Lotte Reiniger was one of the first major pioneers in the world of Animation – more specifically silhouette animation – preceding even the likes of Walt Disney by over ten years. Her most famous pictures include The Adventures of Prince Achmed and The Magic Flute. She was born in Charlottenburg on the 2nd June 1899, and died on the 19th June 1981.
One of her first key influences was the films of Georges Méliès, especially for their use of ground-breaking special effects. Another big influence was the films of actor/director Paul Wegener, known today for The Golem. She joined the theatre group that Wegener was part of, The Theatre of Max Reinhardt, which is where she started to create silhouette portraits and elaborate title cards, many of which went on to feature in Wegener’s future films. In 1918, Reiniger animated wooden rats for Wegener's Der Rattenfänger von Hameln, or The Pied Piper of Hamelin. The success of this work got her admitted into the Institut für Kulturforschung, or the Institute for Cultural Research.
In terms of her own influence on other artists, Bruno J. Böttge was the only one to directly reference Reiniger and her work in his own features. Another artist using her techniques was Michel Ocelot, starting with the silhouette format in the 1989 television series Ciné si, along with others of his own invention, in his silhouette film Princes et princesses. Reiniger anticipated Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks by a decade, by devising the first multi-plane camera for certain effects. In addition to Reiniger's silhouette actors, Prince Achmed boasted backgrounds by Walter Ruttmann and a score by Wolfgang Zeller. Additional effects were added by Carl Koch and Berthold Bartosch.