Who is Lotte

LOTTE REINIGER was an inventor and an innovator. Her unique style of storytelling and visual contrast inspired many, including modern day filmmakers Henry Selick, Anthony Lucas and ourselves. Her 1926 film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed was the first ever feature length animation. She also invented the multi-plane camera allowing her to create a sense of depth in her films, which was a major contribution to the field of animation.

"Through her pioneering fusion of silhouette craft with the emerging medium of animation film, Reiniger’s work transforms a handmade form – traditionally practiced by women with no access to formal training – into a distinctly modern and aesthetically radical medium." - Tashi Petter

Lotte Reiniger, June 1972

Lotte was awarded the Filmband in Gold of the Deutscher Filmpreis.

The original multiplane camera

Lotte invented the multiplane camera in 1923 when she began working on her film The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Disney is often erroneously credited with this achievement.

Carmen

A still from Lotte Reiniger’s 1933 film Carmen, based on the opera.

In her studio

Lotte working with her puppets on an updated metal version of her invention, the multiplane camera. She preferred the wooden version, and since created a hybrid wood and metal structure.

Puppet Detail

Lotte made hyper-detailed silhouette puppets with cardboard and thin lead sheets. She used wire for hinges. She was ridiculously skillful with her scissors--people who knew her said she was born with fairy hands.

"No one else has taken a specific animation technique and made it so utterly her own.... To date she has no rivals, and for all practical purposes the history of silhouette animation begins and ends with Reiniger." - Philip Kemp, the BFI

LOTTE REINIGER (1899-1981) was an animator, an inventor, a storyteller, and a trailblazer. Her unique style inspired many, including modern day filmmakers Henry Selick, Nora Twomey and many others. Her 1926 film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the oldest surviving feature length animation, and while directing it, she invented the multiplane camera, which was a major contribution to the field of animation. Her films are imbued with an unmatched grace and beauty due to her passion for an aesthetic that she developed so distinctly. Lotte once said that animation is “not so much a technical implement as the expression of the spirit behind it.”

RESOURCES:

Biography (in English): Lotte Reiniger: Pioneer of Film Animation, by Whitney Grace

Biography (in German): Lotte Reiniger. Schöpferin einer neuen Silhouettenkunst, by Alfred Happ

Myth-buster: Who invented the multiplane camera?