Arthur Lipsett’s Strange Codes is the legendary found-footage filmmaker’s first and only independent film, made after his departure from the National Film Board of Canada. In a rented house in Toronto, Lipsett stages a series of mysterious rituals, appearing onscreen in the guise of various characters, among them, an archeologist, a soldier, a scientist, a magician, and the Monkey King of the Peking opera. Dense with enigmatic gestures and private allusions, Strange Codes operates, in Lipsett’s words, “at the midway points between the primitive, ritualized world and the world of logic and science.”

Very Nice, Very Nice is a 7 minute long avant-garde film made by Arthur Lipsett in 1961. It was completed with funding from the National Film Board of Canada. While working at the National Film Board, Lipsett collected pieces of audio and pieced them together as a hobby. When his friends heard the product of this they suggested that he add images to it. This film is the result.

From Arthur Lipsett, another incisive short film that looks at human might, majesty and mayhem. Compiled from some peculiar newsreel items of the last 50 years, the filmmaker calls this a time capsule, yet his arrangement of pictures makes it almost explosive. There are hundreds of items, once front-page stuff, but all wryly grotesque when seen in this reshuffle of the past.

One of Lipsett's many found-footage films (films made up of footage 'sampled' from other films) this short uses a fairly abstract montage of shots to comment on the isolation and alienation of the modern man (1964 modern) in a mechanised society. the individual footage itself is quite amazing and the overall effect of the montage leaves one with a definate sense of unease. apparently george lucas saw this in film school and was inspired to make THX-1138. a premium example of the new hollywood film makers of the 70's technique of adapting highly experimental avant-garde films into their own relatively conventional narrative structures (see also Blow-up into Blow-out)