Caroline Leaf
| Caroline Leaf | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 12, 1946 Seattle, United States |
| Occupation |
Film director Animator Screenwriter |
| Years active | 1969 - 1995 |
Caroline Leaf (born August 12, 1946 in Seattle, Washington) is a Canadian-American filmmaker, animator, director, producer, and tutor. She has produced numerous short animated films and her work has been recognized worldwide. She is best known as one of the pioneering filmmakers at the National Film Board of Canada (NFBC). She worked at the NFBC from 1972-1991. During that time, she created the sand animation and paint-on-glass animation techniques. She also tried new hands-on techniques with 70mm Imax film. Her work is often representational of Canadian culture and is narrative based. Leaf now lives in London and is a tutor at The National Film and Television School.
Caroline Leaf was born in Seattle, Washington on August 12, 1946. She lived in Boston for most of her life but stayed in Seattle with her parents and sister every summer. She later moved to Seattle alone to live with her grandparents and cousins. Leaf attended Radcliffe College, which was affiliated with Harvard University, for visual arts from 1964-1968. She had no prior familial implications to film nor was she interested in Cinema until she saw her first European film in university. Initially Leaf wanted to pursue architecture. During her last year of studies she randomly enrolled in an animation class as an elective. The class was taught by Derek Lamb and while she could not draw, Lamb encouraged his students to focus on movement and to work under a camera. He requested his students bring an object to class as their focus of animation and Leaf chose beach sand. This is when she created sand animation. Using this technique, she produced her first film Sand, or Peter and the Wolf and was awarded a scholarship from Harvard University. After graduation, she moved to Italy for a year to focus on her drawing. She then completed a Post-doctoral degree at Harvard where she pioneered Paint-on-glass animation. It is with this new technique that she produced her second animated film, Orfeo. She then did a bit of freelance work and produced How Beaver Stole Fire. During that time, her animation professor Derek Lamb was hired as head of the English animation department at the National Film Board of Canada. Leaf moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada to work as an animator for the NFBC in 1972. She retired from the NFBC in 1992 to pursue Documentary film work.
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