Barry Spinello 
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Barry Spinello, also known as Barry J Spinello (born on January 17, 1941) is an American film director,[32] experimental animator, producer and screenwriter,[1][16][19][22] who was nominated for the 48th Academy Awards in 1976.[3] Spinello's early work focused on camera-less animation in the late sixties and early seventies[23] and later turned to documentary and other filmmaking.[4]

Early Life and Education

Spinello was a child radio actor in the early to mid-1950s on WNYC and WNYE FM in NY.[31] Shows like Tales from the Four Winds, and Sounds of the City were broadcast live from studios in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Spinello would cold read on live radio, an exhilarating experience for a ten-year-old. Spinello attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn and was president of the orchestra, vice president of the band, and co-captain of the track team.

At Columbia College, Columbia University Spinello changed his major five times in four years, graduating mostly in music, literature, and painting. He attended the Graduate School of Architecture also at Columbia, leaving after two years for independent study in painting at the Belle Arte Academy, University of Florence. Spinello returned to the US in 1967 and started making experimental animated films.

Career- Experimental Animation

From 1967 to 1972, Spinello made films without a camera or tape recorder by painting both sound and picture directly onto clear 16mm leader, including: Sonata for Pen Brush and Ruler, Soundtrack,[2][30] Six Loop Paintings, and others.[6] His measured reputation in experimental animation derives from this time. The idea was to integrate sound and picture in a single creative process using a single tool.[7][8][9] 

Returning from Europe and having no funding, Spinello bought five bottles of acetate ink and a 400-foot length of outdated film stock. He rinsed the film clear of emulsion, fixed it to a table lit from underneath, and proceeded to paint both sound on the soundtrack edge of the film and picture in the picture area. Eight months and 15,000 frames later, he spooled Sonata for Pen Brush and Ruler[16] onto a reel and handed it to the projectionist at the 1968[17][18] Berkely/Ann Arbor Film Festival.[27] It was received with great enthusiasm by the Berkeley crowd due to its vaguely anti-war content and anti-technology production.

With due respect to Norman McLaren, Len Lye, and Harry Smith, this is the only film in the history of filmmaking made without any use of camera, sound recording equipment, or printing equipment of any sort. A 400-foot length of hand-painted [20] filmstrip - sound/picture/narrative, screened in public to an audience at a film festival. Since then, many prints have been made and shown extensively. For years the original was in storage at the Museum of Modern Art in NY and is now on loan to The Academy of Motion Pictures for purposes of preservation.

In 1969, John Cage visited Spinello in studio and included his film Soundtrack in the influential SOURCE MAGAZINE: Music of the Avante Guarde, 7th edition, 1970. The definitive publication: EXPERIMENTAL ANIMATION, Origins of a New Art, Nostrand Reinhold, 1976; and revised Da Capo Press, 1988, carries a section and illustrations of Spinello’s animation.[33] Moreover, in 2013, two Ph.D. theses from M. Puetz, College of the University of Chicago, and Gregory Zinman, NY University, include chapters on Spinello’s 1969 film Soundtrack.[5] In 2007, Spinello wrote: On Sound and Image as a Single Entity, published in Offscreen Magazine, Volume 11, Nos. 8-9. Aug/Sept 2007[13][14][15] More recently, CINEMA IN FLUX: The Evolution of Motion Picture Technology, Springer Press, 2021, Lipton, cites Spinello’s early work in direct animation.[34]

By 1972, hand painting film had, for the time, run its course for Spinello. He waited many years to reintroduce the ideas of film painting, but now within a computer environment. (See below)

Career - Documentary and other

A grant from the National Council of Churches sponsored his first non-animated film, Broken Soldiers, screened on PBS stations with a full-page review in the San Francisco Chronicle/ Examiner. 

For the next fifteen years, Spinello produced award-winning documentaries and other films from his Emeryville, California studio.[5] He was a Directing Fellow at the American Film Institute, first and second years.

In 1975, Mike Wallace saw Spinello’s film: A Day in the Life of Bonnie Consolo, which had been nominated for an Academy Award. He introduced Spinello by name and screened his film. As was the practice, a few weeks later, it screened a second time. Several years later, as part of a show called “My all time favorites” Wallace screened it a third and then a fourth time. Ronald Reagan saw it and asked to appear with Bonnie. So the film was screened five times on SIXTY MINUTES, probably more than any other segment. Legislation was appearing around that time to favor the handicapped. It is said the Bonnie film helped with that legislation.

Postcard from Paris, a documentary about a young girl’s student journey abroad, premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 1983. Also, that year at Telluride: Erica - Not in Vain, describes a different girl’s story and a very different journey. It was nominated for an Academy Award but not included in the final cut; won First Place, John Muir Medical Film Festival; Cine Golden Eagle (Spinello’s fourth); Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival.

Other filmed “portraits” of people include Mel on Wheels (Cine Golden Eagle); Three Lives, made with a grant from HEW; A Film about Sharon (see review);[1] A Day in the Life of Dave Harvey, and others.

Over the years, Spinello made films for Industry, including Rancho California, about building Temecula, a new city in California: first place winner, Film and TV Festival of New York. Also: It’s the Difference, shot in and around the Mississippi Delta, interviewing residents and legislators, designed to influence legislation in the southern Mississippi area: shown extensively on local PBS stations. Also, four short films made for Bilingual Children’s Television, the Villa Allegre Show.

