Camerless Filmmaking

Ever since I saw Andre's presentation about 6 x 1 in my movie makers and scholars class I've been extremely excited about taking this course. I've always wanted to work directly with film and have been interested in alternative ways of creating movies. My experience with cameraless filmmaking so far has been really great. i was surprised just how tiny the actual 16 mm film strip is when i first laid hands on it. It is much harder to work with such a small amount of space creating the images i see in my mind then i had previously imagined. But its a challenge that had inspired me to think about this art in new ways. There are so many possibilities to manipulate film and i'm psyched to try as many out as i can. I want to see what happens when i apply fire directly to the film strip, as well as different types of inks and paints, i've also thought about soaking the film in acidic or basic solutions and applying other chemicals/ dyes to it. I liked doing this stuff so much that i'm going to invest in my own 16mm projector in the next few months so i can continue this work on my own. Learning about magazine transfers was really great and a technique that I had never previously thought of doing. Now its something that ill be able to include in my work as long as i want. I haven’t had the chance to work with the animation part of the elements assignment yet, but am looking forward to doing that as well. Puncturing and scratching the film was a lot of fun too. Even with this technique alone there are so many more possibilities to play with. I have yet to use a razor or needle to try and make very detailed tiny images, but plan to attempt this when I get together with my partner this weekend. Exposing the film in the dark room was also a great experience that played against my preconceived notions. I brought in many various objects to lie on the unexposed film, and had a pretty clear concept of what the end result would look like. Once again I was greatly surprised with what actually happened. For some reason I thought that semi opaque objects like glass beads would end up creating many sharply contrasting shades on the film after it was developed. This was not the case; however, it still looked fantastic. It’s cool to actually get to do these things with my own hands, versus reading about them in text books; now I will know what to expect the next time I attempt to work with unexposed film. I interested to learn how to manipulate sounds tracks with using a camera or post production programs. I’m not sure that this is something we will address in class or something I will need to experiment with on my own, but I’m excited to do it either way. Music is such a great part of my life and I would love to include it in these and future projects. Overall so far, film manipulation has been a blast! I have learned things that I would have never thought of on my own, and I believe I’ve discovered a new long term passion.