Boogie-Doodle is a 1940 drawn-on-film visual music

Visual music

Visual music, sometimes called "colour music," refers to the use of musical structures in visual imagery, which can also include silent films or silent Lumia work. It also refers to methods or devices which can translate sounds or music into a related visual presentation...

 short by Norman McLaren

Norman McLaren

Norman McLaren, CC, CQ was a Scottish-born Canadian animator and film director known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada...

, set to the boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...

 music of African-American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

 Albert Ammons

Albert Ammons

Albert Ammons was an American pianist. Ammons was a player of boogie-woogie, a bluesy jazz style popular from the late 1930s into the mid 1940s.-Life and career:...

.

Though released by the National Film Board of Canada

National Film Board of Canada

The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...

 (NFB) in 1941, Boogie-Doodle was actually made by McLaren in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1940, a year before he was invited by John Grierson

John Grierson

John Grierson was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. According to popular myth, in 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" to describe a non-fiction film.-Early life:Grierson was born in Deanston, near Doune, Scotland...

 to Canada to found the NFB's animation unit. McLaren, who had been influenced by the hand-painted films of Len Lye

Len Lye

Len Lye, born Leonard Charles Huia Lye , was a Christchurch, New Zealand-born artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives such as the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Pacific...

, was in New York exploring the technique on a grant from the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation, creating Boogie-Doodle along with three other cameraless films: Dots, Loops and Stars and Stripes.

The animation in Boogie-Doodle coincides exactly with Ammon's musical piece, with McLaren's animation beginning at the very first bar

Bar (music)

In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...

 and concluding at the final note.

External links

• Watch Boogie-Doodle at NFB.ca (Requires Adobe Flash
  Adobe Flash
  Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
  
  )