Harry Smith was an American animator of abstract art who's most known work occurred from the 1940s into the 60s. During that period, he produced a series of short, avant-garde animated snippets of about 2-6 mins each, every one receiving a different number from the order they were made in. In 1987, these short animations were edited into a twenty-three minute movie entitled "Early Abstractions", and the clips are best remembered as being part of this half-hour sequence.
Oddly enough, there seem to be a lot of discrepancies over how Smith created this short. "Number 3: Interwoven" is the third "early abstractions" short made by Smith, five years later than the previous one, and like the other two, Wikipedia states the same info: this movie was hand-painted on 35mm film-stock and photographed on 16mm. However, other sources (like the DVD the other IMDb reviewers have seen) state that Smith used a batik process or Vaseline and tape to make it. I don't know why the methods differ so much, and this will have to remain a mystery for the time being--but I'd advise we take Smith's word for what he did, which means the batik process.
Either way, this movie remains more interesting than the previous installments mostly because it has a lot more substance to fill its run-time. The earlier ones were mainly lots of static for several seconds and a few circles and squares; this film uses more color and shapes to create a more visually interesting short. If you have seen the other two and enjoyed them both you won't at all be disappointed by this brief animation study, but once more non-fans of avant-garde movies shouldn't go out of their way to see something they will probably fail to understand.
Oddly enough, there seem to be a lot of discrepancies over how Smith created this short. "Number 3: Interwoven" is the third "early abstractions" short made by Smith, five years later than the previous one, and like the other two, Wikipedia states the same info: this movie was hand-painted on 35mm film-stock and photographed on 16mm. However, other sources (like the DVD the other IMDb reviewers have seen) state that Smith used a batik process or Vaseline and tape to make it. I don't know why the methods differ so much, and this will have to remain a mystery for the time being--but I'd advise we take Smith's word for what he did, which means the batik process.
Either way, this movie remains more interesting than the previous installments mostly because it has a lot more substance to fill its run-time. The earlier ones were mainly lots of static for several seconds and a few circles and squares; this film uses more color and shapes to create a more visually interesting short. If you have seen the other two and enjoyed them both you won't at all be disappointed by this brief animation study, but once more non-fans of avant-garde movies shouldn't go out of their way to see something they will probably fail to understand.