OffOn by Scott Bartlett

seminal videographic film made by San Francisco based film maker Scott Bartlett with assistance from Tom Dewitt, Manny Meyer, and Michael McNamee in 1967. i read somewhere that in the early 80's Scott Bartlett was going to direct a feature film for American Zoetrope titled Interface. that would have been cool

[@sky44david]

Thanks so much for making this great work of independent cinema for all to see. Great great honoring!!! I worked for Scott helping with what would become a "tunnel" sequence for the feature he was making with the support of American Zoetrope. We would meet at the Am. Zoetrope screening room in San Francisco and I would bring in some of the animation work that I had done at Cal Arts in the early 1970's and show it to the more business types that Scott was pitching to get the support. Scott was always very professional in preparation and appearance to make the "mark" as a serious director for a major work in cinema. Scott then got the job of director of effects for the Ken Russell directed ALTERED STATES. He had me do a "tunnel of light" sequence for ALTERED STATES. As with INTERFACE, both productions went into the "finance/lets make a film that makes a hugh profit that everybody can understand" tailspin. Russell got fired, and down went the integrity of Scott's magnificent and beautiful cinematic vision. He never recovered. My films were being distributed by his former wife Freud at this time (Serious Business Co.). Long live independent cinema art from the 1960's to 80's!

[@Zepster77]

Amazing story! I would love to hear your thoughts on Harry Smith sometime...???

[@DelilahThePig]

I saw this in college around 2001. Of all the short films on that DVD set, this is THE ONE I had to tape a copy of. I still have the VHS and project it every now and then. It's amazing to see it on the garage wall! Just image having free reign of all that color videotape equipment, in 1967 no less! I would feel like a kid in a candy store.

[@dittoscope]

They are alike, and a comparison is warranted. I carried OffOn's answer print to an avant garde film show at UC Berkeley in 1967, not knowing "7362" was receiving its Bay Area premier showing. It was one of those rare moments of independent creativity that start new confluences in intellectual pursuits. Of course, I knew well enough what 7362 was, because it is how we were able to produce not only OffOn but the light shows that were edited into the OffOn. Did P O'N produce light shows?

[@JimPigMuseumOfSound]

An incredible piece of art. This is where psychedelia and the avant-garde meet.

[@neenlancaster]

Thank you so much for uploading both this and Making OffOn. As someone who is not from the US, watching Scott's movies is very difficult. You made it less impossible, though, and I appreciate that a lot. 🇧🇷❤️

[@ChrisCasadyanimation]

This is an historic classic. This blew many minds back in 1967, (and was before Kubrick's "2001"). Glad to see this on KZbin.

[@3243_]

This is one of the coolest films ever made.

[@dittoscope]

Note the different end credits, as compared to the 1968 version, also on Utube, which puts the credits first and changes attribution. The latter version was made from an interneg which compromises some of the color quality seen in this version which was mastered in reversal film stock. In 2004 OffOn was entered into the Library of Congress' National Film Registry. The DVD version distributed by the National Film Preservation Foundation is the poorer 1968 version. Tom (DeWitt) Ditto

[@scum1979]

this is incredible

[@Miika_Laurila]

I love this kind of art. This is psychedelic and surrealistic. Wow

[@sadieglutz.5689]

This is an amazing piece of work!

[@haileyshannon7548]

Ditto, Sadie!

[@thejimg]

This is one of the coolest things I've seen on KZbin...

[@kueen4024]

Bhai kuch aur bhi dhek liya kar phir

[@TRASHMONEYofficial]

Love this

[@troywright359]

the true form of gigyas has been comprehended

[@nuthineatholl6434]

And . . . POTRZEBIE

[@studham1]

the pacing is perfect

[@alexanderaultman]

This is insane.

[@kawaiigaythug]

I like

[@aeschlimannify]

I don't believe this work made any technology possible. Also I don't care whether it was hard to do. It would be just as great if it'd be easy to make. And give the guy a break, I guess he's young and it can be really hard to be forced to look at stuff (in class), when you're not in the mood to do so. But yeah, this is certainly no stupid crap.

