I wrote my Master's thesis on the teaching of film as an art form. From 1969 to 1980 I was able to put these ideas into practice while teaching filmmaking in the Art Department at Sonoma State University in northern California. Some of my students, whose early efforts are represented in this collection, went on to successful careers in the field. Marcy Page became an Academy Award–winning producer of animation for the National Film Board of Canada, and Steven Zaillian an acclaimed Academy Award–winning writer, producer, and director in Hollywood, among others.

My teaching was grounded not only in cinematic history and theory, but deeply in the fundamentals of "gestalt" perception studies as originally taught by Professor Hoyt L. Sherman of Ohio State University, which came to me via his student, the renowned painter and teacher Harold Gregor, and Gregor's own students.

The animation that opens this collection was produced entirely during classroom time using the most economical means. It was based on the Dada device known as the "exquisite corpse," applied with innovation to cartoon animation. During the 1970s I was consistently impressed with the creative talent of my students and their love and enthusiasm for the cinematic arts — we had a lot of fun. And they watched a lot of Brakhage films, as well as classic French movies and the entire history of American cinema and everything else.