Mary Ellen Bute Interactive Authoring Presentation Project By: Les, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Mary Ellen Bute

Interactive Authoring Presentation Project

By: Les, Taylor, Austin and Kevon

Mary Ellen Bute’s Life

• Grew up in Houston, Texas. Born November 25, 1906.
• Received a scholarship to Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
• Attended Yale for stage lighting and ran the switchboard
• Was a founding member of the Women’s Independent Film Exchange
• Died October 17th, 1983

Start of Her Career

• Thomas Wilfred’s color organ
• Introduced to filmmaking from Joseph Schillinger
• 1934 to 1959, 11 abstract films were played in theaters

Thomas Wilfred, inventor of the Clavilux. Synchornization (1934), Joseph Schillinger and Lewis Jacobs; Polka Graph (1952) Mary Ellen Bute drawings by Mary Ellen Bute

List of works-main ideas

• Abstract films with visuals synced with sound
• Basic idea of visual music - SEEING SOUND
• Painting and lighting background transferred over into her films - most visuals move and show emotion/change

based on lighting and shape (examples: Synchromy no. 2, Synchromy no. 4) Had an unreleased/unfinished piece, “Synchromy” and worked with Joseph Schillinger

• One of her first pieces, painting frames so detailed it would be too complicated to finish

Filmograph

Synchromy No. 1 (Short) 1934 Rhythm in Light (Short) 1934 Synchromy No. 2 (Short) 1935 Dada (Short) 1936 Parabola (Short) 1937 Synchromy No. 4 Escape (Short) 1937 Spook Sport (Short) 1939 Tarantella (Short) 1940 Polka Graph (Short) 1947 Color Rhapsodie (Short) 1948 Pastoral (Short) 1950 Abstronic (Short) 1952 Mood Contrasts (Short) 1953 Imaginations (Short) 1958 RCA: New Sensations in sound (Short) 1959 Passages from James Joyce’s Finnagans Wake 1966

Synchromy #4: Escape 1937

• Used Conventional Animation for the main

themes in the music

• Used special effects into the background

(swirling liquids, clouds, fireworks, etc.)

• Imploding/exploding circles, triangles, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRmu- GcClls

Spook Short (1940)

• Spook Short (1940): Cel Animation with

drawn-on-film effects

• She matched the movements more to the

mood of the music than to the actual notes https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=6wXTx9BKENs

Abstronic (1952)

• Used her own paintings with surrealistic

depth perspective

• Zooming in/out in rhythmic pulsations

synched with “hoe down” music.

• Patterns drawn over background using an
• scilloscope.

Moon Contrast (1953)

• Grids of colored light shot through glass bricks/

cut-glass plate

• Used oscilloscope to create the backgrounds

and the colored liquids clouds

Sources

Life

"Light Industry." Light Industry. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2015. http://www.lightindustry.org/bute “Mary Ellen Bute.” Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ellen_Bute "Mary Ellen Bute: Seeing Sound." Mary Ellen Bute: Seeing Sound. N.p., n.

• d. Web. 06 Oct. 2015.

http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.2/articles1.2/moritz1.2.html "Seeing Sound - A Mary Ellen Bute Retrospective." Harvard Film Archive. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2015. http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2014sepoct/bute.html

Technique + Films

"Colorwork." Colorwork. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2015. http://whitney.org/Events/Colorwork "CVM - Mary Ellen Bute." CVM - Mary Ellen Bute. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2015. http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Bute.htm "Light Industry." Light Industry. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2015. http://www.lightindustry.org/bute "Mary Ellen Bute." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2015. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0124722/ "Mary Ellen Bute » Bio." Mary Ellen Bute RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2015. http://ima.or.at/maryellenbute/?cat=3 "Mary Ellen Bute: Film Pioneer." Mary Ellen Bute: Film Pioneer. N.p., n.d.

• Web. 08 Oct. 2015.

http://www.flashpointmag.com/butenotes.htm "Mary Ellen Bute: Seeing Sound." Mary Ellen Bute: Seeing Sound. N.p., n.

• d. Web. 08 Oct. 2015.

http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.2/articles1.2/moritz1.2.html "Mood Contrasts." OtherFilm. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2015. http://otherfilm.org/mood-contrasts/