Frameworks is an ongoing partnership between Metro and FAVA (Film and Video Arts Society). This month we feature three animated films by John Osborne.

Osborne, a chemical engineer, began experimenting with scratch-on-film animation in the 1960s. His first work, Midnight Madness, was scratched on 16mm black leader with a needle. His second piece, Seeing a Sound Quickly, began with the audio, which he scratched directly on the optical soundtrack, later scratching images to match the sound. John Barham, a pianist with an interest in Indian music, asked Osborne to make a film for his raga-inspired piano composition, Raga Marwa. Barham provided the sheet music and a tape of the piece; Osborne inspected the optical audio on a microfilm reader, making a table to map the sheet music to the visible duration of audio elements; he consulted this table while plotting out 5000 India ink drawings with rulers, compasses, etc. These three pieces will screen with other selected scratch animations, including work from Len Lye, Norman McLaren, Steven Woloshen, Richard Reeves and Aaron Munson.