Oskar Fischinger

Oskar Wilhelm Fischinger (June 22, 1900 – January 31, 1967) was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter, notable for creating abstract musical animation many decades before the appearance of computer graphics and music videos.

In Frankfurt, Fischinger met the theatre critic Bernhard Diebold, who in 1921 introduced Fischinger to the work and personage of Walter Ruttmann, a pioneer in abstract film.

At this time, Fischinger was experimenting with colored liquids and three-dimensional modelling materials such as wax and clay.

He invented a "Wax Slicing Machine", which synchronized a vertical slicer with a movie camera's shutter, enabling the efficient imaging of progressive cross-sections through a length of molded wax and clay.

Fischinger wrote to Ruttmann about his machine, who expressed interest.

Moving to Munich, Fischinger licensed the wax slicing machine to Ruttmann, who used it to make some backgrounds for Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed, an animated fairy tale film, making the moving backgrounds and magic scenes.

During this time Fischinger shot many abstract tests of his own using the machine.

Some of these are distributed today under the assigned title Wax Experiments.

In 1924, Fischinger formed a company with American entrepreneur Louis Seel to produce satirical cartoons that tended toward mature audiences.

One survives in his film estate, Pierrette I.

He also continued to make abstract films and tests of his own, trying new and different techniques, including multiple projector performances.

"In 1926 and 1927, Fischinger performed his own multiple projector film shows with various musical accompaniments. These shows were titled Fieber (Fever), Vakuum, and Macht (Power)'".

Facing financial difficulties, Fischinger borrowed from his family, and then his landlady.

Finally, in an effort to escape bill collectors, Fischinger decided to surreptitiously depart Munich for Berlin in June 1927.

Taking only his essential equipment, he walked 350 miles through the countryside, shooting single frames that were released many decades later as the film Walking from Munich to Berlin.

Arriving in Berlin, Fischinger borrowed some money from a relative and set up a studio on Friedrichstraße.

He soon was creating special effects for various films.

His own proposals for cartoons were not accepted by producers or distributors, however.

In 1928, he was hired to work on the feature film Woman in the Moon (German: Frau im Mond), directed by Fritz Lang, which provided him a steady salary for a time.

On his own time, he experimented with charcoal-on-paper animation.

He produced a series of abstract Studies that were synchronized to popular and classical music.

A few of the early Studies were synchronized to new record releases by Electrola, and screened at first-run theatres with a tail credit advertising the record, thus making them, in a sense, the very first music videos.

The Studies — Numbers 1 through 12 — were well received and many were distributed to first-run theatres worldwide, as far as Japan and South America.

His ''Studie Nr.

He created special effects for Fritz Lang's 1929 Woman in the Moon, one of the first sci-fi rocket films, and influenced Disney's Fantasia.

He made over 50 short films and painted around 800 canvases, many of which are in museums, galleries, and collections worldwide.

5'' screened at the 1931 "Congress for Colour-Music Research" to critical acclaim.

In 1932, Universal Pictures purchased distribution rights to one of the Studies for the American public.

The special effects Fischinger did for clients' films and commercials led to his being called "the Wizard of Friedrichstraße".

In 1932, Fischinger married Elfriede Fischinger, a first cousin from his hometown of Gelnhausen.

As the Nazis consolidated power after 1933, the abstract film and art communities and distribution possibilities quickly disappeared as the Nazis instituted their policies against what they termed "degenerate art".

Oskar Fischinger continued to make films, and commercials and advertisements, among them Muratti greift ein (translated as Muratti Gets in the Act, or Muratti Marches On) (1934), for a cigarette company, and Kreise (Circles) (1933–34), for the Tolirag advertising agency.

The color Muratti commercial with its stop-motion dancing cigarettes screened all over the world.

His brother Hans Fischinger showed his absolute film "Tanz der Farben" (i.e. The Dance of Colors) in Hamburg in 1939.

Among his film works is Motion Painting No. 1 (1947), which is now listed on the National Film Registry of the U.S. Library of Congress.

Born in Gelnhausen, near Frankfurt, Fischinger apprenticed at an organ-building firm after he finished school until the owners were drafted into World War I.

The next year he worked as a draftsman in an architect's office, until he too was called to duty.

However, since he was too "unhealthy", he was rejected from combat duty.

After the war, the Fischinger family moved west to Frankfurt.

There Fischinger attended a trade school and worked as an apprentice, eventually obtaining an Engineer's Diploma.