Len Lye
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Len Lye
Leonard Charles Huia Lye (; 5 July 1901 – 15 May 1980) was a New Zealand artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives including the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Pacific Film Archive at University of California, Berkeley. Lye's sculptures are found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Berkeley Art Museum. Although he became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1950, much of his work went to New Zealand after his death, where it is housed at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth. Career As a student, Lye became convinced that motion could be part of the language of art, leading him to early (and now lost) experiments with kinetic sculpture, as well as a desire to make film. Lye was also one of the first Pākehā artists to appreciate the art of Māo ...
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Christchurch
Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / Ōtākaro flows through the centre of the city, with an urban park along its banks. The city's territorial authority population is people, and includes a number of smaller urban areas as well as rural areas. The population of the urban area is people. Christchurch is the second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand, after Auckland. It is the major urban area of an emerging sub-region known informally as Greater Christchurch. Notable smaller urban areas within this sub-region include Rangiora and Kaiapoi in Waimakariri District, north of the Waimakariri River, and Rolleston and Lincoln in Selwyn District to the south. The first inhabitants migrated to the area sometime between 1000 and 1250 AD. They hunted moa, which led ...
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Pākehā
Pākehā (or Pakeha; ; ) is a Māori term for New Zealanders primarily of European descent. Pākehā is not a legal concept and has no definition under New Zealand law. The term can apply to fair-skinned persons, or to any non-Māori New Zealander. Papa'a has a similar meaning in Cook Islands Māori. Historically before the arrival of other ethnic groups the word Māori meant 'ordinary' or 'normal'. The arrival of Europeans led to the formation of a new term to distinguish the self-regarded 'ordinary' or 'normal' Māori from the new arrivals. The etymology of the word ''Pākehā'' remains unclear, but the term was in use by the late-18th century. In December 1814 the Māori children at Rangihoua in the Bay of Islands were "no less eager to see the ''packaha'' than the grown folks". In Māori, plural noun-phrases of the term include (the definite article) and (the indefinite article). When the word was first adopted into English, the usual plural was 'Pakehas'. However, spe ...
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National Film Registry
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception in 1988. History Through the 1980s, several prominent filmmakers and industry personalities in the United States, such as Frank Capra and Martin Scorsese, advocated for Congress to enact a film preservation bill in order to avoid commercial modifications (such as pan and scan and editing for TV) of classic films, which they saw as negative. In response to the controversy over the colorization of originally black and white films in the decade specifically, Representatives Robert J. Mrazek and Sidney R. Yates introduced the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, which established the National Film Registry, its purpose, and the criteria for selecting films for preservation. The Act was passed and the NFR's mission was subsequently reau ...
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The March Of Time
''The March of Time'' is an American newsreel series sponsored by Time Inc. and shown in movie theaters from 1935 to 1951. It was based on a radio news series broadcast from 1931 to 1945. The "voice" of both series was Westbrook Van Voorhis. Produced and written by Louis de Rochemont and his brother Richard de Rochemont, ''The March of Time'' was recognized with an Academy Honorary Award in 1937. ''The March of Time'' organization also produced four feature films for theatrical release, and created documentary series for early television. Its first TV series, ''Crusade in Europe'' (1949), received a Peabody Award and one of the first Emmy Awards. Production ''The March of Time'' was based on a news documentary and dramatization series, also called ''The March of Time'', that was first broadcast on CBS Radio in 1931. Usually called a newsreel series, ''The March of Time'' was actually a monthly series of short feature films twice the length of standard newsreels. The films wer ...
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Crown Film Unit
The Crown Film Unit was an organisation within the British Government's Ministry of Information during the Second World War. Formerly the GPO Film Unit it became the Crown Film Unit in 1940. Its remit was to make films for the general public in Britain and abroad. Its output included short information and documentary films, as well as longer drama-documentaries, as well as a few straight drama productions. Music was an important element. The conductor Muir Mathieson was the director of music for many productions, and notable composers commissioned to write original scores included Walter Leigh, Benjamin Britten, Ernst Meyer, Richard Addinsell, Benjamin Frankel, Christian Darnton, Guy Warrack and Arthur Benjamin. The Crown Film Unit continued to produce films, as part of the Central Office of Information The Central Office of Information (COI) was the UK government's marketing and communications agency. Its Chief Executive reported to the Minister for the Cabinet Office ...
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Free Radicals (film)
''Free Radicals'' is a black-and-white animated film short by avant-garde filmmaker Len Lye. Begun in 1958 and completed in 1979, Lye made the film by directly scratching the film stock. The resulting "figures of motion" are set to music by the Baguirmi tribe of Africa. Production In ''Experimental Animation: the origins of a new art'', Len Lye recalled making ''Free Radicals'': "I made Free Radicals from 16mm black film leader, which you can get from DuPont. I took a graver, various kinds of needles. (My range included arrowheads for romanticism.) You stick down the sides with scotch tape and you get to work with scratching the stuff out. … … You hold your hand at the right height and act is if you were making your signature. It goes on forever. You can carry a pictographic design in your head and make a little design. You can't see what you're doing because your hand is in the way. That's why those things have that kind of spastic look." Legacy In 2008, the film was include ...
