Major Post 5 – Mystical Visions

Posted on by Julia Reymundo

For the fifth day of class, it focused on abstract animation. It is also known as Visual Music. One notable animator was Oskar Fischinger, who built the foundation of this. Most of the animations that were produced followed all sorts of musical tracks. A wax-cutting machine would be used to create effects for these different films. Oskar Fischinger would be influenced by the abstract paintings of Wassily Kandinsky.

Not only was he an animator, he was also an engineer. With his knowledge, he created the “Wax Slicing Machine” (1922). This invention would synchronize with a vertical slicer with a movie camera’s shutter. It would produce some work that I could never believe was made at that time. It looked very intricate and the timing for each sound was precise. It’s very incredible. Fischinger would then proceed to experiment with the technique and create various studies. A few of these would be quite popular in theatres.

One of my favorites from him was his experiments. They were really interesting to watch.

https://vimeo.com/54587174

Julia Reymundo

Major Post 4: Visual Music

Posted on by Sammy Liu

Music is not limited to the world of sound. There exists a music of the visual world. — Oskar Fischinger,1951

https://www.google.com/logos/2017/fischinger/fischinger17.html (When searching for Fischinger, his google link has this fun, interactive game that allows you to make your own visual music composition!)

We were introduced to the beginning of visual music and the “Father” of Visual Music; screening Oskar Fischinger’s abstract animation, which was a concept first explored respectfully by Leopold Survage. Fischnger’s earlier pieces remind me vividly of the ‘sound visualizer’ of the old default screens of Windows Media Player back in the early 2000s.

This is stuff I grew up staring at when I had all the time in the world, and confidently believe in Fischinger’s influence on this too.


I especially enjoyed the more colourful experiments of Fischinger’s like The Composition of Blue (1935), which was made in a 3D stop-motion format. The style in terms of colours, composition and timing is still very much done in the present – showing a piece that feels timeless.

Similarly, Walter Ruttman, who started off with painting and who had helped produce backgrounds for Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed using Wax Slicing Machine (licensed from Oskar Fischinger), moved towards abstract animation . Ruttman specially looked at visual music with colour – by tinting his films with dye. I thought it’s very innovative and admirable of his efforts to explore the broader potential of his mediums.

Extra notes I want to keep:
“WAX SLICING MACHINE 1922” (synched vertical slicers with movie shutter)
“Allegretto” (1936) 
“Motion Painting #1” (1947) O.F

Sammy Liu

Major Post 4: Oskar Fischinger and his Wax Machine

Posted on by LeAnn Schmitt

Oskar Fischinger was born in Germany in the early 1900s. He was an animator who spent his whole life working to perfectly synchronize sounds and movement in his short animations. Despite his drive to perfectly pair the two medias his only interactions with music were violin lessons while in school and his apprenticeship at building organs.

Fischinger was more than just an animator and music enthusiast he was also an engineer. He used his skills in that field to build a machine that would revolutionize abstract animation, the wax machine. Early models of this machine had pipe-shaped mixtures of colored wax and clay slowly fed into a slicer with a rotating blade. In front of this device would be a camera that was synchronized with each cut of the blade. You can see the wax veins morph and change in the video I have linked below. Despite his invention being used in amazing films like The Adventures of Prince Achmed, Fischinger didn’t see a cent from the venture since his partner, Ruttmann had legally licensed the wax machine for use in films and commercial work. Fischinger’s bad luck only seemed to continue as he moved to the United States and had big companies like Disney and Paramount discredit him and under pay him for his work.

LeAnn Schmitt

https://vimeo.com/54587174