Film Archive

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Animation and Musique concrète 2021

Five Film Exercises – Film 1

John Whitney, James Whitney
An impact pendulum writes directly on the soundtrack of the film, producing analogue bleeps and bits. In alternating coloured light, shades change their shape.
Media Name: 9c68e3a0-b0cd-4ec1-abb6-a6d7a413eeda.jpg
Media Name: 9c68e3a0-b0cd-4ec1-abb6-a6d7a413eeda.jpg

Five Film Exercises – Film 1

Five Film Exercises – Film 1
John Whitney, James Whitney
Animation and Musique concrète 2021
Experimental Film
USA
1943
5 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None
The Whitney brothers are pioneers of abstract animation. In 1943/1944, they experimented in five film exercises with modernist form and a device of their own that wrote directly on the soundtrack of the film by means of an impact pendulum. The resulting analogue electronic bleeps and bits are accompanied by moving stencils in constantly alternating coloured backlight whose shadows change their geometrical shape.
Cornelia Friederike Müller aka CFM

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
John Whitney, James Whitney