Stan Vanderbeek (1927-1984) was an American avant-garde filmmaker and a pioneer of expanded film techniques. He was also a major film writer and theorist of the 1960s underground film scene.
Vanderbeek's early work, such as his award-winning Breathdeath, were primarily single-projector film collages of style and technique, combining original live-action footage with animating pop culture images and painting. In his writing, Vanderbeek was the first to use the term "underground film" -- in a 1961 article published in Film Quarterly -- to describe the avant-garde film work of the '60s.
Combining his film theory writing and filmmaking, Vanderbeek evolved into creating multi-screen and multi-projector cinema pieces, that culminated in his invention of the Movie-Drome. Built at his home in Stony Brook, NY, the Movie-Drome had audiences lie on their backs to watch images projected on a curved wall to allow for an immersive visual experience.
Vanderbeek then became an early pioneer of computer animation and combining computerized imagery with film and video. He was an artist-in-residence at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and was the department chair of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
