ncilling,Art, Music, and Machinery An Interview with John Whitney

By Maureen : When people talk about you, they usually mention All those engineers who subsequently became involved Furniss that you are interested in technology and that you in military projects, in computers, were attracted to the worked for IBM. Could you comment on any technology or Hollywood motion picture sound industry. inventions that made your work possible? M: What sort of sources did you use? John Whitney: I was sort of skillful at using equip­ J: There were technical journals and books being writ­ ment and tools, and I built a device for generating ten all the time during those years and I followed motion picture soundtracks. It was a very odd thing those carefully. I was always an outsider. One or two and nothing significant has come from that invention. times, I tried to get a job but I wasn't really quali­ But for my brother [filmmaker James Whitney] and fied-I wasn't in any way a trained engineer. I was me, it was very mean­ much more interested in art than in the engineering ingful because we aspects. I thought it rather a pajnful disappointment made a set of five that I couldn't arouse any interest in the engineering abstract film exercises, community in Hollywood. I thought they should be the soundtracks for interested in what I was doing but they were pro­ which were made on foundly disinterested. The entire Hollywood industry, this pendulum sound­ all through that time and to this very day, is interest­ track recording device. ed in one thing and that is making the face the right So that was a very sig­ color and absolutely convincing you of a fakeel reality. nificant boost to our So all the energy and the terrific ingenuity goes into self-confidence because special effects: faking, creating, falsifying, or recreat­ we had first prizes at ing a reality. That's an area that doesn't interest me the international experimental film competition in in the least. And what I've been doing doesn't interest Belgium, the first major competition. Oskar the professional people in the least. Fischinger got a prize that year, too. But our prize was for the unusual soundtrack, because it was sub­ M: How did you think your experiments could have sonic that is, it recorded mechanically a pattern benefitted the industry at that time? which when played back would create sounds in the J: I wrote an article for California Arts and standard optical soundtrack amplifying devices of a Architecture trying to say that the world of cinema motion picture process. We were able to compose should range from pure drama to pure abstract both sound patterns and graphic, abstract design pat­ design, a range from music to drama. I assumed that terns in total coordination, or literally note for note. the time would come when that area would be as We called them Five Abstract Film Exercises, and interesting as the other area. Well, strangely enough, they fell into the category of experimental films that area has a peculiar popular commercial attraction (th~t's what they were calling them at that time). right now in music videos. But it's still not doing a The awards encouraged us to go on and subsequently damn thing with the idea of creating an abstract art we got a Guggenheim Fellowship. I have really like abstract expressionist painting, which can be tied devoted the rest of my life to these concepts of with music. abstract design and music. M: What do you think about MTV? I look back at M: What were the initial technologies that you some of the early abstract filmmakers and wonder built from? if any of the videomakers have seen their work­ J: When I was in my late teens, I had become interest­ Len Lye, for example. ed enough in film to have taken the trouble to inform J: And Oskar, of course. And there were others in myself. I read lots of textbooks and knew aU about, in Germany-[Walter] Ruttmann and [Viking] Eggling. a superficial sense, the technology of sound recording. They all thought like I did. It was by 110 means my This was in the '30s and early '40s, and this was a time own independent thinking. There was a theme of that when sound technology was kind of a scientific frontier. sort pervasive in the art circles of Europe, and among Most outsta.nding developments were taking place there. the avant-aardeto filmmakers like Man Ray and Fernand Leger. All those, at that time, envisioned an abstract cinema that was just as significant as the cinema of drama, of storytelling. fHmforum

M: I know, as you said, that the emphasis in It would be a black field until you M: Were any of these shown Hollywood is on recreating reality. How pushed the oil away with a stylus or theatrically? does this relate to viewers and the sense with your finger, and then the light J: Well, at just about this time, of aestheti cs? would come through. You made a a terrible economic disaster impacted tabula rasa, a constantly refreshing, con­ J: It hurts me to think that there will the animation business. There were sev­ stantly clearing animation field. I never be a full-blown, popular art of eral companies around besides Disney. manipulated things to music and made abstract design because it seems to me There were animation studios at almost several little films. I think those were that abstract design is the essence of everyone of the major studios-at the kinds of things that got me the job music. \'"e are immensely moved by the Columbia, Warner Bros., and MGlVI. at UPA as a director. But once they got abstract structure of melodic patterns. They were doing Tom and Jerry and so into the hard-nosed business of trying to Wc hear them and they mean a lot to on, and they were selling them. The make a popular prime-time show, those us. At the present time, in music video, world of animation shorts was a given, ideas didn't seem to have nearly as for example, they are so overwhelmed at an understood fact; when you went to a much possibility as Gerald McBoing­ the idea of telling a story of boy meets movie you saw one feature film and an Boing and the little sentimental stories girl and the whole business of nostalgia animation short and possibly a newsreel. that they finally ended up with. and commentary about the world. This At that time, a major government law­ is all vel'y legitimate but therc is room M: You mentioned that there were several the anti-trust legislation-took the own­ for more. factors which prevented the UPA series from being aired. M: Yes, it seems there would be. It's a bit of a leap, but I'd like to discuss the work J: Yes, the endless, terrible problem of you did at United Productions of supply. You just cannot produce things in America. Was this your first industrial enough volume to come out with a whole position where you were making films? hour every week. It's out of the question.

