oilyfilms: Recent Episodes
oilyfilms
Been off the film train for a little while now and focussing on interactive installations and sculptures with David Parfit over at monkeycinteractive.com. Some crazy projects over there, check it out.
Atagamaton is a gesture controlled kinetic sculpture and musical instrument built from repurposed analog sound and film equipment, augmented with solenoids, pot- sliders, servos, motors, LEDs, and a microcontroller. Users’ hands are tracked by an X-Box Kinect, and trigger different quantized sounds and motions. Simple positional data triggers the different segments of the kinetic sculpture, but hidden functionality can be found within the z-axis of certain segments, so that users will be rewarded for exploring the sculpture and finding the hidden functions.
Created by Scott Amos and David Parfit in collaboration with Limbic Media. Installed in the G++ Gallery, Victoria, BC. Project made possible by BC FIlm + Media and the BC Arts Council.
Thanks to Cassie O’Neil (www.antlerlash.com) for the video, and to Manj, Justin, Paul and Nat at Limbic Media for their brilliance.
Paul Wilson and I put this together over the summer for the Victoria Film Festival. All effects were done manually. No fades, no digital tricks, no digital transitions, no editing. Shot from beginning to end in one “continuous” shot. (as “continuous” as stop-motion gets…)
Umbraphone is a bank of photoresistors washed in high-intensity light that trigger sound. It’s a musical instrument that is played with shadow.
V 1.0 was simple a midi controller, triggering a bank of sounds from Garageband. Created during MediaNet’s Video Lab program at Open Space.
V 2.0 uses Max, with the sound diffused through a 4-channel surround sound system. The sounds slowly evolve, based on the number of triggers, from large geologic happenings (explosions, wind, rain, waves) through lighter environmental sounds (insects, birds, small animals, large animals) to human voices, machinery, to a final explosion. The result is a human interpretation of the natural history of earth, played through the use of shadow. Umbraphone V2.0 was installed at the Victoria Convention Centre for TEDx Victoria.
Created by Scott Amos and David Parfit.
An updated version of the Phobacilloscope, installed for the Off the Grid Art Crawl, with sound, and a bit of a different setup.
Hardware/software used: Macbook Pro, digital projector, Modul8, Arduino, IR sensor.
Finally finished the Ballgag N’ Chain Gang video this weekend. Fun stuff. Kevin Bacon makes a guest appearance.
Everything is Better with Bacon
Phobacilloscope is a dual channel video, IR sensor microcontroller-based window installation. It asks the user to touch the window, and then scans their hand, turns on a camera and scans them for bacteria. It was was created by myself and David Parfit, and was installed at 1215 Blanshard St. for MediaNet’s Sense of Place event.
A Sense of Place was a media-arts exhibition which took place on May 28, 2011, in a variety of locations throughout Victoria. Works by local film and video makers Janet Rogers, Grace Salez, Rick Raxlen, Scott Amos and Judith Price, incorporated talks, readings and performances, exploring cultural, historical and personal aspects of the city.
Thank you to the City of Victoria for making this exhibition possible. Thanks to Alan Walton and Giuseppe Buccoliero for documenting the work. Produced by Cat Lewis for MediaNet
Once again, Puente Theatre and CineVic are putting together Scene + Heard. Come check it out this week at Metro Theatre, where films will be accompanying live storytellers. “Between,” a story by Rob Hunter with an interactive video by me, is being performed along with 5 other stories/films with new musical interludes by Oliver Swain. Fun times. Tickets $15.
Friday Feb 25, 8pm
Saturday, Feb 26th 2pm and 8pm
Sunday, Feb 27, 8pm
Kate Cino from artopenings.ca interviewed some of us and wrote about the show on her website here. There is a pic from “Between” and a video of Ollie’s new music there. Go.
An old educational film. Damaged. Something to appease my guilt.
(I hear that the City of Victoria is dealing with the problem)
I hope.
