Reel Solutions

One of the world’s most innovative and influential animations, three years in the making. Made in card. Cut entirely by hand is presented with a new live score composed and performed by Chris Davies.

Chris Davies reinvigorates the film with his skilful composition and live performance using a spectacular array of instruments from around the world to accompany Prince Achmed’s journey from the Middle East, to Africa, China and beyond.

The new live score was commissioned specially for Bradford Animation Festival’s celebration event in November 2014.

Since 2014 Chris has toured with the film extensively in the UK from the Isle of Mull to the Isle of Wight. Chris has also taken the show to Cine Dore, Madrid, Filmoteca de Catalunya, Barcelona and The Pharos Arts Foundation, Nicosia.

May the adventures continue…

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Prinzen Achmed) is an animated fairytale film based on tales from The Arabian Nights.

First shown in 1926 in Germany by Lotte Reiniger. It is the oldest surviving animated feature film and still stands as one of the great classics of animation — witty, lively, delicate, inventive, stirring and romantic. Neither the original negative nor a complete copy of the German original has survived, the reconstruction used is based on a nitrate copy with English intertitles from the BFI National Archive. This material was used to make a new copy and the German intertitles were reinserted from the surviving censor card.

The film features a silhouette animation technique Reiniger had invented which involved manipulated cutouts made from cardboard and thin sheets of lead under a camera. The technique she used for the camera is similar to Wayang shadow puppets, though hers was animated frame-by-frame, not manipulated in live action. The original prints featured colour tinting.

Several famous avant-garde animators worked on this film with Lotte Reiniger, among them Walter Ruttmann, Berthold Bartosch and Carl Koch.

Chris Davies

In a career spanning 35 years Chris has toured nationally and internationally as musician, composer, performer, musical director and tour manager with a number of acclaimed companies including Inner Sense Percussion, Horse and Bamboo Theatre, Whalley Range Allstars and Mr Wilson’s Second Liners.

After 11 years in a band Chris felt ready to explore a new direction and, as a multi-instrumentalist, he was drawn to the potential of musical creativity within the imaginative environment of live theatre. Inspired by this new space he began to create and record his unique atmospheric world sounds. Using a full orchestra of international percussion instruments, bamboo and metal flutes, oud, guitar, saxophone, keyboards, voice, sampling and digital technology, Chris then began to compose original scores for live performance in theatre, dance and film.

Alongside this, he has also composed and recorded two pieces for the Bird in the Hand Theatre Company.

After the first viewing I was completely enchanted and excited by the opportunity to work with this wonderful film; running at sixty-five minutes I knew it was a mammoth undertaking but couldn’t wait to get started.
Chris Davies, Composer