Abstract Cinema - ACE232.3

Extract from Mobilcolor – Projector (1966) by Charles Dockum, a film about the Mobilcolor projector (a "colour organ") which facilitated the production and animation of shapes, and the results it could achieve. John Whitney comparing his ideas of the "visual musical experience" with those of other film-makers. Natural sounds accompanied by abstract animation, with caption: "In the 1940s John Whitney worked with his brother James pioneering new techniques of abstract animation." Whitney talking about the use of paper cut-outs and pantographs, enabling the manipulation of light in front of a camera, and a pendulum that could generate a variable area sound track (with stills and extract); this equipment made it possible to "score" a composition. Extract from Five Film Exercises No 4 (1943-44), John and James Whitney. Whitney talking about his brother, James (with stills). Moritz on James Whitney. Extract from Lapis (1965), James Whitney. Moritz VO describing James Whitney’s desire to express fundamental conditions and to make people think more about their relationship to the cosmos. Moritz on James Whitney’s working style, confining himself to forming images out of dots. Extract from Yantra (1955), "entirely hand drawn". Part with Moritz VO.