. The most painstaking part of the process seems to be the cutting out of various character and set models.

Her style reminded me of something I had seen recently, and after racking my brain, I realized it was a music video by the Decemberists for their song "The Tain." Made entirely out of silhouettes on tissue paper backdrops, the video (supposedly) follows the plot of the entire twenty-minute epic. Fortunately, the plot was far too convoluted for me to ever really make sense of it, but I love the song!