Alex Szalay movie projects
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In the 1970's I have worked on several movie projects, mostly with my friend, director
Gábor Bódy. These included a
variety of things, composing electronic music, sound design and computer animation.
My links on IMDb are
[a],
[b]
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Mozgastanulmany 1880-1980
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Pszichokozmoszok
In 1976 with Gábor Bódy and
Olivér Hollós we created the first
computer animation movie in Hungary, called
"Pszichokozmoszok". The animation grew out of a simulation of colliding gas molecules that I wrote.
Bódy had the idea the drop Newton's "action-reaction" principle, and rather have particle A be attracted
to particle B, while B was repelled by A. This simple change gave rise to a very interesting, almost human dynamics.
The animation was done on a Hungarian copy the DEC PDP-8 computer, located at the Department of Atomic
Physics, the Eotvos University, Budapest. The computer had a small (320x200 pixel) graphics screen, drawing
was done by turning individual pixels on and off. Ferenc Deak developed a somewhat higher level library with
line-drawing routines. The code was written in FOCAL, stored on a paper tape with punched holes.
The camera was triggered by the computer, once a new frame was rendered. Recently,
this work was shown at the National Gallery of Arts, at an exhibit
of early Hungarian Computer Art([1],[2],[3]).
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Narcissus and Psyche
In 1978-79 I have worked on a large format (6 hour) movie called
"Narcissus and Psyche",
also directed by Gábor Bódy.
The music was created by László Vidovszky. I was working on
sound design, programming the sysnthesizers we recorded all the music on. There was also a shorted, 3-hour version
released, formatted for TV. A short clip is on
youtube
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Caucasian Chalk Circle
In 1978 I participated in a TV version of Li Xingdao's
"Caucasian Chalk Circle", also
directed by Gábor Bódy. The
music was created by László Vidovszky.
I worked with him on sound design, using the EMS AKS synthesizer. The particular challenge was that
the whole performance was recorded live, so all sound effects had to be created "in-flight", there
was no opportunity for either post-processing or overdubbing. A short clip is on
youtube.
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Omega, Omega, Omega
In 1984 I participated in a large concert project for the Hungarian band Omega, where the video,
called Omega, Omega, Omega was directed
by Miklos Jancso, one the most influential Hungarian movie directors. I was working on the
computer animation and electronic sound effects. The members of our band Panta Rhei,
Andras Szalay and Kalman Matolcsy were playing sythesizers on stage. this is in full on
youtube.
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