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Topic: Double-threading a projector?

Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 12-06-2003 03:35 PM

hey, if you're not into it, you're not into it. but trying to make definitive statements like that about art is pretty silly. it's like saying spraypaint is only for making graffiti and if it's made with spraypaint it's not art. really, it can be one or the other, or both, or neither, and it depends a lot on the receptivity of the viewer as well.

carl

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 12-07-2003 06:15 AM

quote:
What is it that causes some people to lose all senblence of reality and take the persona of a complete and utter undergraduate.

What is it that makes some Professors pontificate and make such painfully close-minded statements as....

quote:
There is no such thing as Performative Cinema. Simple as this; you either go to see a film (or movie) or show it. There is nothing else.

Hey professor....gimme a break. Oh yah, and that thing about getting off a high horse.

Frank

And PS -- Why all this sneering at undergraduates? If it weren't for them, you wouldn't have a job, right? Then to who would you pontificate? [Roll Eyes]

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 12-08-2003 05:15 AM

any changeover projectionist is a performer. now granted, in most instances the objective is to minimize the performative aspect of the job, to make it invisible to the audience, except possibly for lighting effects and such. but the performance is there, and recoder (and others) tease it out and use it to make art. it might not be artful in your eyes, but it's a legitimate endeavor.

carl

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Joe Beres
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 606
From: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 12-08-2003 09:17 AM

David Graham Rose,
Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful comments. [Roll Eyes]

If you truly are a professor, and truly are as closed-minded as your comments seem to indicate, then I truly feel sorry for any student that comes under your tutelage. Where would our civilization be without experimentation, innovation, and art?

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 12-08-2003 11:22 AM

David wrote:

quote:
Yours from a department with 3 DP70's

can I have your department please? [Smile]

Carl wrote:

quote:
any changeover projectionist is a performer. now granted, in most instances the objective is to minimize the performative aspect of the job, to make it invisible to the audience, except possibly for lighting effects and such. but the performance is there, and recoder (and others) tease it out and use it to make art. it might not be artful in your eyes, but it's a legitimate endeavor.

Agree with the bit about lighting effects etc., but I don't get the changeover bit. Making a changeover is about the most trivial thing that a projectionist has to do: inch film down to correct position, watch screen, press button, watch screen again, press another button. Any reasonably competent platter projectionist could learn to make changeovers very quickly. I have never run platters, they are not very common in the type of cinemas where I have worked; everywhere that I have worked has been either changeovers or towers, of which I would far rather run changeovers, but I certainly don't think that a changeover projectionist could learn to run platters, and all the other junk that's usually found with them, automation systems etc., correctly in anything like the same time.

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 12-08-2003 04:27 PM

quote:
Making a changeover is about the most trivial thing that a projectionist has to do

and it was a trivial point i was making, but one which spoke to the issue. during the course of the film, the changeover projectionist must perform certain actions which affect the presentation, and can be done well or poorly. they are performed.

carl

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 12-09-2003 01:48 AM

quote:
You should watch some of the films of Norman McLaren, especially his SHORT AND SUITE and BEGONE DULL CARE in which he did just that -- hand-painted on the film to the jazz score by Dave Brubeck.

Sorry to be so anal, but the music for Begone Dull Care was by Oscar Peterson. McLaren, incidentally, was trained by the New Zealand animator Len Lye, who came to Europe in the late '20s and eventually settled in Britain. His experimental shorts (e.g. A Colour Box in 1935 and Trade Tattoo, 1936) combined conventional photography with painting directly onto the celluloid without regard for the positioning of the frame lines, thus playing games with the viewers perception of the persistance of vision effect.

A Colour Box was originally distributed on Dufaycolor prints, but the National Film and Television Archive recently restored it by creating separation masters from the hand-painted originals. The individual hues and overall colour cast of McLaren's original painting, as revealed by the new Eastman combined prints, is completely different from the Dufay version.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 12-09-2003 11:44 AM

Leo, be as anal as you like....I did misspeak. Oscar Peterson it was. And just a delight to behold. How great it would be if these works inspire our Christopher Seo to create works of his own.