A couple months ago, I was asked to document an event. I did. And then I played with the footage and created this short video-doodle. Since the doodle misrepresents the event that the documentation was from, I won’t mention the name of the event here (although it is in the credits of the film) – Take that google spiders.
S>
If you’re in Calgary this weekend, check out the $100 Film Festival at the Plaza Theatre – March 4-6, 2010
“Three days of short film, on film. Experience the magic of cinema with short film screenings, performances and parties. Full program now available on the website. This year’s program features special performances and workshops by Amanda Dawn Christie!”
A 16mm film I made a couple years ago called “Alone” will be screening. Fun times. Wish I could be there. Amanda Dawn Christie’s work is fantastic.
Here’s a photogram film doodle, called “fixit,” with a noisy soundtrack.
This weekend, check out CineVic and Puente Theatre’s Scene and Heard Redux at the Metro theatre, where films will be accompanying live storytelling. A film and story collaboration between myself and Rob Hunter will be screening on both Saturday and Sunday evenings, as well as films by Grace Salez, Maureen Bradley, Denver Jackson, Mark Borowski and Rachel Moore to accompany stories by Susu Ma, Jennifer Ferris, Raji Basi, Janice Valdez, and Paulina Grainger.
On an entirely separate note, this is a double-exposed toned film print that I was playing around with in the summer just after Phil Hoffman’s Film Farm. It was shot on High-contrast Kodak 3378E optical print stock and hand-processed.
This is an experiment I found a couple days ago, some tests I did with tints and tones a while ago. I’m calling it tintonetest, for a lack of something more meaningful. It was masked with paint markers, then toned with Berg’s tones and then the paint mask was removed. other parts were double-toned which created a posterizing effect (because I used hardening fixer, I believe.)
This is a short film, shot on 16mm optical sound stock. Parts are shot close-up with extension tubes, other parts are photogrammed. It is made with bicycle gears that were graciously donated to me by a local bikeshop called Bicycleitis.
The sound was made with a circuitbent keyboard, and I believe that David Parfit made the sound, and recorded it (I just mulched it up with the computer) – It was a stray file on my computer called untitled10.wav. I think it was David, but it may’ve been me. We were making noise in the basement one day. It’s all a blur. Apologies for being disorganized.
And, another random clip I found, floating around the server. Not sure I remember making it, but here it is, so I must’ve. It a test of tints and tones, and posterizing. I believe it’s the hardener in the fix that is changing how the tones react with the emulsion. This is slowed down a bunch, digitally. And I should really give a thanks to Hank and Lily, who let me mangle their beautiful song – it’s from their album called North America, and completely unrecognizable in this clip.
I’m not sure if it’s good or bad that I keep finding little films all over the place. This one was on my server, ready to be podcast, but somehow slipped through the cracks for a few months. I made it in Dawson City in the spring for part of their One-Minute Film Challenge. Rozalind MacPhail made the soundtrack. It was shot on 16mm film. In you’re in Victoria next weekend, check out CineVic’s Sweet 16 Film Celebration, November 6th, 7th and 8th. Deco Dawson will be visiting and giving an artist’s talk, and a film I made last year, called “Alone” will be screening on 16mm.
This is my new Steenbeck (it’s on loan)
I cleaned it up a bit, replaced the bulbs, and rigged up the sockets to work better (only one preview window was working when I got it, now both are) The sound didn’t work anymore, so…..
after nerding out a bit and fixing the optical sound (even had to solder some circuitboards) – got it worked out to make contact prints. Getting to know the Steenbeck has been fun, definitely a lot of film wrecked, but worth every foot.
Very excited about the ability to make prints. Working on putting a film loop gallery together with Peter Sandmark. I haven’t given up on digital yet, but I’m straying.
