Synchromy

The plot synopsis says the visuals are an "artistic representation of the sound track".

I'd venture to say that the visuals ARE the soundtrack, optically printed into the frame. The frequencies look correct, and the widths look like normal 35mm soundtracks. Given that McLaren often hand-painted his soundtracks, this would not be too far a stretch. It would have been a simple matter to use an optical printer and expose the tracks in the picture area of the film. This was my first thought when viewing the film. I can't imagine him painting the soundtrack, and then going back and making pictures over again to "represent" the track, when the artwork was already there for the taking.

McLaren mixes coloured horizontal bands of varying width (depending on the tibre of the music) across the screen. Albeit basic visuals he mixes visual pace with sounds represented by thin and thick stripes ,it looks like how you would imagine hard drives to sound like when processing information. Great stuff

Synchromy (1971)

*** (out of 4)

This Norman McLaren short certainly won't appeal to everyone but I must say that I found it to be rather hypnotic in its own way. There's really not too much of a plot but there's an original score that gets played with various colorful images in the background being synced to it.

Again, if it's plot you're wanting then you're not going to find it here but the film works on many different levels. For starters, the score itself is quite good and there's just a certain feel to it that drags you into the movie and keeps you mind solely on what you're listening to. Visually the film is also quite impressive because of how the shapes fit the music. I'd also argue that the actual colors and shapes used were quite creative and I really thought the brown up against the pink looked excellent.

I must say up front that although I have seen quite a few of Norman McLaren's films, I am NOT a fan. Many of these shorts are very experimental in nature and are just not that accessible to the average person. Instead, many appear to be the sort of films you might see in a modern art museum....a VERY modern and unconventional art museum. While all this would DEFINITELY apply to "Sychrony" as well, there was definitely something hypnotic and amazing about the film. As an experiment, McLaren created a musical composition using various size and shapes on the sound track on the edge of film--causing strange mechanical music. These shapes are also shown on the screen in a wide range of colors. It's quite bizarre but also something to see--as you wonder at McLaren's originality and the haunting (yet weird) style. Worth seeing once if you don't mind the unusual.