J: Yes, it was and it looked like a M: Did they produce any? unique opportunity to go along with J: They had Gerald iVlcBoing-Boing, these very ideas I've been telling you which ran a few episodes. But it died-it about. They had a CBS contract; they wasn't that popular even. All the people were going to become mainstream and at UPA were drop-outs, more or less, be on television. They were going to from Disney, who disliked the saccha­ have one of those Sunday special hours, ership of the theaters away from the rine stuff that made Disney successful. a rcgular weekly show of animation, all studios and broke up the sweet situation They hated it all and they wanted to created in great volume by UPA stu­ that made it practical to even, if neces­ make animation really something worth­ dios. They hired me because they knew sary, subsidize shorts to go along with while. So they had pleasant little stories the kind of filmmaking I had been feature films. They began the process of about the life of painters and they want­ doing. In the early '50s I had done a two films per night, the double feature. ed to bring in literature and high quality series of animations by another gad­ That really wiped out the animation music. And they wanted to do a lot of getry, a thing I had rigged up. It was a industry in a very short time. So here things which, in the '50s, were being means by which I could run the camera was UPA coming into existence at the tried on television, but mostly unsuc­ in an animation stand overhead, looking time of the double feature and the break­ cessfully. It was the idea that you must down onto a field. And on that field I down of the old patterns, so they had no provide entertainment for the twelve­ could do manipulations of paper way to sell their product as shorts any­ year-old mind, then becoming an obvi­ cutouts, putting one over the other with more. ous fact of life for the producers of tele­ a light table below. I also invented a flat vision shows. There would be a lot of M: How was your interaction with the tray of oil, so that the oil would lie in a talk back and forth, asking "Why isn't commercial industry? quarter-inch thickness in this flat tray, it possible to do really serious, but good, and I could draw in that with a stylus J: Well, it was strained and imperfect. animation? Why do they always have to or even my finger. It would push the oil When I ran out of money, I would try to play with mice instead of getting into away and thc oil had cnough red dye in get some jobs. I had begun to lose all issues?" And, in fact, two or three UPA it so that the light would be obliterated. interest in motion pictures, or at least productions were really that. Continued on next page M: Did you go anywhere in particular to drawing. They could never imagine that Whitney Interview canlinued get equipment, or was it mostly just or work that out. After I made several the processes of animation. The standard the theory? films, I think I had done Catalog com­ pletely, then I decided I knew enough idea of eels I had never been involved J: Yes, but then there was the introduc­ now to make a much more elaborate with, but the standard idea of one frame tion to full speed with the grant by machine. I gave the old machine to Jim, at a time with the motion picture cam­ IBM. That grant was very meaningful and with that old machine, he made the era didn't seem to me to offer any future and changed my life because it included best film that was ever made with those for this idea of abstract design, fluid and not only a modest annual income, but technologies. related to music. Instead, I felt that also access to the most advanced com­ something else had to be invented. There puter facility. It was at UCLA in the M: Lapis took a long time to make, was something missing, so I began to try Health Sciences Computing Facility, did it not? to make animation machines. mechanical and included too. the support of the J: Yes, he worked over quite a long peri­ systems that would manipulate. I technology experts. So I had a Ph.D.-in­ od of time, but he worked on and off. became very successful at that, leading Physics man who developed the first Part of the problem was that he was so to my brother's film, Lapis, and my cat­ composing program that I learned to frustrated by it; it was over his head in aloge of techniques done with these ani­ use. Permutations was the first film and a way. It was for me a lot of the time, mation devices called Catalog. Moving in my Experiment in Motion Graphics was too. He would work on it for a period of that direction, it finally became clear finished about a year or so later. that I was actually struggling to invent a a year or two and then give it up, more computer. I began to flilly realize that M: Were there any other people that you or less. And so it was not a consistent all these mechanical systems were just a can recall that were trying