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Frank Verpillat (born in 1946 in Lyon, France, died 10 October 2010) was a French director, inventor and artist. In 1981 he conceived the prototype for the first operational virtual film editing machine in the world and conducted extensive research leading and development in the fabrication and manipulation of 3D images.
He is an ex-student of ENSAM. In 1980, he was awarder the Prix de Rome of Cinema (Villa Médicis Hors les Murs).
Beginning as a programmer and manager in Parisian cinema theatres (the Ranelagh in 1970, the Studio des Acacias), he then moved into distribution and production, working as assistant director and head of production. He directed 4 fiction shorts and one medium-length film ( Ève avait l'éclat métallique de l'été in 1979), and the first full-length feature shot on video, with Michael Lonsdale and Daniel Mesguich, musical score by Michel Fano. He was then co-author, along with Alain Robbe-Grillet, of the adaptation of La Belle captive in 1983.
In France and in the USA he produced or co-produced seven full-length features (including La meilleure façon de marcher by Claude Miller, and Alain Robbe-Grillet's Le Jeu avec le feu) as well a dozen fiction shorts.
Co-founder of the Filmoblic corporation in 1974 (with Pierre-Henri Deleau, Jean-François Dion, Hubert Niogret and Hugo Santiago), he was founder of the corporation "French 75" in Hollywood, in 1975. In 1977 he was nominated for the César Award in the category "Best Fiction Short" for the film La Nuit du beau marin peut-être (1976).
Since 1980 he has written or produced over fifteen hours of television programs and documentaries (including European Masterpieces in the USA), Wotan (preparation for the adaptation of the France 3 tetralogy) and, since 2001, for France 5.
In the 1990s he directed HDTV programs for France Télécom in multiplex (for the Auditorium of the Louvre, and for medical congresses in Spain, Morocco and Switzerland), filming surgical procedures in 3D TV.
Following his first encounter with François Lanzenberg, he directed a number of programs for France 5 television.
And in the series "Portraits de la France":
Since 1978 he has produced or directed about two hundred programs (mainly for Citroën): in-house shorts, billboards, multi-screens, 3-D films, and internet communication sites. Towards the end of the 1980s, in association with avec Bernard Deyriès, he was script writer for the main attractions at Planète Magique.
In 1981 he conceived the prototype for the first operational virtual film editing machine in the world and conducted extensive research leading and development in the fabrication and manipulation of 3D images.
He collaborated in numerous 3D and multi-screen programs for theme parks (Parc de la Villette, in France) and in 1992 for the French paillion's "Exposition Universelle" in 1992 in Seville. He is also the original creator of the "Diachronic Holoscopy" software.
In 1980, due to financing by "Image du CNC" (Michel Fano), Frank Verpillat was able to formulate the first prototype of a working non-linear editing system which he called "virtual editing". The apparatus uses an Apple II and two Philips Videodisc players which both read rushes transferred to videodisc (software created by Gilles Bloch and Yves Languepin).
Too innovative for the period (at the time, videodisc images were analogue, digital images still being in the experimental stage), this technique remained under-utilised until the explosion of digital imaging in the early 1990s (with the exception of the imposing "droid" in Lucasfilm which was developed soon after, using 81 betamax).
Nevertheless, as so often happens, new technology leads to unexpected developments and the editing machine proved to be an excellent tool for a different application: interactive narration, hitherto unknown. Positive public response led to a completely new region via different paths. Experiments were conducted in association with Philips, Thomson, and (more indirectly), with MIT. Verpillat's ideas played an important role in launching the Interactive Scripts competition organised by Ina in 1983.
At the beginning of the 1990s, only Pierre Allio was conducting experimental research in the field of four-channelled polyscopy, using lenticular filter screens ("Aliospcopy", created in 1987). As far as the rest of the world was concerned, at that time (the early 1990s) stereoscopy meant the use of elaborate and complicated props: two synchronous cameras (silver-based or video), with paired and coordinated zooms.
