Spin Cycle

American Playhouse

American Playhouse is an anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service in the United States.

Prisoners of Inertia

Indecisive newlyweds get into a series of misadventures while on a day trip from Manhattan to Hoboken, New Jersey.

Trigger Happy

“Trigger Happy” was made with hundreds of objects found on the streets and sidewalks of New York. It began as an attempt to make an animated ballet, but as I was shooting the dance turned rowdy, into more of a nocturnal revel. It was shot on a lightbox with high-contrast film. The backlight silhouetted the objects, making them into graphic icons of themselves. The resulting film is a negative, which turned the objects white and the background black as asphalt. It makes the dance almost phantasmagoric. The trigger I was happy about was on the camera, but the title also fits the velocity of the imagery. Much of the animation happens by the rapid replacement of one object with another. It’s the afterimage in your eyes that animates the difference between the shapes, as one is replaced by another, and another… The music by Shay Lynch perfectly captures the idea of dancing in the streets.” —Jeffrey Noyes Scher

Milk of Amnesia

A six minute short made in New York City by Jeffrey Noyes Scher.

Reasons to Be Glad

I made this film while experimenting with a home made rotoscope. It was drawn on index cards. It's a sort of valentine to film, to life and to Xavier Cugat too. The original 16mm negative was lost when my lab at the time closed suddenly. Boy, I don't miss film at all. (JS)

Yours

An animated short film created by the artist Jeff Scher.

Whiplash

During the years preceeding his death, Sonbert channeled his energy into making Whiplash. His vision and motor skills impaired, he gave his companion, Ascension Serrano, detailed instructions about the assembly of specific shots and the music to be used as a counterpoint to the images. Before his death in 1995, he asked filmmaker Jeff Scher (a former student of Sonbert's at Bard) to complete the film. --Jon Gartenberg. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Estate Project for Artists with AIDS in 1996.

The Shadow's Dream

Graham Nash: Dirty Little Secret

The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 is retold in song and animation.

Kodachrome Love Poem

NYC

Scher made this in 1976 as a student at Bard College. He printed it to negative years later and liked the way it looked better than the now faded original film.

Where There's Smoke

Dancing flames of a burning log in a fireplace can take you out of yourself and connect you with a deep and primal place. Echoes of holidays past with the sleigh bells that run through the piece while underscoring the enchantment of losing yourself in this elemental ballet.

Tunnel Vision

Jeff Scher's 2013 ode to underground public transport.

Tulips

The kiss is particularly interesting to me, as it’s one of the best things we all get to do, yet almost everyone does it with their eyes closed.

Still Loaf with Guitar

The idea of this film was to make a movie still life in which only the paint moved. I made fifty or so paintings using the same template, a still life of a loaf of bread and a tiny guitar, and the only difference between the images is the color choice and the texture of the paint. The choice of images was a mild joke referring to the many 19th century still life paintings featuring bread. It was also, along with Spin Cycle, one of my bread films. I was having a two-man show at a gallery in Brooklyn with a painter who only painted butter. Our show was called “Bread and Butter Works.” - Jeff Scher

Ashtray Ballet

"I made this in 1975 while in college. It was my anti smoking response to Oskar Fischinger's cigarette commercials. It was aired a few times on PBS." –Jeff Scher