Went on a trip to Toronto in June, to spend a week at Phil Hoffman’s Film Farm. What an inspiring place. Came back to Vic with a new fascination with 16mm, learned how to turn a Steenbeck into a contact printer (Thanks to Josh Bonnetta), and how to double and triple-expose. lots of little tinting and toning tricks. Started shooting on high contrast sound stock, it’s got a really low ISO, but with enough light, it looks great.
Collected some footage and skills for my thesis (yup, still working on it, just slowly) and snooped around the Toronto indie film community.
This is one of my experiments, double exposed and printed through the Steenbeck.
I saw the film “RIP: A Remix Manifesto” by Brett Gaylor at this year’s Victoria Film Festival. In the spirit of the film , I pirated parts of the film onto 16mm Black and White film with my bolex, then hand-processed, tinted and toned it, then composited it digitally. The soundtrack is an old jazz show, recorded from an old reel-to-reel and mangled on the computer. You can find the origuinal film here: http://www3.nfb.ca/webextension/rip-a-remix-manifesto/ – go watch it.
You’re welcome to remix the film yourself at http://www.opensourcecinema.org/
It is a flurry of format changes. It was shot on Super 8 in black and white and hand processed, then digitized, composited and coloured with final cut pro.
The sound is a whole other story. It starts with a new toy. Slim Sandy gave me an old reel to reel audio recorder last night. So me’n Dan sat around and made some noise with the deck and some reels of tape that were in my basement (a friend dropped them off one day, thinking they were 8mm film film reels.) This soundtrack started as a radio transmission of the now-cancelled “Brave New Waves” program on CBC Radio 2, hosted by Patti Schmidt. It was (and still is) my favourite radio show, and helped shape my teenage years. It was recorded onto a cassette tape in the 90’s, recently digitized for my ipod touch, then piped through the old 1/4 inch reel to reel deck, warped and transferred to a digital recorder to be edited and chopped up on a computer….phew….
Back from Dawson City now, still trying to catch up on everything I left behind in April.
The “Experiment” workshop at MediaNet is starting this weekend, and I’m still trying to get everything ready. I think there are still a couple spots left in the workshop if anyone wants to take it. On another note, I’m off to Toronto in a month-and-a-bit to go to Phil Hoffman’s Film Farm. I’m giddy about the whole thing.
The Dawson City One-Minute Film Challenge went beautifully last weekend. We ended up with 25 films for the screening. A really great show and get-together, all sorts of little gems. Here is a film I made for it, called “boots.” Rozalind MacPhail made the music.
Been out of touch for a couple weeks, lots of things happening,
I’m in Dawson City right now, doing a residency at the Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture, and had a screening at the Dawson City Short Film Festival a couple weeks ago. I love it here. Fantastic people.
Performed with Rozalind MacPhail on the Sunday of the Festival, and now we’re getting ready for the Dawson-City-one-minute-film-challenge. We have more than a dozen films so far (a super-8 camera I brought from home did the rounds with a few visiting filmmakers, Deco Dawson, Terry Haines, Elisabeth Belliveau and Lisa Pasold.) Lisa is actually a writer – and was a little intimidated by the camera – but now she’s a filmmaker.
Here is a 16mm film diary of part the trip from Whitehorse to Dawson in a van full of filmmakers. (Deco, Elisabeth, Lisa, John Overell and Natalie Edelson) I was a little nauseous by the end of the trip (from the bumpy road, not the company) Mmmm, Gravol.
There’s a little more static in the air here and it’s impossible to keep the dust and hairs out of the projector. after 4 tries to transfer, I am now embracing the glitches, and calling the work “Dawthentic”
Oh, and in past news, I was voted “Victoria’s Favourite Local Filmmaker” at this years M-Awards – thanks to everyone who voted. And this years UVic Sunscreen Festival screened “Splash” and “House” and I took home “Best Director,” “Best Auditory Experience” and “Best Screenplay/story.” I was in Dawson City and missed the screeening…after flubbing my way through the M-Awards, I was half-relieved. Crazy Month.
Stay tuned for the rest of the Dawson Films.
