Watching "Frank Film" Three Decades Later

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NOVEMBER 7, 2009 2:39PM

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Back in my days at art school in the '70s we had a great presentation one evening by husband and wife filmmakers Frank and Caroline Mouris. I was especially interested to see their work since I had been chosen to design the posters for the event and the filmmakers nicely autographed a copy for me.

"Frank Film" which was the main animated film shown that night won an Oscar in 1974 for the Best Short Subject, Animated Film. This 1973 movie was made long before computer animation and I can only imagine the weeks and weeks that were necessary for an animation with so many images, which you will see if you watch it all the way through. Thanks to "oxlabb" who uploaded the film on YouTube, I was able to watch the film again some 30+ years after first seeing it in college.

The film is autobiographical and you will notice two narrations merged together with Frank Mouris as the narrator.

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animation, frank and caroline mouris, frank film

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John - that was amazing. I'm in such overload I've marked it to come back to. It reminded me of a psych project I did, though it used only audio sources. The experiment was to determine the trackability of two narratives when they were presented in mono/stereo and with one or two timbres of voice: male/female. It all came flooding back. Mono with both voices of the same timbre was the hardest, needless to say. I can't even fathom the detailed work to accomplish the visual portion of this film. Like claymation on steroids. Thanks for the entertainment and the back story too.

Stacey Youdin

November 07, 2009 05:52 PM

I'll have to come back and watch this later, but thanks for posting it here. It's a film I hadn't heard of before.

The 70's was a great decade for experimental film.

Jeanette DeMain

November 07, 2009 08:58 PM

Stacey, that must have been quite a fascinating pysch project that you did. There is so much that can be done with just with voices, as you mention in your comment. With today's computer software I can envision how one could make Frank Film today, but it would still involve a huge number of hours.

Jeanette, there was definitely some great filmmaking back then and I imagine many of those pioneers who are still around today continue to work in new ways with all of the advanced technology available.