100 years ago, 'The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)', the oldest surviving feature animation was made by the wonderful Lotte Reiniger in her unique style, but how did she do it?

Most of Lottie's work was inspired by the fantastical, fairy tales, children’s books, and theatre, but unlike many of her contemporaries that focused on facial expression for emotion, she opted for silhouettes - “She placed backlit planes of glass in front of a camera with a manual shutter to achieve a layered effect.”

Synopsis of the film: “A handsome prince rides a flying horse to faraway lands and embarks on magical adventures, which include befriending a witch, meeting Aladdin, battling demons and falling in love with a princess.”

Her style made the expression of movement more important for capturing emotion – “Hands are practically the only way to show a silhouette figure's emotions” – she used her art style to drive her stories in a visually interesting way. Jet black cardboard with wire joints were back lit and placed onto detailed scenic backgrounds. Many of her most famous works were silent, and so the characters had to capture the audience, which they did with high contrast colours, sharp shadows, and exaggerated character movement.

Lottie’s work has inspired many modern animators/artists, including illustrator Jan Pieńkowski, modern artist Kara Walker, and Michel Ocelot who took Lottie’s concepts and played with form, creating silhouettes from paper doilies in his film ‘The Three Inventors (1980).’

Lottie was a pioneer of animation, taking it from a gimmicky short format, to feature length art; pushing silhouettes to a wider audience, and capturing the fantastical of the world as she saw it.