RetroHack : John Whitney, Visual Effects Pioneer
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbV7loKp69s[/youtube]
This film is titled Catalog and was created by John Whitney to advertise the capabilities of his new company Motion Graphics, Inc. in 1961. The images in this clip were created by Whitney’s “Analog Computer”, which was actually an re-purposed anti-aircraft gun sight from WWII. Whitney was essentially the grandfather of motion control (and oftern refered to as the father of CGI), Douglas Trumbull used some of the techniques shown in Catalog to develop the slit-scan process used for the stargate sequence in 2001: A Space Odessy. Later in his career, Whitney abandoned his analog turing machine and produced more wonderfully hypnotic experimental films produced entirely by digital means. His 1975 film Arabesque stands out amongst his digital works. A true pioneer in the field, bringing the art world and computer science together for the first time, John Whitney has a well deserved place in the pantheon of visual effects visionaries.
