Demian’s Film & Video Projects DVD
is available from Amazon.com

More information on the DVD contents:
Demian’s Film & Video Projects

Gertie Takes a Trip to the Moon and a Man Recycles was started in the fall of 1971. I had received a filmmaking grant from Smith college, with which I made a film that was a demonstration of T’ai Chi by, and interview of, Master T.T. Liang. (This film is now available on my DVD entitled “Two by Demian.”) Because I had come well under budget, I was also able to buy supplies for a frame-by-frame on paper animation.

At that time, I drew 400-odd drawings on paper, and attempted to capture them on color 8mm, and later on b/w 16mm. With both efforts there were camera problems, and I never got a satisfactory print. The soundtrack was a simultaneously-played audio tape with simple sitar droning and a group’s meditative chanting (“Ja-ray Ra-day, Ja-ray Ra-day, Govinda Ra-day …”)

For this latest incarnation, I digitally captured the drawings — frame-by-frame — and placed them on the video edit program’s timeline with a four-frame default for each image. The tune was created with a music generating program, which I subsequently edited to fit the tempo and different sections. I maintained only a snip of the sitar drone and added squeaks, motor sounds, tinkle noise, and one short spoken sentence.

All of this effort is a lot of work to go through for one minute of film.

“Gertie” was finally completed in January 2001, so I can truly say that this 1½ minute animation was 30 years in the making.