WARNING – THIS FILM MAY CAUSE SEIZURES – PLEASE DO NOT WATCH IF YOU ARE EPILEPTIC
This started as an experiment with 16mm Black and white film. one frame of black, and one frame of white, alternating at 24 frames per second. When it’s switched to 30 frames per second to play in NTSC format, some interesting (and nauseating) things happen. Then I pushed it a little further and started to use red, blue, green, black and white frames. I guess this falls into the Structural Materialist category of experimental film. I find it fascinatingly abrasive.
THIS WILL MOST LIKELY GIVE YOU A HEADACHE. you were warned.
This is a video made from still images. I’ve been thinking about the idea that film can be experience and not just documentary or narrative, so this is an exercise to see if I could create an experience and place with only stills and sound. None of the stills are from the place I’m trying to create. It’s a little depressing and dark. sorry. Comments about it are welcome, I’m wondering if it’s working…What do you think it is about?
Another film made for this year’s “My Victoria.” Abstract 16mm black and white, tinted, toned and layered. The words were an afterthought, because the film had to have something to do with Victoria.
And I just started a twitter account. You can find it here: http://twitter.com/oilyfilms
This is a short film I made with the help of Daniel Lombardi for the Victoria Film Festival’s “My Victoria” Competition this year. I submitted it late, so didn’t end up in the competition part, but it was a good excuse to make a film, and to play around with some cut-out stop motion.
This is an abstract piece, shot on 16mm colour film, and transferred with an early-80’s telecine, that lags a little with the colour channels. I think it’s quite obvious what it actually is, but visually interesting nonetheless. A part of the journey. David Parfit made the soundtrack. You can find all sorts of his wonderful creations here: www.davidparfit.com
Another piece of the seeming endless primordial soup reel. Very textural. The sound is a little obnoxious (I made it)
An abstract splattering of colours, made by dissolving layers of the emulsion with chemicals. Music by Mike Wolske.
I’d love to say that this piece has some meaning, like it’s “an exploration of identity” or something…but really, I was just feeling the urge to fingerpaint. It was done with cheap oil paints in a few minutes, but took a couple months in my damp workshop to dry. For the sound, I just made wookie noises into my laptop and mixed them up a bit.
WARNING! – the sound is a little painful at times.
Another clip of Primordial Soup. The original runs somewhere around 20 minutes, so I’ve just been pulling out a minutes here and there for podcasts. Sitting through the 20 minute version would take some work (or a serious buzz) . A good soundtrack would help too.
Over the last few months, I had convinced myself that I was too busy with grad school to get any filmmaking done. And I believed it…until I started looking through my basement, and found all the little bits and pieces that I’d made and forgotten about. I’ll try to post them this week (a too-little-too-late attempt to catch up on the weekly? films of 2008.) Thanks to Mike Wolske for the music.
This is a photogram piece, on black and white 35mm film. It was made during a workshop with Kerry Laitala during this year’s AntiMatter Film Festival, using electrical components, nuts, bolts, screws, and a mini cassette tape. The soundtrack was made on my circuit-bent Realistic keyboard.
This week’s film is the video for MeatDraw’ s “Old World.” We shot it at the beginning of September, with the donated time and talents of dozens of people. It is one continuous shot, and travels from earth to space and back. Quite an ambitious undertaking, and very different than the films I normally make, but I’m pleased with the results.
Daniel Lombardi, the Art Director, filmed some “behind the scenes” footage…of how we choreographed and made it all happen and the 20+ people involved in the actual shooting. I’ll try to post it soon.
CBC Radio 3 did an interview with the band (hilarious!), and premiered the video this week on the R3TV podcast.
You can find the original post here (with links to subscribe in iTunes)
http://radio3.cbc.ca/blogs/2008/10/R3TV-Episode-69-Meat-Draw
or you can watch the YouTube version here:
Or just the Old World video in Quicktime format here:
Unfortunately, like most broadcasters, they chopped the credits off the end, so here they are in text format. This video would not have happened without the help of all these people. Thanks to all of you.
