Paul Clipson (1965 – February 3, 2018) was an American experimental filmmaker and projectionist based in San Francisco. He is best known for his collaborations with musicians, such as Grouper and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma.^[2] Clipson's work usually took the shape of "hyper-imposed improvisations" edited live while his musical collaborators performed. Only later would he go back to edit a performance into a film.^[4]

Clipson was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Scottish designer Ann Gemmell Clipson and professor of architecture Colin Clipson.^[3] He grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan and moved to San Francisco in the 1990s.^[1]

In 1995 Clipson filmed his friend and performance artist Adam Heavenrich publicly improvising in San Francisco. The footage was captured on Super 8 film and largely edited in-camera. This resulted in BUCKY, a series of two-minute-long short films releasing over the next few years.^[5]

Clipson's work often took the shape of collaborations with musicians and sound artists. Inspired by musicians' "freedom to create on a whim", he used Super 8 and 16mm projectors to layer his film footage in a live environment.^[2] This type of work started in 2003 when Clipson began composing the visuals for the live performances of Cantu-Ledesma's band Tarentel.^[6] The two had been friends and colleagues since Clipson hired Cantu-Ledesma to work at the SFMOMA in 2002.^[1] They discussed the ways music and film can work together and started performing together.^[7] Three years later Clipson officially joined Tarentel as their full-time visual artist.^[1]

Clipson has been working as head projectionist and AV manager at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art since around 2000.^[1][8] In 2014 Clipson released REEL, a book composed of drawn and written notes from 1999 up to 2013 composed by Clipson for his colleagues at the museum. The book was published by LAND AND SEA.^[9]

In 2015 Clipson collaborated with Harris on an experimental feature-length film called Hypnosis Display. The movie was a commission for Leeds Opera North. For the music Harris employed field recordings and cassette tapes.^[10]

In a 2017 Interview, Clipson details his creative process. He usually records footage without a purpose in mind to later use it in live collaborations with musicians, calling these sessions "hyper-imposed improvisations". Clipson goes on to describe his short films as "crystallizations of particular sections of footage I’ve become close to".^[4]

Paul Clipson died on February 3rd 2018.^[1]

In a 2017 interview, Clipson names American filmmaker Bruce Baillie as an influence.^[4] A 2018 obituary written by personal friend Max Goldberg and archived by SFMOMA shines a spotlight on Clispon's knowledge of film history. Goldberg goes on to mention the many influences on Clipson: Baillie, Otto Preminger, Chantal Akerman, Jonas Mekas, Stan Brakhage, Orson Welles, Frank Stauffacher, Saul Bass and Elia Kazan, among many others.^[11]

Zabriskie Point by Michelangelo Antonioni is one of Clipson's favorite movies.^[10]

Otie Wheeler, writing for MUBI Notebook, calls Clipson "an experimental, lyrical filmmaker in the tradition of Stan Brakhage".^[4]

Clipson's death has been mourned by many artists worldwide, but especially in the local bay area scene. Scott Barley called Clipson an "inspiration" and an "unsung luminary of the moving image".^[2] In an obituary, William Basinski was quoted saying "He is brilliant. I adored his work the minute I saw it."^[6] "It was at times quite remarkable how he could uncover through his visual medium things that I never would have heard in my own music," says Sarah Davachi. Another collaborator, Gregg Kowalsky, noted that Clipson's excitement was palpable to all of his collaborators.^[6]

• "Parallel Worlds: An Interview with Paul Clipson" by Otie Wheeler for Notebook
• "Cinema for the inner eye: On the films of Paul Clipson" by Dan Browne for the San Francisco Cinematheque