Lapis - James Whitney (1966)

[theonlyantony]

Great music and sterling film. Like some of those moments when you concentrate just before you fall asleep and can feel the center of everything drawing you towards it forever. ( and i hadn't been eating pickles again)

[SoulPoiesis]

Wonderful... what a gem of a find on here! Thankyou for posting!

[OneQuest1]

This is incredible. I made a beat out of this.Its incredible as well.

[nothingtruc]

§§§§§ Sooooo Goooood §§§§§

[OneQuest1]

I sampled from this to make a beat. Its amazing

[trojanlol]

: O

[ChipZempel]

This is one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen - a masterpiece of "visual music." The pathetic version you're looking at here is from a TV broadcast; the original is much higher-resolution. I have corresponded with the Center for Visual Music, and apparently the Whitney family refuses to release the film for sale to the public. What a shame - I'd pay quite a bit to own this DVD! Look up James Whitney (filmmaker) on Wikipedia, and follow the links on that entry for lots more info.

[binary132]

@ChipZempel GOD I would love to have that!!!!! If you ever find out anything please please post here!

[josephpatrickknox]

@ChipZempel I'm so glad there are other people who appreciate this work.

[Teclo25]

This is what I saw when I closed my eyes after being high on mushrooms for about 5 hours.

[nirvana2187]

please upload this visual masterpiece to a higher quality resolution! 480p would be great! thank you

[usuarioabsoluto]

Amazing. This is Poetry.

[epicroque]

For all those asking about the video's meaning, firstly, artwork typically self contains no objective, immutable, finite meaning. Leave that to the sciences. But I can tell you that the symbol at the intro and outro of the film is a 5,000bc representation of an ancient Egyptian symbol referred to typically as the uroboros (also spelled ouroboros). It's a cyclical symbol also found in ancient Mayan culture and ancient far eastern asian cultures in the form of a dragon swallowing its own tail.

[Lyaka999]

extraordinary

[kayak0055]

can anyone explain, in layman's terms, how this was done?

[digifilm]

This film was preserved by Center for Visual Music in Los Angeles, at their archive you can see a brilliant copy, transferred to HD. Or one of the prints preserved by CVM is at Centre Pompidou in Paris. Read about James Whitney's work at the Center for Visual Music online library. (see articles by Moritz) They also have dvds by Belson and others.

[digifilm]

This film was preserved by Center for Visual Music in Los Angeles, at their archive you can see a realy good copy, transferred to HD. Read about James Whitney's work at their online library. (see articles by Moritz) They also have dvds by Oskar Fischinger, Jordan Belson and lots more.

[canetsbe]

really too bad they don't have this in HD. i saw a 16mm print of this today and this low-res version really does it no justice whatsoever. really fascinating..

[psychic92]

I feel like I just went on worst or best acid trip of my life. At this point, I'm not sure which

[Habbitbit]

Anthology Film Archives occasionally does screenings of Stan Brakhage's work, I wonder if they've done the same with Harry Smith, John Whitney etc.

[jinalanguniafrika]

1966? wow. that is still hard to do now...the naturalness of it.

[Psychadelic60sFan]

Saloum Idi mou...:-L

[JemminyJangles]

This video goes well with the smell of old books.

[thehiddendepths10]

@TheMindTraveler James Whitney, the creator of this film ,punched grid patterens on 5x7 cards with needles. Then, he painted through the pinholes on other 5x7 cards.

[uriel69879]

fantastic! It got my feedback purring like a kitten!

[dhomie199]

I remember seeing this movie back in the 1970's when I was a volunteer at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. It played in the small screening room one afternoon. Suffice to say, I had to take about a 10-minute break from work. I hadn't seen it since, and it's so nice to remember it.

[0069twiggy]

What is the name of the song playing here?

[dudefude]

So clever and transcendent. Very profound too, I am so impressed.