S.
Starring:
Chai Ross
Apple Matthews
and
MeatDraw:
– Marco Bozenich
– Stefan Bozenich
– Lily Fawn
– Marek Tyler
– Megan Boddy
Director: Scott Amos
Art Director: Daniel Lombardi
DOP: Daniel Hogg
Cinematography Consultant: Cyrus Block
Gaffer: D.W. Wilson
Stage Managers:
Gillian Reiss
Sarah-Jane Pelzer
Make-up: Erin Froese
Grips:
Colin Hender
Mike Wolske
Talitha Cummins
Jeremy Lutter
Jamie Tanner
Darryl Tamney
Glen O’Neill
Kelsey Oetting
Photos:
Kelly Duncan
Kristen Kilistoff
Darryl Tamney
Props/Sets Construction:
Daniel Lombardi
Scott Amos
Jim Vanderhorst
Adrienne Traviss
Jesse Ladret
Brendan Piper
Colin Hender
Minako Hender
Kristen Kilistoff
Paulina Ortlieb
Craft Services:
Connie Rock
Thanks to:
Open Space – Helen Marzoff, Dallas Duobaitis, Alan Kollins, Ross Angus Macaulay
Cook Street Do-it Center. MediaNet, CineVic, Michael Lee Macdonald, Steve Hender. Empress Painting, Marci Ross, Amber Matthews and Gumper.
ahhh. scribbling. mindless and meditative doodles. pencil crayons on paper. The soundtrack was made with a circuit-bent late-80’s Realistic keyboard. I took it apart, and poked around at it a bit, wired up a few extra things, and now it makes interesting painful noises, so I recorded it, then chopped up the sounds into something a little more organized and palatable.
There’s something about duct-taping magnifying lenses to my camera that i really dig. maybe it’s the soft, dreamy edges that everything gets, maybe it’s how mysterious and different everything looks. This was a clip of colour 16mm that I slowed down, and was fortunate to have David Parfit create a great electro-acoustic soundtrack for it.
Went to Mayne Island last weekend for a wedding, and filmed some things around the island with the bolex. As luck would have it, either the bolex was empty, or had the wrong kind of film in it whenever I stumbled into something I wanted to shoot. So I used my cellphone instead. really low rez, but it worked. Mike Wolske made the music.
And in other news, we finished shooting a new MeatDraw video for their song “Old World” last weekend. I still need to do some tweaking, but it should be finished soon, and posted online. In the next couple weeks – Upcoming Screenings – “Grass” is Playing in Australia at the FLEXIFF Festival, and “Turbulence” and “Glimpse” are playing in Seattle at the NorthWest Film Forum. “Birds” is playing at the Portobello in England. Unfortunately I can’t go to see any of them, but maybe you can.
Another installment of the film-a-week-project. Colour 16mm. Close-up lenses duct-taped to the camera. surreal textures. dreamscape. Lots of other projects in the works, and back to UVic in a week. Seems like there aren’t enough hours. Doing a residency at CineVic right now, working on the Steenbeck to finish off a short film about D’Arcy Island sponsored by the NFB’s Filmmaker’s Assistance Program. Spent the last few days (and the next few also) gearing up for a MeatDraw video that will be shot next week. Four minutes. One continuous shot. From earth to space and back spanning over 3 days. Quite an endeavour, but fun problem-solving. We built the asteroids, clouds and stars yesterday, next we’re modding a red wagon into a rocketship, and building satellites. Busy and exciting times.
It has been a busy summer trying to keep up with everything, but a few more weekly film exercises are getting finished up. This one is called “oxide” and is a snippit of colour 16mm film. I’ve been playing around with extension tubes and close-up lenses duct-taped to a Bolex. Some interesting surreal textures when you look at the world so closely. The soundtrack is courtesy of Mike Wolske.
