Incredible Machine, The

About

Informs viewer of the experimental advances in audiovisual communications techniques Bell Telephone Laboratories' researchers are experimenting with: computer graphics, synthesized speech, computer-made movies and music, and designing prototypical devices.

20:27:20:29 CU man working on 1980s computer screen tracing line with digital pen over graph on screen, sheet music above graph, audio track jumbled notes corresponding to music written on computer screen.

20:27:39:28 man holds pen to digital draught table tracing lines that appear on black computer screen in green.

20:27:44:21 CU typewriter typing random letters on page, camera pan out to man who says “nice”, computer in robotic voice repeats over and over again word “nice”; CU black computer screen producing line in steps corresponding to intonation of computer’s pronunciation of word “nice.”

20:28:02:27 Two design engineers working on Graphic-1 computer; CU disembodied engineer’s hand presses pen to round scope touch-screen, drawing points on screen; men draw circuits directly on cathode ray tube screen; computer screen flashes “Data Incomplete On Amplifier.”

20:30:22:03 CU red tinted shot of disembodied finger presses button labeled “Execute;” CU two rows of blinking yellow lights; flashing graph on computer screen.

20:30:34:23 CU disembodied hands, on holding red pencil, the other strip of film; man with large moustache looks at strip of film and asks man at chalkboard holding piece of chalk questions; men are discussing idea for early digital movie.

20:31:37:17 Great footage from early Beflicks (Bell Laboratories Flicks) digital movie.

20:31:51:09 Man gives projectionist reels for Beflicks movie; VS man loads film reel in projector, focuses lens; CU disembodied hand punches buttons, each only momentarily in focus as it is punched, fingers press rewind then play button; CU film on projector begins to wind. Excerpted footage from Beflicks films, graphic in first frame has text which reads “The language speaks of pictures as mosaic;” great footage from 1980s digital movie, abstract moving images and letters, text “Man and…His world; Terre des Hommes; El Hombre Y Su Mundo; Der Mensch und Seine Welt” in abstract moving patters, highly pixilated material.

20:33:28:22 CU filmmaker with moustache talks about his dreams of making digital movies; great sound bites “I’ll be able to sit some place, maybe in a railroad station and write a movie, or maybe even pick up a telephone eventually and write a movie.”

20:33:25:07 Simple graphic of rotating sphere with suitcase-like object in its orbit, clock in top right corner of frame.

20:34:50:14 Man and woman seated behind project at table, man presses button on table turning off the lights, then turns on the movie projector; great footage of op-art film with man perceptual effects.

Archive

Internet Archive, in Prelinger Archives

Licence or status

The Internet Archive states none for this item.

Credit

Murphy (Owen) Productions

Subtitles

Automatic captions

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Tweens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed