''Synchromy'' (French: ''Synchromie'') is a 1971 National Film Board of Canada

visual music Visual music, sometimes called colour music, refers to the creation of a visual analogue to musical form by adapting musical structures for visual composition, which can also include silent films or silent Lumia work. It also refers to methods o ...

film by

Norman McLaren William Norman McLaren, LL. D. (11 April 1914 – 27 January 1987) was a Scottish Canadian animator, director and producer known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).Rosenthal, Alan. ''The new documentary in action: a caseb ...

utilizing

graphical sound Graphical sound or drawn sound (Fr. ''son dessiné'', Ger. ''graphische Tonerzeugung'',; It. ''suono disegnato'') is a sound recording created from images drawn directly onto film or paper that were then played back using a sound system. There are ...

. To produce the film's musical soundtrack, McLaren photographed rectangular cards with lines on them. He arranged these shapes in sequences on the analog optical sound track to produce notes and chords. He then reproduced the sequence of shapes,

colorize Film colorization (American English; or colourisation [British English], or colourization [ Canadian English and Oxford English]) is any process that adds color to black-and-white, sepia, or other monochrome moving-picture image ...

d, in the image portion of the

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

, so that audiences see the shapes that they are also hearing, as sound. McLaren had experimented with this technique for creating notes through patterns of stripes on the soundtrack area of the film in the 1950s, working with Evelyn Lambart. Their technique was based on earlier work in graphical sound by German pioneer Rudolf Pfenninger and Russian Nikolai Voinov. The creation of ''Synchromy'' was documented by Gavin Millar in 1970 in a film called ''The Eye Hears, The Ear Sees''. In McLaren's production notes, he stated that "Apart from planning and executing the music, the only creative aspect of the film was the “choreographing” of the striations in the columns and deciding on the sequence and combinations of colours." The film received eight awards, including a Special Jury Mention at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

References

Terence Dobson, ''The Film Work of Norman McLaren'' (Eastleigh: John Libbey Publishing, 2006)

External links

Watch ''Synchromy'' at NFB.ca
1971 films Films directed by Norman McLaren Visual music Animated films without speech National Film Board of Canada animated short films Quebec films Graphical sound 1970s animated short films 1971 animated films Canadian animated short films Canadian musical films 1970s Canadian films {{short-animation-film-stub