American visual and multimedia artist who made innovative contributions to several television programs and films.

Curated by Markus Fiedler

Total Runtime: 0:30:33

American visual and multimedia artist who made innovative contributions to several television programs and films. He won an Emmy for graphic design for "The Bay City Rollers Show" in 1979 and was nominated for a second for "Omni: The New Frontier." He collaborated with Leonard Bernstein on a televised presentation of "Prelude and Love" from Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde," and won numerous foundation grants and meritawards for his video and computer art. He died from complications of AIDS at 45.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0371646/

Talk Show - Robert Moog (2002)

One of the most important figures in the history of electronic music, inventor of the Moog synthesizer, Robert Moog

Curated by The Sadnesses

Total Runtime: 0:21:44

Robert Arthur Moog, commonly called Bob Moog (May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005) was an American pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer.

The Moogsynthesizerwas one of the first widely used electronic musical instruments. Early developmental work on the components of the synthesizer occurred at theColumbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, now theComputer Music Center. While there, Moog developed thevoltage controlled oscillators,ADSRenvelope generators, and other synthesizer modules with composerHerbert Deutsch.

Moog created the first voltage-controlled subtractive synthesizer to utilize a keyboard as a controller and demonstrated it at theAESconvention in 1964. In 1966, Moog filed a patent application for his uniquelow-pass filter U.S. Patent 3,475,623, which issued in October 1969. He held several dozenpatents.

Moog employed histheremincompany (R. A. Moog Co., which would later become Moog Music) to manufacture and market his synthesizers. Unlike the few other 1960s synthesizer manufacturers, Moog shipped a piano-stylekeyboardas the standard user interface to his synthesizers. Moog also established standards for analog synthesizer control interfacing, with a logarithmic one volt-per-octave pitch control and a separate pulse triggering signal.

The first Moog instruments weremodular synthesizers. In 1971 Moog Music began production of theMinimoogModel D which was among the first widely available, portable and relatively affordable synthesizers.

One of Moog's earliest musical customers wasWendy Carloswhom he credits with providing feedback that was valuable to the further development of Moog synthesizers. Through his involvement in electronic music, Moog developed close professional relationships with artists such asDon Buchla,Keith Emerson,Rick Wakeman,John Cage,Gershon Kingsley,Clara Rockmore, and Pamelia Kurstin.

In a 2000 interview, Moog said "I'm an engineer. I see myself as a toolmaker and the musicians are my customers. They use my tools."

Movie - Robot Monster (1953)

In the film's opening credits, "N. A. Fischer Chemical Products" is given prominent credit for the "Billion Bubble Machine", used in the film.

Curated by Robert Bellach

Total Runtime: 1:02:35

(1953)

Robot Monster is a 1953 American science fiction film made in 3-D by Phil Tucker. It is frequently considered one of the worst films ever made.^[1]

Twenty-five-year-old writer/director Phil Tucker made Robot Monster in four days for an estimated $16,000. The film is similar in plot to Invaders from Mars, released a month earlier by Fox. Both pictures contain a young boy stumbling upon an alien invasion who is captured as he struggles to save his family and himself. As the alien commences the final destruction of earth the boy awakens to find it was all a dream. Despite rumors to the contrary, the film did receive some decent reviews and grossed $1,000,000 in its initial release, more than sixty times its original investment. It was filmed in Bronson Canyon, the site of innumerable motion pictures and TV settings.

The soundtrack was composed by Elmer Bernstein, who also composed the music for Cat Women of the Moon the same year, and, much more prestigiously The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, The Ten Commandments and Michael Jackson's Thriller.^[4] The film's special effects include stock footage from the 1940 picture One Million B.C., 1951's Lost Continent, and Flight to Mars spliced into the film.^[2] Within the first viewscreen footage is a brief appearance of the 'Rocketship XM' ship during its initial boarding.

The film was shot and projected in dual-strip, polarized 3-D. The stereoscopic photography in the film is considered by many critics to be of a high quality, and is an extra honor in favor to the crew, who had no experience with the previously unused camera rig.^[5]

The budget did not allow for a robot costume as intended so director Phil Tucker used his friend George Barrows who had his own gorilla suit to play Ro-Man. Phil Tucker added the helmet.

The poor quality of the movie gave rise to a long-lived rumor within the film industry that the poor reception from audiences caused director Phil Tucker to attempt suicide, with a gun, but missed. According to Keep Watching the Skies!, a comprehensive history of 1950s American science fiction films, author Bill Warren claims Tucker's attempted suicide was actually due to depression and a dispute with the film's distributor, who had allegedly refused to pay Tucker his contracted percentage of the film's profits.^[7]

George Nader won the Golden Globe award in 1954 as most promising male newcomer of the year (although his award was not tied to his Robot Monster performance). He signed with Universal Studios where he starred in secondary features while other male stars like Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson were assigned the major film roles.^[8]

Selena Royle, MGM stock player, had a durable film career starting 1941 until 1951 when she was branded a Communist sympathizer. She refused to appear before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities and eventually cleared her name but the damage had already been done. She made only two additional films, Robot Monster being her last.^[9]

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