By analysing the Pulfrich effect (the effect of certain one-dimensional images observed through a smoked lens placed over one eye, thus creating the impression of a 3-D image), he understood that, under certain conditions, a time discrepancy could allow as many points of view as necessary. By means of this technique, which he called "Pulling" (from Pulfrich effect and tracking shot), most of the existing images taken from the side door of a helicopter become 3D.
Before the end of the 20th century, at a time when the calculation of synthesised images was still long and onerous, Pulling would be used to create synthesised 3D images (the same images were able to be used twice, three times, or even four or eight times, depending on the type of 3D utilised).
At the end of the 1990s, Verpillat refined software designed to create images by mixing the pixels of a film taken from separate photograms: the composite image bringing together a number of diverse elements photographed at different times.
He had thus succeeded in producing "an apparatus for photographing space time". When the original images are chosen astutely, this software is able to create an astonishing array of source images. Among them, we might find distorted versions of cubist or surrealist paintings surréalistes (Salvador Dalí, and Bellmer.). This work has been made possible thanks firstly to Cyril Cosenza and also to Colin Auger.
Verpillat has created a number of interactive programs for CD, DVD, and internet sites, as well as over thirty interactive programs forming part of DVD bonuses. He was also closely involved in the production of the AAsternance software created by Michel Fano. Since 2002, he and Dr Jacques Bady have been working together to perfect a Method of e-learning for medical training.
Verpillat has been a lecturer and journalist for a number of different publications: Le Monde Dimanche, Télérama, Encyclopædia Universalis, Video News. Between 1985 and 1995 he gave classes in two Parisian universities (Dauphine and Censier), while at the same time, conducting a number of audiovisual training courses.
In 1980 he exhibited a number of his creations at the Salon d'Automne as well as in assorted exhibitions, either on his own, or alongside other artists. He manufactured screen prints in association with – amongst others – Deyriès, in l'ephémère Groupe Ptyx. He also produced numbered works from 1995, combining shapes created by means of diachronic software.
Since 2008, his work has been almost entirely dedicated to Lenticular High Relief using lenticular networks invented byGabriel Lippmann in 1908. The viewer, by moving laterally, observes, in 3D, a succession of elements which reveal themselves gradually in a sort of "layered" space.
This led to Verpillat's theory concerning the "peripatetic" consumption of his work ("peripatetic", since one is obliged to move in order to see the whole) which he calls "paranoiaque feuilletée" ("strata paranoia") in homage to Dalí.
Certain works in High Relief are abstract, some make use of diachronic forms, others are a "repetition" of old classics ("repetition" as used by Søren Kierkegaard, and Alain Robbe-Grillet).
In 2009 he was awarded the prize of the city of in Saint-Tropez at the 13th International Salon of Contemporary Art.
From 1997 to 1999 he was Vice President of the Commission Supérieure Technique de l'Image et du Son (CST). He was also one of the presidents of GREC (Groupe de Recherches et d'Essais Cinématographiques), President of the Centre Français des Opérations Territoriales, membre de la Société des Electriciens et Electroniciens Français, of the SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers), the Société des Auteurs Multimedia, de la Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques, of the Francophone Alliance.
Over the past fifty years, Verpillat has exercised a number of martial arts. He met Jacques Normand in 1980, becoming one of his most faithful disciples. The martial arts he has studied include: Bo Jitsu, Iaï Jitsu, Kyūdō and Aikido.
Alain Resnais was a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct short films including Night and Fog (1956), an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps. He proceeded to make feature films. His films frequently explore the relationship between consciousness, memory, and the imagination, and he was noted for devising innovative formal structures for his narratives. Throughout his career, he won many awards from international film festivals and academies, including one Academy Award, two César Awards for best director, three Louis Delluc Prize and one Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
Last Year at Marienbad, released in the United Kingdom as Last Year in Marienbad, is a 1961 French New Wave film directed by Alain Resnais from a screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet.