My Bolex died. In the middle of a shoot. This is the last thing it recorded. I’m calling it “Swansong.”
My friend Gerald Saul, who has been making a film-a-week this year as well (and, unlike me, is keeping up with it) did a series of films called “How to be an Experimental Filmmaker”
I like the idea, so I made a list that accompanies this week’s film
- How to be an Experimental Filmmaker
- Step #1 – Use old, antiquated equipment
- Step #2 – Get professionals to be your on-screen talent. Make sure they have flown in from another country
- Step #3 – Forget to close the gate on the camera. Blame the old equipment. (see Step #1)
- Step #4 Have the camera completely break down half-way through the shoot (see Step #1)
- Step #5 – Tint and tone the blurry footage and release it on the internet
- Step #6 – Pretend that the film ended up exactly as you had planned.
The ghostly image is Carly Berrett, an incredible modern dancer from Utah. We met during MediaNet’s Dance for the Camera Workshop a couple weeks ago. Lots of fun. Embarrassing that half of the footage didn’t work out.
Fortunately, most of the other footage worked out and will be made into a different film, the film I had initially intended to do (without some of the parts.) Still a lot of post production to do on that, so in the meantime, here is the final film that ran through my Bolex. I find it mesmerizing.
Mike Wolske made the soundtrack, but I played around with it a bit.
An experiment with acrylic paints, india inks and drain cleaner on an old 16mm film
(I think there’s some dog hair in there too)
The soundtrack was made by Clifford Dunn in Seattle, who makes some crazy experimental soundscape stuff with a flute and processor (among other things, I’m sure)…Check out his website: http://www.clifforddunnmusic.com
This month at Open Space: The Deceleration Chamber.
The Deceleration Chamber is concerned with two entangled ideas: the elasticity of time—especially slow time—and how time is specifically experienced when one is away from familiar surroundings: on tour, traveling or on vacation. Encountering the unfamiliar, being lost or disorientated affects how time is perceived, how data is recorded and recollected, and how all of us choose the mode by which we measure, mark or experience the passage of time.
Artists Scott Amos, Frédérick Belzile, Scott Conarroe, Nathalie Daoust, and Daniel Tom explore differential time scales and refer to time not only as interval or measurement, but also as an active element in the construction of art. The Deceleration Chamber offers compelling time studies that directly and indirectly play off the habits, schedules and the erratic timetables of permanent and transitory populations.
It’s up until August 16th at 510 Fort St. in Victoria, from 10 to 5 Tuesday through Saturday.
With the help of Brian Macdonald and the the staff and volunteers at Open Space, I installed a 9 channel video installation for the show titled “Our Victoria.” This is a clip from the ninth channel. Colin Hander and Mike Wolske did the sound.
Here’s the little Blurb I wrote up about the piece.
Victoria is a city of postcard images, but the most impressive things never seem to make it to the printer. The Inner Harbour and the Parliament Buildings provide the background for millions of snapshots a year; They are the basis of visitors’ memories of our city. Although they are a part of our city, they are not the places that we frequent, the Victoria that we know and love. They are the parts that we show to others. The magical parts of the city we keep to ourselves.
When visiting other places, time passes differently, more slowly, you take notice of little details: the weathered bricks on a building, the intricacies of power lines, the reflections in windows. Everyday objects and places are rendered extraordinary by simply taking the time to observe them.
Our hometowns have similar delicate features, but we seldom notice. They are simply distractions that we pass by.
Our Victoria is a nine channel video installation, made to emulate old home movies. Although filmed in 2006, it looks as though it’s from past decades. The nine televisions are nine individual rolls of film, raw and unedited to emulate the frenetic nature of home movies and the raw memories they capture. It is an intimate look into the places that only the most adventurous visitors will see, the places that you won’t see in brochures, the places that have not yet been reduced to postcards.
Here it is folks. A new music video for Hank and Lily’s “Xanadu.” The song is from there newly-released album “North America.” Of course, it stars both Hank and Lily. I love this song!
