This is topic Double-threading a projector? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 12-05-2003, 04:29 PM:
 
From the entertainment section of today's Eugene Register-Guard (no link available to this story):

"Experimental filmmakers Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder project images from the floor, thread film through the same projector twice, superimpose images on top of each other, make use of dust, scratches, and hairs on film, and expose raw color stock under varying light conditions."

Thread film through the same projector twice? Somehow this presentation doesn't sound consistent with Film Done Right.
 

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Posted by Christopher Seo (Member # 7) on 12-05-2003, 04:56 PM:
 
Are they actually threading up unexposed raw stock with the dirty, scratched film, bipack style? Seems like fogging would be a problem, in a regular projector. Unless that's a separate project of theirs....

If I ever had that much free time on my hands, I'd consider trying to hand-draw animation onto blank film.

On the other hand, my coworker who's a film major tells me he's seen films which consisted of people coloring on blank stock, pasting little bits of dead flies, etc.
 

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Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 12-05-2003, 05:16 PM:
 
I think they mean they run the same film through the camera twice.

Joe, I'm sure, will tell us that you should never run a piece of film through the projector twice; after the first show, it's scratched-up too much to be seen by the audience ever again.

--jhawk
 

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Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 12-05-2003, 05:19 PM:
 
It's like speed reading except for film. You can watch a movie in half the time.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-05-2003, 05:56 PM:
 
Back eeons ago, we used to overlap two pieces of Super 8mm films, each with a marker running from one edge to the other, crossing in the middle. When projected, the effect was a wipe to black and then a wipe back into the next shot.
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-05-2003, 06:25 PM:
 

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If I ever had that much free time on my hands, I'd consider trying to hand-draw animation onto blank film

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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. He was my hero when I was in college, not only because I thought his stuff was spectacular, but also because he was a god for the programmer of any cinema because he was a incredibly prolific filmmaker of original and very creative shorts. You could play any of his stuff before a feature if you were building a program of cartoons, shorts and main feature. His NEIGHBORS was a live-action short; well, kind of live action -- since he pixilated the film by cutting out frames to create a strange, cartoon-like action. This was always a huge hit with the college crowd no matter how many times I booked it during the anti-war Vietnam era as it made a pretty obvious anti-war statement. And those are just a few....the guy turned out so many shorts that you could almost say he was a one man short subject department unto himself. A lot of his films were award-winners and coproduced by the National Film Board of Canada; The NFBC -- another staple of the film programmer -- they always had tons of great stuff to book. They may still have some of his works in their library, if they still have a rental department.

I loved McLaren's stuff so much that I even tried my hand a few years later at the same thing. My results were not exactly the award-winning work that his was, but it was lots of fun. The difficult thing was getting raw stock. You would think that would be inexpensive....oh contrare. I also found it difficult to find the right paint -- it as to be totally transparent and has to adhere to the celluloid. I "choreographed" my painting to music by the Moody Blues. The music was the best thing. And mine was in CinemaScope! Not because I actually painted it with that in mind, but hey, I was the projectionist as well as the filmmaker so CinemaScope it was.

If you get some free time, by all means try it....it was lots of fun. And just remember, no matter how it turns out, a college audience will sit there and watch it if you pick good music. I must say, it sure is rewarding showing something you've created to an audience, captive as they may be, of 6 or 7 hundred!
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 12-05-2003, 06:40 PM:
 
I bet jhawk has it right: They probably mean camera, not projector.

Joe Blow to projectionist: "So, what kind of camera do you guys use here?"
 

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Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 12-05-2003, 07:40 PM:
 
Just from a quick look, I think they mean rethread through the same projector. This Recoder guy does performance art with a 35mm projector.

