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A Chairy Tale (Il était une chaise) is a 1957 Canadian stop-motion pixilation short film co-directed by Norman McLaren and Claude Jutra, starring Jutra with an uncooperative chair. The film humorously portrays Jutra's attempts to sit on the chair with the music set of Ravi Shankar and Chatur Lal.

Synopsis
The film begins with a seemingly normal chair onscreen. Jutra enters, carrying a book, and attempts to sit on the chair so he can read his book. The chair unexpectedly moves out from under him. The man's persistent become increasingly frenetic and violent to himself. Finally, the man realises that perhaps the chair will let him sit on it if he allows the chair to sit on him first. This gambit succeeds, resulting the man sits on the chair at the end.

Filming
The film took place on one indoor scene such as an empty stage and dark curtains in the background. The animated chair method involved using the traditional string-puppet technique with the exception of attaching the string horizontally off-screen on the right side and on the left side with the help of two animators. The strings were invisible to the camera because they were fine black nylon fishing string.

The film had variables speed of frames per second (fps) whether it was 16, 12, 8, 4 or 1 fps. In order to control the chair movement and the man action at a normal speed, the camera should capture the chair at half speed, 12 frames per second, and the man at 1/2 speed. However, if the chair action was difficult to control, the camera would have to capture it at 6 fps which result the chair moving at 1/4 speed. If the scene included capturing the chair movement at a high speed and the man at a normal speed, the camera would record the chair at 8 fps and the man 1/3 speed. In order to maintain a balance between the camera and the man or the chair action, the result was to slow them down at the same amount of speed.

Music
The background music of the film was accompanied with Indian music by Ravi Shankar, the sitar player, and Chatur Lau, the tabla player. The two musician players were invited to view the film after they had arrived on Montreal for a Television recital. They were intrigued by it and decided to compose music for the film. Since the film was already edited, McLaren split the film into two about ten loops and recorded the music into each of these loops. In addition, he added 20 seconds of silence in the loop for synchronising the music and the performance.

Analysis
The message of the film is that cooperation is a better option to resolve disputes rather than force. If one side of party is willingly to use violence and aggression in order to achieve their path, their own result will end poorly. The lesson is to listen and to see the other party view of point in order to compromise the situation.

The film's title
"Chairy" is a made-up word, punning on "chary", a British adjective seldom encountered in American English. "Chary" has no precise definition, but approximately means "cautious, nervous, apprehensive". The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines the word "chary" as "Cautiously or suspiciously reluctant to do something."