Alain Robbe-Grillet was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the Nouveau Roman trend of the 1960s, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simon. Robbe-Grillet was elected a member of the Académie française on 25 March 2004, succeeding Maurice Rheims at seat No. 32. He married Catherine Robbe-Grillet.
The Nouveau Roman is a type of 1950s French novel that diverged from classical literary genres. Émile Henriot coined the term in an article in the popular French newspaper Le Monde on May 22, 1957 to describe certain writers who experimented with style in each novel, creating an essentially new style each time. Most of the founding authors were published by Les Éditions de Minuit with the strong support of Jérôme Lindon.
Catherine Robbe-Grillet is a French writer, dominatrix, photographer, theatre and film actress of Armenian descent who has published sadomasochistic writings under the pseudonyms Jean de Berg and Jeanne de Berg.
Anicée Alvina, also known as Anicée Schahmaneche (born Anicée Shahmanesh or Anicee Schahmane was a French singer and actress.
François Weyergans was a Belgian writer and director. His father, Franz Weyergans, was a Belgian and also a writer, while his mother was from Avignon in France. François Weyergans was elected to the Académie française on 26 March 2009, taking the 32nd seat which became vacant with the death of Alain Robbe-Grillet in 2008.
Daniel Mesguich is a French actor and director in theater and opera, and professor of stage acting school.
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze was a French actor, critic, screenwriter, and director. In 1951, Doniol-Valcroze was a co-founder of the renowned film magazine Cahiers du cinéma, along with André Bazin and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. The magazine was initially edited by Doniol-Valcroze between 1951–1957. As critic, he championed numerous filmmakers including Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, and Nicholas Ray. In 1955, then 23-year-old François Truffaut made a short film in Doniol-Valcroze's apartment, Une Visite. Jacques's daughter Florence played a minor part in it.
L'Immortelle is a 1963 international co-produced drama film directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet, his first feature after the worldwide success of Last Year at Marienbad which he wrote. Entered into the 13th Berlin International Film Festival, it also won the Prix Louis Delluc.
Eden and After is a 1970 French-Czechoslovak drama art film directed by French novelist and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet. It was entered into the 20th Berlin International Film Festival.
La Belle captive is a 1983 French avant-garde film directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet. A playful mystery, the film combines elements of erotic allure and supernatural horror with a pulp fiction plot. Suffused with visual surrealism, it often explicitly evokes the works of René Magritte.
Leonardo Marcos is a multidisciplinary artist; he was born in Paris, son of Spanish political refugees. Educated in music and movie-making, he creates his works in diverse disciplines as an author, photographer, movie director, stage director and composer. His creations are always articulated around the theme of poetry.
Richard Leduc is a French actor. He appeared in more than thirty films from 1969 to 1999.
Barrier-grid animation or picket-fence animation is an animation effect created by moving a striped transparent overlay across an interlaced image. The barrier-grid technique originated in the late 1890s, overlapping with the development of parallax stereography (Relièphographie) for 3D autostereograms. The technique has also been used for color-changing pictures, but to a much lesser extent.
William Mesguich is a French actor and director, the son of theatre director Daniel Mesguich. With Philippe Fenwick, he created La Compagnie de l'Étreinte in 1998.
N. a pris les dés... is a 1971 French experimental independent underground drama art film directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet.
Kim Timby is a photography historian based in Paris who teaches at the École du Louvre and works as a curator for a private collection specialising in international nineteenth-century photography. From her research and teaching, Timby writes on the cultural history of photography as a technology.
Michel Fano is a French musician, composer, writer, filmmaker, and sound designer. He developed the concept of continuum sonore to describe the potential for a film's soundtrack to interact with its visual content. During the early 1950s, he was part of a generation of composers associated with the Darmstadt School, and was a lifelong friend of Pierre Boulez. From 1962 until 1975, he regularly collaborated with Alain Robbe-Grillet on cinematic projects, creating partitions sonores for five of Robbe-Grillet's films.
Georges Lambrichs was a French writer, literary critic and editor.
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