Composer: Allan Schindler
Filmmakers: Stephanie Maxwell

Preferred performance formats:
1. DV CAM
   
2. Mini DV
   

Lower quality alternative performance formats:
1. Beta SP
   
2. DVD video
   
3. S-VHS tape (lowest quality; for audition purposes only; not for performance)
   

This abstract work conjures an atmosphere in which an aerial mobile is magically suspended in a three-dimensional space. The floating pendants of the mobile each reveal a mysterious world filled with unique visual and aural forms, movements and gestures. The visuals have been created using hand-cut animated mattes in combination with hand-painted and etched clear and black 35mm motion picture film.

The computer-generated music consists of continuous variations and transformations of a seemingly simple but open-ended harmonic theme that never settles in to a fixed key center. However, this theme takes shape gradually, and is heard most clearly in a choral setting only after all five of the protagonists of the work have made their introduction.

JPG stills

Quicktime audio/video clips

MP3 audio excerpt
This 1 minute and 5 second excerpt begins 3 minutes and 42 seconds into the piece. It includes one of the "ensemble" passages in which the five protagonists dance about, followed by one the the "private world" sections, in this case of the stone-like character.
Duration : 1 minute 5 seconds ; size 2 MB ; encoding 256 kBit stereo

Stephanie Maxwell teaches film, video and animation courses at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her experimental animated films have been exhibited in film festivals and on television internationally, and collected as works of art by European and American museums.

passe-partout was premiered on the April 28 and May 4 programs of the 2002 ImageMovementSound festival in Rochester, New York. An incomplete but representative list of subsequent performances includes:

15th Auch Festival of Animation, Braquage Exhibition, Auch, France, 2005, featured work; The Tank, New York, 2004; Ottawa International Animation Festival, "Meet the Masters" presentation, Ottawa, 2004; Music of Allan Schindler concert, Rochester, 2004; Maryland Film Festival, Baltimore, 2003; Dover Film Festival, Dover, NJ, 2003; Not Still Art Festival, Brooklyn, 2003; X/Animation Fest, New York, 2003; LUX Cinema, London, 2003; SCRATCH Cinema series, Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris, 2003; Surrey Institute of Art and Design presentation, Farnham, England, 2003; Ottawa International Animation Festival, Ottawa, 2002; MicroCineFest, Baltimore, 2002; Toronto Online Film Festival, 2002; Silverlake Film Festival, Los Angeles, 2002; New Hampshire Film Expo, Manchester, NH, 2002; High Falls Film Festival, Rochester, 2002; Alternative Cinema and Digital Techniques exhibition, Syracuse University, 2002

Return to Allan Schindler's List of Compositions