L.A. Premier of Adam Beckett’s Newly Restored Films at REDCAT

REDCAT
(The Roy and Edna Disney/Calarts Theater)
631 West 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA
www.redcat.org

Redcat is located at the corner of W. 2nd St. and S. Hope St.,
inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex.

Tickets are $8 for the general public,
$6 for students with valid ID.
Seating is general admission.

Tickets may be purchased at the REDCAT box office-
located at the corner of 2nd and Hope Streets, or
by calling 213.237.2800, or
at www.redcat.org.

Adam Beckett (1950-1979) left an indelible mark on the world of animation and experimental filmmaking during his brief career. Although Beckett died at the young age of 29, he remains a key figure on the oft-cited list of renowned animators who first emerged from the Experimental Animation program at the California Institute of the Arts, or CalArts. In addition, Beckett contributed to the Hollywood special effects industry, most notably as head of the rotoscope and animation department for the first Star Wars movie.

The iotaCenter in Los Angeles is proud to present beautiful new prints of five of Adam Beckett’s extraordinary animated films on Sunday, October 8th, at 2pm at REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater. The films””Evolution of the Red Star (1973), Heavy-Light (1973), Sausage City (1974), Flesh Flows (1974) and Kitsch in Synch (1975)””have never been shown together publicly on the west coast. The approximately 90-minute program includes an introduction by Pamela Turner, Beckett’s biographer, who will present drawings, photographs, and stories about Beckett’s life and work.

Beckett’s award-winning independent films consist of abstract, evolving geometric and organic shapes, created with his pioneering animation and optical printer techniques. Beckett manipulated hand-drawn elements into complex recurring patterns that suggest movement through three-dimensional space anticipating digital effects. The films’ soundtracks are similarly remarkable. Renowned electro-acoustic composers Carl Stone and Barry Schrader respectively composed the scores for Evolution of the Red Star and Heavy-Light. Beckett himself composed music for Sausage City and directed CalArts students to collaboratively craft the soundtracks for Flesh Flows and Kitsch in Synch.

Despite his ongoing influence on animation practitioners, Beckett’s work was virtually inaccessible to the public until this summer. The iotaCenter and the Academy Film Archive, with a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation, collaborated to restore and preserve Beckett’s films. Beckett’s family, private owners of Beckett’s films, Canyon Cinema and the film library at CalArts, all supplied sources for reprinting and reconstructing the films. Archivist Mark Toscano of the Academy Film Archive directed the preservation, assisted by Amy Sloper, a recent graduate of the UCLA Motion Image Archival Studies program. Robert David at The Cinema Lab in Colorado did the picture work; John Polito at Audio Mechanics and Pete Oreckinto and Simon Daniel at DJAudio carried out the sound work.

The iotaCenter’s Adam Beckett Preservation Project aims to ensure Beckett’s legacy and introduce his work to new generations of viewers. In addition to preserving Beckett’s completed films, the iotaCenter is also archiving the materials that Beckett’s family has placed on deposit consisting of over 600 pieces of film including early animation exercises, experimental loops, drawings, and other original elements. Simultaneously, iota is sponsoring a monograph on Beckett’s life and work, authored by Pamela Turner, associate professor in Kinetic Imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University. Turner has spent the past three years doing comprehensive original research, conducting over thirty interviews and examining hundreds of Beckett’s surviving sketches, prints, and drawings. The iotaCenter plans to release a DVD of Beckett’s collected works that will make these outstanding films available to a larger audience.

Beckett’s films will be screened at REDCAT as part of the four-day program, “Fragments from a Lover’s Discourse: Highlights from The Museum of Modern Art’s Tomorrowland: CalArts in Moving Pictures.” These new, restored prints were shown this past summer for the first time in New York as part of MoMA’s “Tomorrowland” series, and then in Washington D.C. at the National Gallery of Art, with Ms. Turner introducing the program. The films have received enthusiastic response and will be presented next in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center on October 26th .

More about the REDCAT screening series:
Fragments from a Lover’s Discourse, highlights from
The Museum of Modern Art’s Tomorrowland: CalArts in Moving Pictures.

For related information, consult the websites of
The Academy Film Archive and the
National Film Preservation Foundation.