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Poster for A Rough Sketch for a Proposed Film Dealing with the Powers of Ten and the Relative Size of Things in the Universe
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Released
1968 · FILM

A Rough Sketch for a Proposed Film Dealing with the Powers of Ten and the Relative Size of Things in the Universe

Runtime
8 min
DocumentaryAnimation

Synopsis

A Rough Sketch presents a linear perspective of the universe, starting at the human scale and moving outward to the vast sea of galaxies, then descending directly to the nucleus of a carbon atom. Using images, narration, and a dashboard, the film illustrates the relative size of things and the significance of adding another zero to any number. The 1977 film *Powers of Ten* was an expanded and updated version of this 1968 study film. Charles and Ray often gave their projects long titles to indicate that they were still exploring their ideas—that the presentation was a model or a type of “sketch.”

Credits

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 4

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Scored by Elmer Bernstein

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