Tralfaz Sunday Theatre: The Information Machine

The story of computers in 1957 was one of huge machines taking up a room, even though they had less storage capacity than what you can hold in your hand today.

IBM commissioned a short film that year outlining kind of a fanciful development of computers from the start of mankind. Still drawings, limited animation and some live action footage were blended together over top of an Elmer Bernstein score that reminds me of something from a National Geographic TV special in the 1960s.

The Information Machine was written, produced and directed by Charles and Ray Eames. A book on their work states:

The film was commissioned by the Eameses’ colleague and friend, Eliot Noyes, then director of design for IBM, and presented at the company’s pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. Launching the Eameses’ career as cultural ambassadors and interpreters of American society, The Information Machine was explicitly about IBM computers, but its implicit message to foreign audiences was about America, a land of beneficent corporations and advanced technologies working “in the service of mankind.”

Dolores Cannata provided the artwork. The film won awards at the Edinburgh and Melbourne International Film Festivals. The uncredited narrator is Vic Perrin.