[7papaverirossi]

mamma mia che geomatria fantastica, con arte spettacolare

[digifilm]

This film, and Yantra, were preserved by Center for Visual Music. They did HD transfers that have been installed in many museum exhibitions since 2004. you can see brilliant quality copies onsite at their archive in Los Angeles - and Belson, and Fischinger, and so many more

[sky44david]

This was stunning to see projected back when I was in the animation program at Cal Arts, 1972-74.

[thecolorcast]

mezmerizing

[greg3331]

Very masterpiece! The dance of creation.

[cidamed]

I didn't know his work! Wow!

[jedi7110]

Thank you.

I searched 10 years this movie.

[JDBEDORE]

this is so visionary it borders on prophetic.

[binary132]

what's your interpretation of it?

[Ahoodwink]

I also saw this at the Cinefamily last night. Blew me away!  Definitely trance state-inducing.

[sisterdiggins]

I just saw this on the big screen last night in LA.

Absolutely amazing!

This was all done by hand and took Whitney 10 years to make.

Hand Done People!!!

[21cdndollars]

I find this very interesting, although I can't quite figure out why, what's going on in this video?

[dvdan]

James Whitney's film Yantra is now installed at the Guggenheim, for anyone who cares to see it in NYC.

[Backhendal]

this man was a genius R.I.P.

[qadmos]

what is the music ?

[fandamme]

this man obviously lived ahead of his time

[kellenphillips]

I studied this film in University and read quite a bit about it, so hopefully I can help clear up some of the confusion.

James Whitney produced Lapis by using computers to plot the points of colour on the film negative and the film took around 7 years to complete.

If this is indeed the first computer animation is up to the individual, but everyone who sees it should realize that it was way ahead of its time.

[quasirella]

I'm an MFA student in animation and I also studied this film, and actually, he only used a computerized mechanism built by his brother John Whitney Sr. to truck in and out of the moving mandala, but the points of light are all hand done animation. He spent years punching holes into 5x7 paper and then backlighting it. The idea that he used a computer to plot the points has been spread for years, but is incorrect. His older brother later used computers, such as in Permutations.

[ruslanchorf]

What does it mean this video?

[Zerothis]

It means that for the first time in history people could watch a completely computer generated film. The Whitney brothers parted after this film, one got into movies and the other into computers. But eventually the new technologies would be used together in film again.

[deepfriedewok]

this film was not made on a computer. it was made entirely under film. This is 1966 we're talking about kids.

[dvdan]

actually it was made on a computer, and it was made on film. the two are not mutually exclusive. the computer used was an electro-mechanical analog computer from WWII which did differential equations.

[quasirella]

I don't know where this computer rumor started, but it is incorrect. Every frame was hand-animated over years. Noted animation historian William Morris states in a biography of James, that " Occasionally, Lapis is listed as a computer graphic film, which is quite untrue. The images were created all created with handmade cels..."

[dvdan]

This is true of other James Whitney films, Yantra for instance. Lapis however was made with the assistance of a modified WWII era M5 guidance computer which the Whitney brothers called the Cam Machine. The motion of the points of light in Lapis were produced by precise motion control of a translucent composition positioned beneath a stationary camera. I have seen this "cam machine" myself and can attest that Lapis is a very early computer animation.

[quasirella]

Yes, they did use the modified WWII guidance computer to pan in and out. The points of light are hand animated, though. It is possible that the animated cards were rotated by the guidance of the computer, I'm not sure. Animation historian William Morris says it was hand animated cards. I'm a USC Cinema student and Christine Panushka is my professor. She made the point that this is often mistaken for computer animation, but is not.

[quasirella]

I think the reason why the distinction matters, is because James Whitney was an incredibly spiritual man, and making these animated films was a LONG process, which he undertook, along with a humble lifestyle to attain something higher. It would be almost against him memory to say he did it easier with a computer. Although computer animation is so much a part of cinema today, I think his films stand more on their spirituality than their technical achievement or innovation.

