To make the film, Gehr locked his camera down in the center of a hallway, shooting several individual frames at a time.
[2] What begins as a small difference in apparent distance several frames at a time expands to extreme closeups and wide shots jumping back and forth.
[12] Watching Serene Velocity produces the appearance of motion and other optical effects, positioning it as a cinematic version of op art.
Gehr has noted that the effects of watching the film vary significantly based on which part of the screen the viewer focuses on.
[15] Ken Jacobs emphasized this sense of thrusting and described Serene Velocity as a "sexual metaphor, or sex-become cinema",[13] and J. Hoberman described it as a "piston-powered mandala".
[17][18] Gilberto Perez characterized the building's design as a descendant of Bauhaus architecture, calling it "barren and dehumanizing".
[19] Serene Velocity received a positive reaction from many of Gehr's contemporaries, including Ken Jacobs, Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton, Richard Foreman, Steve Reich, and Andrew Noren.
"[2] Serene Velocity is part of Anthology Film Archives' Essential Cinema Repertory collection.
[23][24] Director Laura Poitras began making films while taking a course that Gehr taught at the San Francisco Art Institute.
[25] For their 2008 short film Lossless #4, Rebecca Baron and Douglas Goodwin used a digital reproduction of Serene Velocity as source material.
[26] In the 2012 Sight & Sound Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, Noël Carroll listed Serene Velocity in his submission.