ALONG THE WAY

In 1980, I was approached by Jules Engel, then Director of the CalArts Experimental Animation Program, about scoring a film of a student of his.  The student was Steve Eagle, and the film he had made, Along the Way, was, in Engel’s opinion, something very special.  He asked me to consider scoring the film, and, after seeing it, I found it a fascinating work and agreed to compose the music for it. 

Along the Way is an intensely imaginative exposition of the use of rotoscoping, an animation technique in which animators trace over film frame-by-frame.  The character of the running man in the film is constantly changing and morphing.  The image is sometimes multiplied, and at other times dissected.  It’s truly a captivating visual experience. 

The music was created on a Buchla 200 analog synthesizer (The Electric Music Box) in the studios of CalArts.