A unique circumstance in movie history- In 1968, the Berkeley Film Society ran a screening of the Ann Arbor Film Festival to a packed house in Wheeler Auditorium. At that time, and not scheduled in the screening, Spinello presented the just completed handpainted 400 ft. strip of film- "Sonata for Pen Brush and Ruler", on a reel, to the projectionist in the booth and he showed it. It is the only film- complete with picture, sound, and narrative (not abstract), that was screened to a public without ANY use of camera, sound recorder or printer. It is the most "anti-technology" film ever made. And on that basis alone the 1968 Berkeley crowd cheered wildly. It is a long strip of hand painted clear film (sound and picture) made for $9 worth of ink and an outdated roll of cleaned 16mm film stock, bought for pennies from army surplus. Spinello may be wrong, but he does not know of ANY other film in all of movie history where this is the case. With greatest respect to McLaren, Fishinger, Harry Smith and others, they all used various technology and various recording, photographing and printing for picture and (when present) sound. After the screening, of course, Spinello had prints made from the original. The original filmpainted strip is in the MoMA collection in New York, for purposes of preservation. The film can be viewed on Vimeo.
