Center for Visual Music to Preserve Fischinger Experiments

June 12, 2009 - Animation World Network Headline News - Top Stories

Center for Visual Music to Preserve Fischinger Experiments

http://news.awn.com/index.php?ltype=top&newsitem_no=28079

Center for Visual Music has received two new grants for preservation of very early Oskar Fischinger animation experiments.

The first grant is a prestigious Avant-Garde Masters Grant, to support the preservation of three nitrate reels of Fischinger's original 35mm experiments from his RAUMLICHTKUNST multiple projector cinema performances of the 1920s. The grant is funded by The Film Foundation and managed by The National Film Preservation Foundation. The Film Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1990 by Martin Scorsese, dedicated to protecting and preserving motion picture history. Joining Scorsese on the board are: Woody Allen, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Curtis Hanson, Peter Jackson, Ang Lee, George Lucas, Alexander Payne, Robert Redford, and Steven Spielberg.

The second grant, received from The National Film Preservation Foundation, supports CVM's preservation of an early reel of Fischinger's 35mm nitrate black and white animation experiments from the late 1920s - early 1930s, which includes early Muratti cigarette commercial tests.

Center for Visual Music is a nonprofit archive dedicated to visual music, experimental animation and abstract cinema. CVM has received a series of film preservation grants and funding from public institutions and private sources over the past six years enabling its preservation of animated films by Fischinger, Jordan Belson, Jules Engel, Charles Dockum, John and James Whitney, Harry Smith, David Lebrun and others. CVM provided films for the 2005 Visual Music exhibition at MOCA LA, the 2003 Jules Engel Retrospective at Redcat Theatre, and many international festivals and museum exhibitions.

Join CVM and help with their preservation and promotion of experimental animation (and collect cool vintage Fischinger and other premiums!) 

www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Membership

Fischinger research pages: www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Fischinger

Preserving Visual Music - By Holly Willis for Blur + Sharpen

Preserving Visual Music - By Holly Willis - May 8, 2009

"After more than 70 years and the explosion of visual culture, the stunning animated films of Oskar Fischinger remain unparalleled. Fischinger, who emigrated to Los Angeles from Germany in 1936 and became one of the city's central figures in a burgeoning avant-garde filmmaking community, created dozens of dazzling visual explorations of sound...

This question is tackled head-on by Cindy Keefer, Director of LA's Center for Visual Music, which is dedicated to this particular genre of experimental film...

one of the Center's key objectives is preservation. In this context, CVM recently announced that it has received funds from the Avant-Garde Masters Grant (which is funded by The Film Foundation and managed by the National Film Preservation Foundation) to preserve three reels of Fischinger's original 35mm nitrate film experiments from his Raumlichtkunst multiple projector performances of the 1920s."
Extracts from the article by Holly Willis
Read the full article >>