to use the period of work. equipment, or who were interested but tedious way of doing something that M: You've mentioned Jordan Belson and never actually used it? could be done absolutely in a perfectly Harry Smith. Were there any other peo­ natural way with computers and comput­ J: I can't single out anyone but, for ple who you would consider as being part er graphics. That's what led t.o the major example, my brother and Jordan of a community of filmmakers you change in my life, which was the grant Belson. And Harry Smith, for that mat­ worked with or talked with? from mM beginning in about 1965. ter. It's interesting-both Jordan Belson J: Not really. We saw each other from and my brother followed sort of parallel M: I was wondering how the area of cyber­ time to time. If we had any association directions. They acquired a certain netics research or WWII technology in with anyone it was especially Jim and patient skill in working in the mechani­ general affected you. Jordan Belson. They had quite a lot of cal way, in a very rudimentary simple exchange and understanding. But like J: It was in a very peculiar way. I way. They were able to get motors and those various filmmakers on the East backed into it, I was not aware. Here I a little pulley to wrap filament around Coast and Stan Brakhage, we had prac­ had been building these mechanical and around, and then attach paper to it tically no contact with them. things and then I began to see that I so that they could make something could build much more elaborate move very smoothly and slowly. But at M: Why was that? mechanical things by applying the the same time. I was learning a much J: Well, just physically, and even intel­ World War II hardware. And that hard­ more advanced technology. That field of lectually, for that matter, because I dis­ ware, I slowly began to realize, was the points in Jim's film, Lapis, was all my agreed with many of the fIlmmaking forerunner of the modern computer. development, all my invention. In that ways of most of the other people. I was There were very elaborate and sophisti­ case, this was the most advanced of the very much on my own, following my eated mechanical devices that did what mechanical WWII surplus equipment. I own nose. a computer can do. But these were had a device that was moving things mechanical devices that solved ballistie around in a very, very elaborate motion M: I understand that amateur filmmaking equations, the problems of how to get a and a strobing light that would put one was very big here during the 1950s. Did bomb out from a site down onto the exposure of a random pattern over you ever talk to any of these people or ground. Or to get a cannon to fire at a another, over another, over another, all show your films? certain angle so it will land on target. on one frame of film. Then, having gone J: A little bit, but it didn't leave much These called for very, very complicated through a complete cycle of exposing of an impression on my memory. The equations. As Bucky Fuller points out. one frame of film with great fields of best thing to describe are the goings on wars have always caused enormous leaps points, the camera would jump ahead to that took place on Hollywood Boulevard ahead in the world of technology. Out of the next frame and it would start doing at the American Contemporary Gallery, all that eame the conscious awareness of the same thing all over. It had slight which was on that little street, a little the possibilities of the computer and mechanical changes so that as each cycle arcade about three blocks down from where we arc right now. would advance incrementally, there was Musso & Frank's. In fact, the Pickwick a differential adjustment for each frame Book Shop is in that same block. There to come out from Chicago and find this and I did these vari­ {{( mforum was an arcade back there and at the Barnsdall house that he took it upon ous commercial things. I back of the arcade was a space: the himself to move in. He took over the worked on developing and inventing and American Contemporary Gallery. There south wing. He got Eileen Barnsdall's improving this technology of mechanical were shows there all the time. Henry permission to stay after he had squatted film machines, which really are the fore­ Miller had a show there. And there were there, and then gave my brother and runners of the whole concept of motion film showings, mostly films rented from myself permission to move in. So that's control and slit scan. In fact, clearly I the Museum of Modern Art Library. where we finished the last of the am the inventor of slit scan, the tech­ This was during the war. I knew Man Exercises using the pendulum machine niques that were used most wonderfully Ray at that time and he had a show and the optical printer; we have pictures and successfully in 2001. That is only there and showed his films. Often of us living there in a room where we