Spinello’s film Rushes, 1979, is described in A NEW HISTORY OF DOCUMENTARY FILMS, first edition, Continuum Press, Ellis and McLane, 2005:[35] “Neil, the character played by Spinello, turns to the camera and says ‘film everything for the next 24 hours, cause I’ve come to a strong, positive decision.” We then see the actors (and audience) puzzled as to whether what is on screen is real or not. It is only after the final credits roll we understand the film is a total fiction directed from inside the film, made with a grant from the American Film Institute, screened by Filmex, Los Angeles Film Festival, 1979.

In 1986, Spinello was hired to write a screenplay: Adrian and the Toy People, based on his earlier film: Broken Soldiers. On completing the script, Spinello brought it to Amblin. Six months later, Spinello read that Amblin was making Small Soldiers, a film that sounded very much like his own. He sued.[10][11][12][31] The Superior Court remanded the case to the jury, but the Appeals Court reversed and set the case for arbitration. Spinello refused a small settlement and the arbitration went forward. Spinello lost. The upshot: studios no longer save rejected scripts. They return or destroy them.

Spinello placed his script in a drawer, and there it remained. But with the historic reset of the political landscape, Spinello saw a need and opportunity. He opened the drawer, found the script, retooled and renamed it: Deplorable Boy.

Deplorable Boy: Eight year old Adrian Carmelotti is so full of hijinks and mischief as to be called “deplorable” by the adults. But it is his very energy and smarts that save the ranch. It can be called a parable of our time. Spinello commissioned an animation example viewable here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vCOBVZUqIywQVuexcwyq3-tVyEdaRBMr/view?usp=sharing and production is expected.

A Return to Experimental Animation

Towards, a film started in 2000, returns Spinello to his experimental animation origins and introduces the idea of film painting into computer technology. Using a single tool, After Effects, sound and picture are interwoven, merged together, the warp and woof of a single cloth. It features the voices of Gertrude Stein and T. S. Eliot arguing while trapped in a Jackson Pollock painting.[7] The Center for Visual Music (CVM) premiered this as a work in progress in a special screening at the Echo Park Film Center, Los Angeles, in 2013.[8]

A Website

Over many years Spinello built and maintains a website about his mentor and teacher, the physicist, neuroscientist, and philosopher, Peter Putnam (1927-1987). Putnam’s model of how the brain works has shaped Spinello’s thought these many years. The website site: peterputnam.org contains a film about Putnam; a “Thoughts on Putnam” paper, and a listing of Putnam’s work. A trip to the site is recommended.

Personal Life

Spinello is married to Irene Spinello, MD. They have a daughter Nina. Spinello’s son from a former marriage, Michael, is an architect (MIT) practicing in Atlanta.[16]

Filmography

Opus One, 1967 (filmpainting)

Sonata for Pen, Brush and Ruler, 1968 (filmpainting)[30]

Soundtrack, 1969 (filmpainting)

Colored Relations, 1970 (filmpainting)[21]

Six Loop Paintings, 1971 (filmpainting)

Daylight, 1972 (filmpainting/live action) Screened Am. Library Association Annual Meeting 1972

A Day in the Life of Dave Harvey, 1972. Legal film - screened in court

Broken Soldiers, 1973. Fiction. Screened on local PBS stations; see SF Chronicle review

Goatman of Briones, 1973. Made for UCB anthropology study - screened across South America

Film Graphics: abstract aspects of editing, 1973. Cine Golden Eagle. Distributed UC Berkeley[23]

Building a Rocking Horse, (short) 1973. BCTV Villa Allegre Show, screened Hispanic TV

Overcrowding, (short) 1974. BCTV Villa Allegre Show, screened Hispanic TV

Making Pottery, (short) 1974. BCTV Villa Allegre Show, screened Hispanic TV

Learning to Fly, (short) 1974. BCTV Villa Allegre Show, screened Hispanic TV

A Day in the Life of Bonnie Consolo, 1975. Academy Award Nomination; Cine Golden Eagle; Screened 60 MINUTES five times[25][26]

A Film About Sharon, 1975. Screened Pacific Film Archives in Spinello retrospective; Screened LA Theatre Vanguard; LA Times review, Kevin Thomas[28][29]

Counseling the Terminally Ill: Three Lives, 1977. Made with a grant from HEW

It’s the Difference, 1977. Kaiser Industries, screened internally

Rancho California, 1978. Kaiser Realty. Bronze Medal: International Film and TV Festival of New York, 1980

A Force of 5,000, 1978 Kaiser Industries. Screened on New Orleans Public TV, 1978

Oxnard Robot, 1979. Kaiser Industries, screened internally

Rushes, 1979. AFI grant; Los Angeles Film Festival 1980; Distributed Direct Cinema Ltd

Mel on Wheels, 1981. Cine Golden Eagle: Red Ribbon, American Film Festival 1983

Erica: Not in Vain, 1983. Telluride Film Festival 1983; Academy Award Certificate of Special Merit 1985; First Place: John Muir Medical Film Festival 1986

Postcard from Paris, 1983. Telluride Film Festival, 1983

Peter Putnam Documentary, 1995 - present. See website: peterputnam.org

Towards 2000- 2008. Center for Visual Music sponsored event at the Echo Park Film Center, Los Angeles 2008[24]

Deplorable Boy, script, current

External links

Barry Spinello - Official Website

  • Born

  • January 17, 1941, Brooklyn, NY U.S.

  • Occupation

  • Film producer, director, animator

  • Known for

  • Experimental animation, portrait documentaries, scripting

  • Notable work

  • Sonata for Pen Brush and Ruler, Soundtrack, A Day in the Life of Bonnie Consolo

References
Distributed Wikipedia

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