They’re doing some touring this summer through Ontario and Alberta, and you can find the schedule on their MySpace page here. I could gush about how great Hank and Lily are, but instead I’ll just say – If you only see one show this summer, go see Hank and Lily. Seriously. Ask anyone who has ever seen the show; I wish I could describe it in words.
Here it is in action, the mechanical set that I built in the basement…too bad it’s only for a little bit of screen time, I’ll have to use it again for another film.
And we’ve hit the halfway point in the year, so this should be podcast #26…but it’s not. It’s only podcast #21. what can I say? It has been a lot of work…and I’ve still got some catching up to do. There are a couple pieces that I never posted, because I believe that there is nothing interesting about them. Maybe I’m my own worst critic, but I really think they are void of anything worthwhile, so I couldn’t bring myself to share them with the world.
And, on that note, here is podcast #21. It is called Primordial Soup – Part 2. Part 1 is currently in another town, having music composed for it. It’s called Primordial Soup because I threw a bunch of clear acrylic, ink, pencil crayon shavings, ashes, hairs, rust, and anything else I could find into a bucket with some chemically treated film…to see if any life would emerge from it. It had a rough time getting through the projector…and is now ruined. But there is some life.
Along the same lines as “Flypaper”, the last podcast. This time, I collected bits and pieces from around the garden, dried them out, broke them up, and taped them to a strip of 16mm film. The results aren’t as unique as flypaper, but I had to give it a try. The colours of a lot of the flower petals were lost in the drying process because I dried them under lights (I’m so impatient.)
Next time, I’ll collect a better variety of coloured flower petals, and make sure they’re thin enough to let light through.
Now I’m wondering what else I can tape to film. Unfortunately, if it’s not thin enough, it bulges when going through the gate, and the focus gets lost. Thinking I might do some frame-by frame transfer to 16mm to have a little more control. Might not have enough patience for that. We’ll see.
This film was inspired by Stan Brakhage.
This new film is for the “Seek Cover” show tonight at The Project. The idea behind Seek Cover is to create a new artwork (performance, painting, anything goes) based on an existing artwork. I made a film, inspired by Stan Brakhage’s “Mothlight.” I collected all of the dead bugs out of the windowsills in the house, and our neighbour’s house, dissected them, and taped them to strips of 16mm film. flys, bees, a spider, a moth, and a few giant mosquito-lookin’ things. I felt a little weird doing it, but the results are pretty cool. I think part of the charm of it is the texture created by the tape, and the air bubbles and fingerprints it trapped. I’m calling the piece “Flypaper.” In the spirit of Brakhage, I didn’t put a musical soundtrack to it, instead I just recorded the sound of the 16mm projector as I was digitizing it.
As the days get longer and the end of June approaches, I realize that I’m more-than-a-little-behind in the film-a-week project. Spent the last week doing JumpCuts for the Victoria Film Festival, and other projects have come up, burying my pet project. For now. I’m still working on it, and a whole bunch of other things: a new video for Hank and Lily that we’ll finish shooting next week and we’re in the planning stages of a new MeatDraw video as well. Getting prepared to shoot an NFB sponsored experimental short film on D’Arcy Island, and a video installation at Open Space in July. And then there’s the feature. We’ll talk about the feature later.
For now, here is the next installment of the film-a-week project.
Last year, I found a dinosaur on my doorstep. It turns out that a friend of mine found it and left it for me. I doesn’t use tapes, it just has a composite video out. I tested it, with no luck, so I left it in my closet. Recently, I fished it out to disassemble it for parts to use for the Hank and Lily video set, but before I could bring myself to take it apart, I decided to test it one more time. It works.
I’m shocked.
I’m fascinated by the way it reacts with light. different than film, different than DV. Interesting. So here’s a little test I did with it, intentionally out of focus, and blown out, with the video signal piped into my miniDV camera to record it.