infrequently mentioned because the true enough I did the projecting. My brother had dug up two or three feet of rubble success of 2001, and the credit for that, and I both showed our films. I met my and put glass in the windows. This the actual work that was done, was wife, Jackie, when she had a show there. building was quite extraordinary. Frank done by Doug Trumball, who has She was interested in film and that's Lloyd Wright had started it, then Eileen become very famous for his special why we hit it off but she had a great lit­ ran into some kind of conflict with him effects work. My relationship to all of tle exhibition along with three other and Schindler finished it. It was never that is that I did supply some footage to girls who had won competitions. looked upon as a pure Frank Lloyd Stanley Kubrick, suggesting this kind of Wright work but it had an atrium, a possibility and there was the potential­ M: So people from the community who courtyard open to the sky, and a won­ if the samples that I had shown were had an interest in films could come to derful arrangement of planes. It became recognized as being mine instead of these shows? an ideal place, at night, to have projec­ Doug Trumball's, I could have been J: That's right. This was probably the tions and we had a lot of parties there invited there because several of my first of that kind of gallery environment. and showed films. I still run into people friends whom I had been associated with There had been the same film showings who remember going to those films. A and worked with, including Trumbell, at Art Center. They weren't much publi­ lot of very important people went to did go to England to work on that film. cized, nor were these showings at the those films, artists and filmmakers. That But had I been invited, I would have American Contemporary Gallery. But was another place that became fairly refused. I would not have gone because that was about the earlicst beginnings of well-known as a place for showing that coincided with the period when I the idea of the avant-garde-essentially avant-garde films-the war was still had my IBM research grant. That was they were avant-garde, they weren't going on. Man Ray came and once we in the mid- to late-'60s, and there was called underground-and film showings had a visit from Bertolt Brecht. It was a no way I would have given up thc of this sort. wonderful time. We didn't really make a advantage of the support of IBM. splash among the famous German M: That's around when Maya Deren was M: One last question. You seem so familiar with colony, though, which included Thomas getti ng started. engineering. When you were in school, was it Mann. We were sort of on the ragged for engineering? J: That's right. We knew Maya Deren edge of activities. I did get to meet and she was out here in California at Arnold Schonberg, but he never came to J: I was a drop out! One time after these showings. In fact, she wanted me any of these things. Sidney Janus and another, I dropped out of school. No, it to help her on two or three things. Then, his wife came to the parties; they were was a strange thing-I had this great coincident with that, my hrother and I very influential and were among several enthusiasm for engineering, for mechani­ were living over where Barnsdall Park people, including the editor of Art and cal things, for building. Then, as I came is. This was Eileen Barnsdall's second Architecture magazine, John Intenza, to the end of my teens, I bccame so house, that she had built on the West who were influential in getting my deeply interested in music and in art that side, down the slope of the Barnsdall Guggenheim grant. These parties may I felt for a while I was sort of miserable Park hill. She had built the Hollyhock have been '47 and '48, or rather even because I couldn't reconcile my interest house on the top and she owned the earlier. Around in that time. in such diverse areas to me, at that time. entire square, which subsequently she How could I be interested in telescopes M: So they helped get you started on the gave to the city of Los Angeles. Though and motion picture cameras and be so funding, which made it possible for you the top house, the Hollyhock house, was deeply moved by music and art? I could­ to focus on your work? in disrepair, at least it was locked and n't see how I could make something out wasn't being vandalized. But the house J: Well, it really wasn't that available. of that. But, in fact, at the very same on the west slope of the hill, where we I didn't really get the availabi'lity of time I was miserable over it, I was movcd, was pretty well devastated. At resources until '65. In fact, all through resolving it. I see all that in hindsight. that time, a photogmphy student the '50s-1 hardly made any films dur­ [111':' inJeroiezo wok place in ,!'lm'ch, 1992] named Edmund Teske was so cnthralled ing the '.50s. I had children growing up