:Claire Parker

{{Short description|American engineer and animator}}

{{about||former British rower|Claire Parker (rower)|the fictional superhero|Spider-Woman#Claire Parker{{!}}Spider-Woman (Claire Parker)}}

{{Infobox artist

| name = Claire Parker

| image = Photo of Claire Parker.jpg

| imagesize =

| caption = Parker at the pinscreen

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{birth date|1906|8|31|mf=y}}

| birth_place =

| death_date = {{death date and age|1981|10|3|1906|8|30|mf=y}}

| death_place =

| nationality = American

| education = Massachusetts Institute of Technology

| field = Engineering, Animation

| training =

| movement =

| works =

| patrons =

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| spouse = {{marriage|Alexandre Alexeieff|1940|}}

}}

Claire Parker (August 31, 1906 – October 3, 1981) was an American engineer and animator. A graduate of MIT, she invented the Pinscreen, 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.{{cite book|last=Furniss|first=Maureen|title=Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics|date=December 1998|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-1-86462-039-9|pages=54–57|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aQ4mrirF5nkC&pg=PA55&q=mindscape%20drouin|authorlink=Maureen Furniss|accessdate=17 February 2012}} While the hand-operated, mechanical Pinscreen superficially shares characteristics with early optical toys like the zoetrope, it is distinguished by being one of the first devices ever to produce animation by reconfiguring a set of individual picture elements, later called pixels. A model with sufficient pin "resolution" can be used to create a Pinscreen animation of photorealistic images, a painstaking process analogous to modern pixel art.

Parker shared directing credits for her films with her husband and collaborator, Russian animator Alexandre Alexeieff; however, the 1935 French and 1937 U.S. patents on the Pinscreen were made in her name alone.{{Cite book |last=Neupert |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AvD7olaX74sC&pg=PT68 |title=French Animation History |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-4443-9257-9 |language=en}}{{Cite web |author= |date= |title=Apparatus for producing images - US2100148A |url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US2100148A/ |access-date=13 June 2022 |work=Google Patents}} Alexeieff and Parker's Pinscreen films include Night on Bald Mountain (1933){{Cite web |last=Alexander |first=Vincent |date=21 October 2022 |title=20 Spooky Stop-Motion Classics To Get You In The Mood For Halloween |url=https://www.cartoonbrew.com/cartoon-study/scary-stop-motion-shorts-for-halloween-222403.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221022100534/https://www.cartoonbrew.com/cartoon-study/scary-stop-motion-shorts-for-halloween-222403.html |archive-date=22 October 2022 |access-date=27 October 2022 |website=Cartoon Brew |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=A Night on Bald Mountain [Original title: Une nuit sur le mont chauve] |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024721/?ref_=ttpl_pl_tt |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220804171511/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024721/?ref_=ttpl_pl_tt |archive-date=4 August 2022 |access-date=27 October 2022 |website=IMDb}} and The Nose (1963),{{Cite web |last=Alexeieff |first=Alexander |last2=Parker |first2=Claire |title=Le Nez (Short 1963) |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057361/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221028030711/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057361/ |archive-date=28 October 2022 |access-date=27 October 2022 |website=IMDb}} as well as the opening title sequence for Orson Welles' film The Trial (1962). {{as of|2012||}}, the last known original Pinscreen still being used in animation production is maintained at the National Film Board of Canada's main campus in Montreal.{{cite news |author=Blair |first=Iain |date=4 June 2012 |title=NFB pushes Canadian artists in edgy direction |work=Variety |url=https://variety.com/2012/digital/news/nfb-pushes-canadian-artists-in-edgy-direction-1118054435/ |url-status=live |accessdate=5 June 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210920061035/https://variety.com/2012/digital/news/nfb-pushes-canadian-artists-in-edgy-direction-1118054435/ |archive-date=20 September 2021}} A second screen was constructed and put into production in 2018.{{Cite web |author=Mello |first=Marie |date=28 August 2018 |title=Justine Vuylsteker embraces the magic of pinscreen animation |url=https://blog.nfb.ca/blog/2018/08/28/justine-vuylsteker-embraces-the-magic-of-pinscreen-animation/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211225142809/https://blog.nfb.ca/blog/2018/08/28/justine-vuylsteker-embraces-the-magic-of-pinscreen-animation/ |archive-date=25 December 2021 |access-date=4 March 2021 |work=NFB Blog}}