One VERY interesting listing of his work. This is playing one engagement in the San Francisco area.

quote:

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Performative Cinema

MASSETT’S BEAM + WETGATE + RECODER + LONG +

A cautionary against the dictatorship of the mall platters, Tim Massett champions the projectionist as an active creative agent and endangered species. Included in his doc’s world debut are clips of Chicago’s James Bond, Austin’s Luke Savisky, Havana arc-operators, performance footage from past OC Projectorama shows, AND documentation of WetGate, who also appear live tonight! Peter Conheim, Steven Dye, and Owen O’Toole play 16mm loops on their Graflexes as cinema concrete compositions. ALSO “performing the projector” is the wünderkind from El Sobrante (and NYC), Luis Recoder. PLUS Kent Long’s double-projection, and an Osram bulb ad.

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If I ever had that much free time on my hands, I'd consider trying to hand-draw animation onto blank film.

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Done that! I took some black film and scratched stuff into it, then projected it. The result was a 5 second movie that took about an hour of time to "draw" and the result was the first-ever film from CatBastard Entertainment, "Stickman gets punched in face!"

=TMP=
 

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Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 12-06-2003, 01:34 PM:
 
Think Stan Brackage.
 

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Posted by Joe Beres (Member # 678) on 12-06-2003, 01:39 PM:
 
I'm sure projector is correct. I have met Luis Recoder and saw one of his shows last year. He plays with the projector, multiple projections and the role of the projectionist quite a bit in his programs. It was a really interesting show.

On the subject of hand painted films, I have to recommend Stan Brakhage as well. Criterion recently released a two disc set of some of his films.
 

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Posted by David Graham Rose (Member # 1450) on 12-06-2003, 01:50 PM:
 
Greetings All from a Festive Cambridge;

quote:
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Performative Cinema

MASSETT’S BEAM + WETGATE + RECODER + LONG +

A cautionary against the dictatorship of the mall platters, Tim Massett champions the projectionist as an active creative agent and endangered species. Included in his doc’s world debut are clips of Chicago’s James Bond, Austin’s Luke Savisky, Havana arc-operators, performance footage from past OC Projectorama shows, AND documentation of WetGate, who also appear live tonight! Peter Conheim, Steven Dye, and Owen O’Toole play 16mm loops on their Graflexes as cinema concrete compositions. ALSO “performing the projector” is the wünderkind from El Sobrante (and NYC), Luis Recoder. PLUS Kent Long’s double-projection, and an Osram bulb ad.

What is it that causes some people to lose all senblence of reality and take the persona of a complete and utter undergraduate. It is behaviour such as this I expect from the Faculty of Art, from which no doubt Messrs Conheim, Dye and Tool (rather an appropriate name I thought)hail. 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. They are not there for analysis in degree driven depths of drivel, they are there to be enjoyed, as is the art of showing film.

Can anyone tell me what is clever about showing pieces of 16mm with scratches? Go to any multiplex in the UK and you can enjoy 35mm film with scratches.

Yours from a department with 3 DP70's
 

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Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 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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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-07-2003, 06:15 AM:
 

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

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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.

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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?
 

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Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 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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Posted by Joe Beres (Member # 678) on 12-08-2003, 09:17 AM:
 
David Graham Rose,
Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful comments. 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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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-08-2003, 11:22 AM:
 
David wrote:

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Yours from a department with 3 DP70's

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can I have your department please?

Carl wrote:

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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.

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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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Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 12-08-2003, 04:27 PM:
 

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

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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.

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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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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 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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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 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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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 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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Posted by Christopher Seo (Member # 7) on 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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Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 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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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 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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Posted by Andrew Lee (Member # 1330) on 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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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 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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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-12-2003, 12:16 PM:
 
Musical treasures hmmm don't forget the popular Anne Murray and Gordon Lightfoot
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 12-12-2003, 12:23 PM:
 
Never been a fan of Anne Murray, but I've always liked Gordon Lightfoot and Gordie Johnson.
 

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Posted by Jennifer Fieber (Member # 1909) on 12-14-2003, 03:52 PM:
 
I went to art school with Luis in SF. He takes found footage runs it through a 16mm projector that threads manually (with lockdown clamps) and when the head leader comes out the back, loops the same film back through again to by pack with the same film. With some slack in the loop, nothing usually goes wrong.