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Annecy International Animated Film Festival
The Annecy International Animation Film Festival (french: Festival international du film d'animation d'Annecy, officially abbreviated in English as the Annecy Festival, or simply Annecy) was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of June in the town of Annecy, France. Initially occurring every two years, the festival became an annual event in 1998. It is one of the four international animated film festivals sponsored by the International Animated Film Association (french: Association internationale du film d'animation, or ASIFA). The festival is a competition between animated films of various techniques (traditional, cut-outs, claymation, 3DCG, etc.) classified in various categories: * Feature films * Short films * Films produced for television and advertising * Student films * Films made for the internet (since 2002) * Feature films contrechamp in competition (since 2007) Throughout the festival, in addition to the competing films projected in various cinemas of t ...
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Direct Film
Drawn-on-film animation, also known as direct animation or animation without camera, is an animation technique where footage is produced by creating the images directly on film stock, as opposed to any other form of animation where the images or objects are photographed frame by frame with an animation camera. History The first and best known practitioners of drawn-on-film animation include Len Lye, Norman McLaren, Stan Brakhage, then later artists including Steven Woloshen, Richard R. Reeves, Scott Fitzpatrick and Baerbel Neubauer, who produced numerous animated films using these methods. Their work covers the whole span between narrative and totally abstract animation. Other filmmakers in the 1960s expanded the idea and subjected the film stock to increasingly radical methods, up to the point where the film was destroyed in the process projection. Some artists made this destruction a statement, others went back one step and copied the original work film strip to get a projectio ...
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A Colour Box
''A Colour Box'' is a 1935 British experimental animated film by Len Lye. Commissioned to promote the General Post Office, it was Lye's first direct animation to receive a public release. Production In mid 1935, Lye struck a deal with John Grierson to make a direct animation for the GPO Film Unit. Lye was paid £30, with his materials paid for by the GPO. Lye and sound editor Jack Ellitt went through hundreds of records looking for music to use as the soundtrack. They selected a beguine called "The Belle Creole" by Don Barreto and his Cuban Orchestra. After the music was transferred to film, Lye made cue marks on the sound track, which he used as a guide as he painted on the image track. Lye painted long, continuous patterns on the 35 mm film stock, without frame lines to separate individual film frames and with few splices used. He used combs or sticks to create linear patterns on the film stock. It took him five days to finish most of the film. Before settling on the tit ...
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GPO Film Unit
The GPO Film Unit was a subdivision of the UK General Post Office. The unit was established in 1933, taking on responsibilities of the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit. Headed by John Grierson, it was set up to produce sponsored documentary films mainly related to the activities of the GPO. Among the films it produced were Harry Watt's and Basil Wright's ''Night Mail'' (1936), featuring music by Benjamin Britten and poetry by W. H. Auden, which is the best known. Directors who worked for the unit included Humphrey Jennings, Alberto Cavalcanti, Paul Rotha, Harry Watt, Basil Wright and a young Norman McLaren. Poet and memoirist Laurie Lee also worked as a scriptwriter in the unit from 1939–1940. In 1940 the GPO Film Unit became the Crown Film Unit, under the control of the Ministry of Information. In Autumn 2008 the British Film Institute issued a first collection of selected films from the Unit. Titled ''Addressing The Nation'', it comprises fifteen titles from the years 1933 ...
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Footprints Studio
Footprints Studio was a textile printing workshop in the manner of the Arts and Crafts movement established by Celandine Kennington in 1925 at Durham Wharf in London's Hammersmith. Typical products were hand block printed fabric, curtains, coats and shawls. The name ‘Footprints’ is said to have been on account of the foot pressure workers applied to the blocks to print onto fabric. Footprints was known for its preference of aniline dyes over vegetable dyes and lino blocks over wood. The workshop was supervised by Gwen Pike and goods were sold through the shop ‘Modern Textiles' owned by Elspeth Little. Following the death of Gwen Pike and retirement of Celandine Kennington, Joyce Clissold (1903-1982) took over management of the workshop with Germaine Tallents. In 1933 workshop moved to larger premises in Brentford and a new outlet opened New Bond Street followed by another in Knightsbridge two years later. By this stage the workshop employed up to 50 people, typically workin ...
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Seven And Five Society
The Seven and Five Society was an art group of seven painters and five sculptors created in 1919 and based in London. The group was originally intended to encompass traditional, conservative artistic sensibilities. The first exhibition catalogue said, " efeel that there has of late been too much pioneering along too many lines in altogether too much of a hurry." Artist Ben Nicholson joined in 1924, followed Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, and changed the society into a modernistic one and expelled the non-modernist artists. In 1935, the group was renamed the Seven and Five Abstract Group. At the Zwemmer Gallery in Charing Cross Road Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus (the intersection with Oxford Street) and then becomes Tottenham Court Road. It leads from the north in the direction of ..., London, they staged the first exhibition of entirely abstract works in Britain.
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