[dvdan]

I appreciate your comments. I first saw a snippet of this film at a USC film fest (in the title Catalog). The experience was so profound that I dedicated hundreds of hours of my life to helping the Whitney family make the most recent digital masters of this film which are now circulating the museum circuit. Each dimension of the motion in Lapis was controlled by the computer. I do not think this detracts from the spiritual content of the piece at all. The film which was 100% hand made is Yantra.

[otacon451]

know if theyll be any sort of distribution on dvd or similar technology? i live in the woods :/

[dross87]

the meaning is yours

[Mickey1Art]

@dross87 kerrtex333 just linked me to this post. Wow! Looks like Whitney and I found the same interference pattern. Smoke & Crystal Spheres 2280 ZoomSq YT HD is rotating rings of translucent spheres. I found it playing with spherical arrays. Mind Cuff 12 S2 HD is the same animation with solid rings. Prayer Beads 5 is the basic animation. Free Camera1a MC12 shows the 3D spherical nature of the animation. What do you think of them?

[binary132]

@dross87 that is incorrect and I very much recommend looking for the deeper meaning intended by Whitney.

[thgbyo]

@ruslanchorf

means what you feel watching it.

[moxie96]

@ruslanchorf why must it mean anything? just like it for what it is in whatever adjective you care to describe it for yourself

[binary132]

@ruslanchorf I found a great analysis of it once. James Whitney was interested in the magical science of Alchemy which is the search for the power of creation. If you read the details (I forget where I found it, but try Google) the strobing is synchronized to the human brain's alpha wave pattern -- I believe. I could be wrong, it may be Beta or Gamma but anyway, the meaning of this video is very very deep and powerful. Please look for it on Google.

[earinsound]

Fix on center's magnetic potential

engulf limits unconcerned with name or number

Fathomless particles rise and fall form sublime stanzas of lattice

concentrically linked to body owner of one complete thought

mastered from an infusion of will and dew

[thetwentyfourth]

Structures of consciousness and existence. A stunning work.

Anyone know if this is available on DVD anywhere? Preferably a high quality transfer..

[geofflitherland]

Thank you so much for posting this, i've been trying to see this film again for 10 years.

[kerrtex333]

Thanks for sharing with us. Would love to see any other J Whitney work.

[MrSmartypants]

Raga Jogiya from Ravi Shankar album "Ragas and Talas"

[danielthomas]

This is just astonishing. I'm really at a loss for words. I wish someone would explain to me how it was made. I'm aware that this was a pioneering work in computer graphics, but I'm without ideas how this was created. It's brilliant, and the music just adds to the atmosphere perfectly. More, more!

[StookieBill]

an 'analogue computerised optical printer' lent to him by his brother john, apparently. john whitney invented a harmonic pendulum driven sound/light printing system in the 1940's, which was a novel advance on fischinger's drawn sound work - using simple harmonic motion instead of geometry to produce patterns.

[menguantedesol]

DA MIEDO JEJEJE

[CaptainJackSparoe]

Triptastic :D

[alaurelworks]

Truly an amazing work of film art. Lapis is the eye of God. It was as unique a vision to me when I was 20, as it is to me even now. Maybe more so. Beauty here is absolute. "Beauty is truth.Truth is beauty. that is all ye' know on earth and that is all ye' need to know"...Keats. Beauty here is seen through the eye of a child. We are all chidren when it comes to beauty. Namaste.

Alaurelworks

[aanchi]

I saw this movie in Stockholm, three months ago and it was one of the biggest filmexperiences I've ever had.

Anyone know where you can find more detailed info on how they made the movie.

[Adeney]

Key film in abstract animation.

[thechanchala]

One of the best animated films ever made, in my opinion.

I heard that they showed this at the Whitney's Summer of Love exhibit this past summer. I have a low-quality copy of this, but I'd pay good money to either see a screening or own a higher quality version.

They keep taking this down from YouTube, but there is no legitimate way to see it!

Dan McLaughlin (director of UCLA's Animation Workshop from 1970 to 2007) cites this as his favorite film.

Does anyone have Yantra?

[dross87]

I have Yantra, I'll put it up for you.