Do you know if any of McLaren's works are released on DVD?

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 12-09-2003 12:10 PM

The National Film Board of Canada has an on-line store. Mostly VHS video for McLaren titles:

http://www.nfb.ca/nfbstore/ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10004

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 12-09-2003 12:37 PM

Leo, the work of Len Lye seems to have become more popular again in recent years.

I have seen some of the original Dufay material, and it always seemed an odd choice of process for this type of work. I would have thought that a better choice would have been to make silver separations, and then print them by Gasparcolor, or even three-colour Technicolor, which I think was available by the time these films were made. I can't remember the exact dates of them.

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Christopher Seo
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 530
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-09-2003 05:14 PM

Ha ha, thanks Frank, but my art skills are pretty limited... hence why I'm into photography! I would like to check those McLaren titles out though.

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Jeffry L. Johnson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 809
From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 12-09-2003 05:16 PM

Norman McLaren: The Collector's Edition

Director: Norman McLaren
Canada. 1940-1983.
114 minutes. B&W and Color.

Norman McLaren was a cinematic virtuoso and perhaps the medium's greatest innovator. To create his delightful and dazzling animation, he employed an amazing array of techniques, including painting directly on film and his own invention, "pixilation" - a wildly surreal form of filming actors in stop motion. For several short films, he even drew the soundtrack - an unbelievably complex process. But while creativity, humor and technical virtuosity are the hallmarks of his work, it was McLaren's compassionate intelligence and sense of humanity that make these charming films enduring masterpieces.

Over the course of fifty years, McLaren produced 60 films (mostly for the National Film Board of Canada) in a stunning range of styles and techniques. His creations won more than 200 international awards - including an Oscar® and the Palme D'or. Norman McLaren: Collector's Edition showcases 14 of McLaren's best films reflecting the incredible diversity of his work: Neighbours, Begone Dull Care, Pas de deux, Boogie-Doodle, Synchromy, Mosaic, A Phantasy, Blinkity Blank, Le Merle, Lines-Horizontal, A Chairy Tale, Animated Motion: Part 5, New York Lightboard Record, and Narcissus. This two-disc DVD set also contains Creative Process: Norman McLaren, an award-winning documentary directed by Donald McWilliams that explores McLaren's unique approach to animation and features previously unseen works and outtakes, and Norman McLaren on the Creative Process, a 106-page book of McLaren's reflections on filmmaking.

Bonus Features

• New Digital Masters of 14 of Norman McLaren's best work
• The feature documentary Creative Process: Norman McLaren with commentary track by director Donald McWilliams
• The 104-page booklet, Norman McLaren on the Creative Process
• Transcript of Films on Acrobat Reader
• Photo Gallery
• Bios
• 5.1 Stereo Sound
• Choice of English or French Soundtrack

Reviews
"One of the most innovative and influential artists in the history of animation!" – Charles Solomon, Los Angeles Times

"McLaren was a genius and a visionary. There's no way to overstate his brilliance or his importance as a beacon to the animators who have followed in his footsteps." – Leonard Maltin

Video Details
VHS: $0.00 DVD: $49.95 PAL: $0.00

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 12-11-2003 03:16 AM

Jeffry, many thanks for that information. And agreed with your praise of this incredibly gifted artist. My hope is that NFBC might still have 35mm prints of some of his more popular titles.

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Andrew Lee
Film Handler

Posts: 99
From: Oakville, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 12-11-2003 01:09 PM

Frank, I will check out what is available through a friend at the NFB. It's great to see so many McLaren fans out there. He is considered one of our greatest national treasures when discussing the history of Canadian film.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 12-12-2003 11:43 AM

...and Oscar Peterson (along with Glenn Gould) must be among Canada's greatest musical treasures, I'd guess. Night Train is one of my favourite albums (despite the fact that I hate trains), and the Summer Time track on 'Peterson Plays the Gershwin Songbook' must be among the most amazing examples of piano playing anywhere...

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