Direct Animation vs Visual Music
ダイレクト・アニメーション / ヴィジュアル・ミュージック
Both sit in Experimental Film, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. One is technique and the other style. They are reached for with different intent, which is the fastest way to tell them apart.
Direct Animation
Images made without a camera, by drawing, scratching and pasting directly onto the filmstrip. The film stock itself becomes the brushstroke and the rhythm.
Visual Music
Film art that translates musical structure into abstract shape, color and motion. From the color organ through abstract animation to today's audiovisual work, it forms a lineage of listening with the eyes.
| Direct Animation | Visual Music | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1935– | 1920s– |
| Family | Experimental Film | Experimental Film |
| Kind | Technique | Style |
| Cues | Hand-drawing on film / Scratched marks / Continuity that ignores frames / Physical blots of color | Abstract forms in motion / Chords of color / Counterpoint of sound and shape / No narrative |
| Best used for | Short experimental films and titles that put the material itself in front · Abstract runs of color and scratch cut by hand to a piece of music | Live performance and installation where the image must lock to the playing · Films that carry a piece of music through to the end without lyrics or story |
| Type | Write letters by hand one frame at a time and keep the drift | Use no lettering, or treat any lettering as one more figure |
| Composition | Ignore the frame line and pull marks as long continuous bands | Hold the center and build chords from the count and spacing of forms |
| Material | Paint onto clear stock, scratch into black, and switch between them | Map hue to pitch and brightness to dynamics when choosing color |
| Caution | Laying one scanned scratch texture over the footage so the dirt sits still instead of changing every single frame. | Wiring shape size straight to volume, which hits the beat and never shows the structure of the piece. |