[@michaellouisaaberg]

Does anyone know if a place online to watch any other Scott Bartlett films? Looking for serpent

[@neenlancaster]

Same boat here. Your best bet would be to request it from a library that has the tapes or find someone that has them. Its a shame that his work hasn't been digitalised yet.

[@minifest6969]

That's not a film... THAT'S LSD TRIP!!! Also, am I only one who thinks that 7:31 - 8:10 part looks like a way to subliminally brainwash people?

[@UlisesAndTM]

Hi! I have a couple of questions, du you have the Scott Bartlett VHS ripped? could you share it? i need it in hq but it's impossible to get one here in Spain.. Thanks!

[@headlights8835]

don't know if your still interested but if you contact me directly i can hook you up with a rip of all 3 of the facets vhs tapes currently out of print & nearly impossibleto find.

[@neenlancaster]

@@headlights8835 hey, not the original poster, but I am definitely interested! Do you have all three tapes of his film collection?

[@ambientabuserecordin]

is this the original score?

[@poekiekonijn]

+Ambient Abuse Rec. " The soundtrack for OffOn is by Manny Meyer, and sounds in places like a precursor to Gil Mellé’s buzzing and shrieking music for The Andromeda Strain (1971)."

[@tomditto3972]

+Ambient Abuse Rec. Yes, the original score. Composed to the silent answer print by Manny Meyer with participation of Bartlett & DeWitt. The instrument was the Buchla 100 modular music synthesizer.

[@luvtub]

You'd best run along now, Little Soldier - you've got a big Intro to Psychology quiz to study for.

[@isaackangas6921]

2:40

[@skittlehappymatt]

this, ladies and gentleman, is preserved by the library of congress.

[@FirstBornArt]

this was in da mk ultra documentary

[@nuthineatholl6434]

Don't buy into all that paranoid hooey about mind-control and--- *ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!!!!!*

[@dcouzin]

Useful to compare this garbage heap with Pat O'Neill's graceful "7362" of the same year.

[@mishima611]

7362, is an excellent use of the available technology. this film, on the other hand, more realistically captures psychedelia on film in a much better way. 7362 is so well made, in an almost clinical way, that it ends up leaving out the healthy serving of chaos that is part of every & any actual psychedelic experience. i can maybe see some film students or people who are used to 'normal' mainstream forms of entertainment thinking this is trash compared to 7362, but anyone who has experienced psychedelic states of any kind,& who's watching this as an example of a historic use of film to capture that experience, would not come to the same conclusions. i love them both, but this one does things & reaches certain points that, in my opinion, 7362 doesn't reach & didn't even attempt to reach.

[@dcouzin]

mishima611's comments show misunderstandings about both psychedelics and art. I began taking mescaline (pure stuff from Nutritional Biochemicals) in 1961-1962. Pat O'Neill, a few years older and living in the same area, surely had his "doors of perception" opened before he made 7362 in 1967. mishima611's expectation of holy chaos in that drug experience is mishima611's. Radical vagueness, with flows of spiritual vomit, is not everyone's cup of tea, and psychedelics can only slightly influence the taker's antecedent tastes. Unless we are fed psychedelics from infancy, we bring developed perceptual, intellectual, and aesthetical systems to our first and subsequent drug experiences. I was studying mathematics, so while drugged I could stare "forever" at the water waves, as structures. O'Neill had begun in sculpture, so thingness and boundaries were his basic métier. With film he reached the realm image combination where he has remained ever since. The artist has a personal "language" while his work sits within the ages. Rimbaud expressed his formula "immense et raisonné dérèglement de tous les sens" without his written words exploding on the page. Psychedelics can derange all our senses, but to explain or express this the artist must invent such a metaphor if he can, rather than throw ink onto the ceiling and grunting: "see!". Psychedelic experiences are huge experiences, but purely in high consciousness wherein one watches oneself watching. Psychedelic experiences don't fire our energies or our unconscious depths, so they generate few ideas and few artworks. mishima611 believes OffOn by Scott Bartlett "realistically captures psychedelia on film", and he can't imagine that others of us can't even associate our psychedelic experiences with that film. Successful depiction of psychedelic experience must capture the experience's hugeness along with its shallowness. No artist so far has been so able and so courageous to accomplish this.