A Colour Box

A Colour Box (1935)

Animated shapes dance to Cuban music. This was one of the first animations to be painted directly onto the film.

Date of release
1935-09-06
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (57)
Runtime
3m
Genres
Animation
Director
Len Lye

Interesting facts

A Colour Box is a 1935 British experimental animated film by Len Lye. Commissioned to promote the General Post Office, it was Lye's first direct animation to receive a public release.

Production

In mid 1935, Lye struck a deal with John Grierson to make a direct animation for the GPO Film Unit. Lye was paid £30, with his materials paid for by the GPO.

Lye and sound editor Jack Ellitt went through hundreds of records looking for music to use as the soundtrack. They selected a beguine called "The Belle Creole" by Don Barreto and his Cuban Orchestra. After the music was transferred to film, Lye made cue marks on the sound track, which he used as a guide as he painted on the image track.

Lye painted long, continuous patterns on the 35 mm film stock, without frame lines to separate individual film frames and with few splices used. He used combs or sticks to create linear patterns on the film stock. It took him five days to finish most of the film. Before settling on the title A Colour Box, Lye used the titles Cheaper Parcel Post and La Belle Creole.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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