Freelancing blogger

Matt Haber, half of the duo that writes the very readable blog Low Culture, had a piece in yesterday's New York Times' Arts and Leisure section on Sidney N. Laverents, the 95 year-old amateur filmmaker from San Diego who's to be feted on Friday with a one-night retrospective at the American Cinemateque in Hollywood.

In the video for OutKast's "Hey Ya!," André 3000 sings and dances, backed by a band of seven digitally replicated Andrés.

The effect may have helped to make the video one of the year's most popular. But to fans of the outsider filmmaker Sidney N. Laverents, the computer graphics trickery looked familiar. Mr. Laverents, an engineer and self-taught film hobbyist, created a primitive version of the same effect in "Multiple SIDosis," a nine-minute film from 1970. Working at home in suburban San Diego, he used a reel-to-reel, two-track Roberts recorder, a retrofitted 16-millimeter Bolex camera and eight musical instruments from his vaudeville days as a one-man band.

It was the first amateur work included in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

Also, check out Haber's commentary on the breakup of Ben and Jennifer. Heh heh.