Oscar-winning Saul Bass short on the nature of creativity

Zack sez, "Found a number of Oscar-winning short-subject films on YouTube -- a real prize was this number from legendary poster and title creator Saul Bass, which was also broadcast on the very first installment of 60 MINUTES. It's a classic look at creativity, along with an unforgettable sequence about the history of man involving an edifice.

Why Man Creates (Part 1) (Thanks, Zack!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Cowicide

Did anyone else notice the Beck song at about 10 min in?
Anonymous

I just located a copy of this a few days ago. (The exact same copy that got posted to You-Tube.) I had been looking for a copy for about 30 years. (They used to show this in school when I was a kid.)

Do a Google search and you can find a torrent for this.

BTW, the only DVD I can find for this short film retails for $125. It is prices like this that turn people to video piracy. (Like William Marshall, RIP.)
- Cowicide
  
  $125
  
  Ugh.. dumb price. They might as well host the torrent file there right under the price.
elliotharmon

The $125 price is for schools and libraries. Individuals can buy it for $50 (which is still a little steep). http://www.pyramiddirect.com/cart/productpage.html?title_id=1312
Mark Crummett

Wow, does that bring back memories of high school English class! The part that stayed with me for 40 years? “Allah be praised! I’ve invented the zero! ” What?” “Nothing, nothing.”
agreenster

Great handwriting!
Anonymous

Wow, thanks so much for this. In the late 1970s, my best friend’s dad worked for Pyrimid (this educational film company). It all seemed really exciting to me, and I even got to dub my voice for one sentence in one of his films (which was probably convenient, to have free child voice actors). My friend’s dad went on to work on the (then new) Star Trek movies, then for Lucas, which meant the family moved away. Dads like this really inspire kids to do creative stuff, and look toward interesting vocations.
katkins

Like Planettom, I’ve remembered this since Junior High School but had no idea how to find it.

“I’m not a bug, not a germ, not a bug, not a germ…”

Yay!!
daemonsquire

At 7:18, her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.
planettom

This came out in 1968. When I was in junior high school, 1979 or so, the teachers would show it in our 7th and 8th grade art classes. Years later, I was trying to figure out what the heck that was, but, that was pre-Internet. I remember posting some messages on some BBS systems, asking, “Does anybody know what that little animated short is where they build a tower of history?”
Phlip

Sweet holy f—-balls, I was just thinking about that short yesterday! Thank you BB!

Same back-story as planettom. Darn that internet for making information much TOO accessible!
rwmj

It’s worth tracking down “Phase IV” directed by Saul Bass. For years and years it wasn’t available on video, but a decentish DVD was released a couple of years ago. Definitely the best intelligent ants film ever :-)
jimkirk

Very nice. I was glad to find another Oscar winning short available on youtube; “Great!” by Bob Godfrey, an animated biography of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Part 1 starts here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHg1W9kArwQ
and some background info here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073068/

Sort of a blend of Terry Gilliam’s animation and School House Rock.

I first saw it on the old PBS show “Academy Shorts”, spotlighting those films that win Oscars but few people get a chance to see. Gosh I miss that program.

And oh yes, I remember seeing Phase IV in a theater, I’ll have to look for that.
jeligula

Saul Bass was one groovy cat. Is it just me, or does that era as depicted seem so hopelessly pathetic and dark?
Birdseed

I “like” how the entire history section with hundreds of characters contains two women, one in a tutu and one bare-chested.
- Anonymous
  
  Also, the myth that people believed the earth was flat in the middle ages is perpetuated here.
- CLamb
  
  I think it just reflects the prejudices of the era in which it was made. It also perpetuates the old bigot’s tale about the Church in the middle ages teaching that the earth is flat.
  
  A delightful piece of work though. Some of the voices sound like those from the Rocky & Bullwinkle show. Did the same person do the voiceovers?
Anonymous

anyone else OUTRAGED about the anachronism in showing tchaikovsky before beethoven?
MadRat

Seems like most of us who’ve seen it, saw it in middle school/junior high. You’d think someone would find all the Oscar winning shorts and put them on DVD at least. I mean c’mon, they’re Oscar winners, that has to count for something! It’s impossible to find the nominees.
SMurph

Trivia note: you can see part of this film in the second X-Men movie; in the scene at the museum near the start of the film it’s showing on a monitor in the background…
VagabondAstronomer

Like Planettom and Philip, similar back story though a few years earlier (1976). I doubt they’d show anything like this today here in the business mecca of the deep south.
Thanks Cory, good memories here.
usfoodpolicy

There is so much fascinating history that lies outside of that much-recounted linear story running through cavemen, pyramids, Greeks, Romans, dark ages, Renaissance, France, England, America.

Related to another recent boingboing post, one reason I have liked Wikipedia so much in recent years is that it lets you follow history in other directions. The right navigation sidebars to historical articles are very well done. You can follow a royal family, or a map, or a national history, or some other link, to put the story together in your own way.

Hard to explain the line of searches that connected these Wikipedia pages:
Varangians
Empire of Brazil
Tolstoy
Tecumseh

But it feels like an amateur reader could spend a lifetime reading great and true stories that never showed up in the “edifice” in that video.
Anonymous

sorry, but i always thought bass was overrated. he did some fine things, but too much of his work, like this for instance, doesn’t ageï»¿ well.
doingsitups

People talk strangely back in those days.
Anonymous

video 2 @ 2:28 bouncy starts saying “boing boing”
Cholice Ketteridge

is that Donald Sutherland?
- princeminski
  
  No.
Jack

This is my favorite short film of all time: Help! My Snowman’s Burning Down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwAPV-MvK6w
WizarDru

Wow. So much outrage, so little time? I’m really stunned what little things seem to bother people about this. A 24 minute film that spends about five minutes on an incredibly abbreviated history of the world and everyone concerned about how literal it is, how accurate it is and so on.

Yes, there are plenty of historical inaccuracies…but I think you’re missing the forest for the trees, here. The Flat Earth Myth is as popular as the ‘you only use 10% of your brain’ myth. Worth noting, but getting annoyed at a short subject made over 40 years ago seems a bit silly. There’s plenty to be annoyed about, if you’re looking to be outraged: a relative lack of representation of any ethnicity but Caucasians and African-Americans; the overall assumption of Christianity, male dominance and western culture; the strawmen of conservative thought, etc.

But I think you have to both look to intent (Creativity is GOOD, we create for many reasons) and the time when this was made and then make allowances. As for the ‘didn’t age well’…well, that’s definitely IYHO.