OffOn is a 1968 short film (nine minutes) by Scott Bartlett.
It is an experimental film that consists in its entirety of an audio and visual collage. It starts out with an extreme closeup of a human eye. Spirals swirl and flash across a screen that is artificially tinted in vivid colors. There is a repeated image of a woman making poses similar to a ballet dancer en pointe, with the image split down the middle and reversed. Later there are repeated shots of a woman's mirrored, distored face, as well as abstract shapes resembling inkblots. The whole is accompanied by a sountract consisting of dissonant, atonal buzzing and humming noises.
Tropes:
- Deranged Animation: It was The '60s.
- Disturbed Doves: One part of the film shows some doves flapping around.
- Eye Open: Starts with a tight closeup of a human eye. Actually zooms in even closer on the iris before zooming back out to the original closeup. The first few minutes hold the closeup on the eye, while superimposing other spirals and shapes.
- Le Film Artistique: A trippy example of this.
- No Plot? No Problem!: No attempt at a story.
- Stock Footage: The Disturbed Doves and the shot of the people on the bicycle are both stock footage.
- Title Drop: The film ends with the words "OFF" and "ON" flashing by in rapid succession for a few seconds until the final credit screen pops up.
