Bill Brand has made some 24 films in the past twelve years. Some of his films are formal abstractions with continuously changing fields of color, while others are studies in the film medium. His recent work uses animation techniques to fragment and abstract the photographic image. Brand's films are all concerned in one way or another with systematic structures. His formal strategies range from strict mathematics to melodrama; his subjects range from pure formalist invention to personal poetics. Recently, Brand's interest in social issues and politics has influenced his choice of projects and subject matter. After graduating from Antioch College, where he studied with Paul Sharits, Brand received his MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He founded Chicago Filmmakers, a showcase and workshop, and has taught filmmaking at Sarah Lawrence College since 1975. Bill Brand presents his latest film, Chuck Will's Widow, (1982) as well as earlier films and a video and slide presentation of his recent work, Masstransiscope (1980).

Masstransiscope is a 300-foot-long installation in the New York subway. Based on the principal of the 19th Century zoetrope, it consists of 228 hand-painted panels in an illuminated enclosure and looks like an animated movie when seen from a passing train.

Chuck Will's Widow "weaves a complex of feelings and personal associations into a swirl of landscapes and abstract images. Jagged shapes swarm the surface acting variously as frames, veils and component elements of the photographic image. Though formally extreme, the film's emotional quality emerges in subtle and gentle ways." --B.B. (1982, 12-1/2 mins, silent, color)