I want to reply to David Rose's question without getting in a big discussion about the validity of certain art forms. There's no use in discussions that devolve into...any monkey could paint this, if that's where the discussion ends up. Because, while there is certainly a lot of pedanticism and self-indulgence in experimental filmmakers, you should also realize that such filmmakers have a respect for the medium of film (and it's presentation) that is far deeper than most modern multiplex film goers. These are not the people that can't see the difference between film and video on screen...or don't care.

Silly as some of it is, by working with scratches and dust etc. (or directly writing on blank film!), the argument goes, they are pointing out the materiality of film rather than accepting the illusion of "reality" that is masked by plot, action etc. It is supposed to point out the beauty in even the flaws of that material we have loved since the 1900s.

Perhaps, I've opened a can of worms with this post, but I'll try my best to defend this position.

Jennifer Fieber
Anthology Film Archives
I
 

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 12-14-2003, 04:38 PM:
 
I think it's advancing the art and grammar of film. Most of those things are silly and probably admittedly so and won't ever become part of mainstream filmmaking but once upon a time crosscutting and closeups were radical as well.

Back in college I remember thinking that a print of Street Musique, borrowed from the library and wonderful by itself, could be "enhanced" running it through two projectors in succession and projecting side by side.
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-15-2003, 02:39 AM:
 
That reminds me of the very thing that Andy Warhol and Paul Morrisey's did in CHELSEA GIRLS. They used dual 16mm projectors projecting images side by side and I was awed at how the juxtaposition of two different scenes created a whole new, more profound meaning, greater than either of the two parts -- a prostitute and john laying in bed as she takes money from him, juxtaposed against a very chic looking "career" woman taking money from her husband as she leave the house.

I though the use of the two images was a great concept and to what great affect Warhol meticulously matched the sequences.
Then I spoke to the projectionist and told him how impressed I was with the work, even though I also found it long and dreary, only to discover that the film came on ten reels and he was to put them on each projector randomly. There was no mind behind it at all. Either way, I guess it was still impressive, since without the filmmaker having much do to with the juxtapositioning of the sequences, it was up to the viewer to make meaning out of randomness -- much like we have to do in real life. It was the audience that made two disparate scenes into a more significant whole.

I saw that when I was in college and I haven't seen it since. Today I probably would think it more drivel than substance, but I would like to revisit it again to see what I think of it now. Anyone know if it has a theatrical distributor? I think Morrisey's own distribution company may be gone.
 

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Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 12-15-2003, 05:12 AM:
 
chelsea girls played the castro in s.f. last year or so. try contacting them.

carl
 

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Posted by Joe Beres (Member # 678) on 12-15-2003, 09:24 AM:
 
Chelsea Girls is available from the Museum of Modern Art Circulating Films Library. The history of how the film has been presented is very interesting. I believe it has been presented on one, two, and four screens. Now, MoMA has determined a recommended running order with the even numbered reels on the left, and the odd on the right. There are also recommendations on how the sound levels should be raised and lowered between the two projectors. The reel changes, i.e. replacing reel two with reel four, is considered to be part of the presentation. If you can appreciate Andy Warhol's film work, then this is quite a fantastic spectacle. Warhol's Outer and Inner Space can also be shown on two screens.
 

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Posted by Christopher Seo (Member # 7) on 12-15-2003, 12:09 PM:
 
I think the University of California at Irvine ran this some time ago. Wouldn't a "recommended running order" seem to defeat Warhol's intentions?
 

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Posted by Joe Beres (Member # 678) on 12-15-2003, 06:16 PM:
 
Christopher,
I have been told that Warhol experimented quite a bit. Sometimes allowing the projectionist to choose, sometimes specifying the order and orientation. Supposedly, the MoMA recommendations follow the instructions that Andy Warhol eventually settled on.
 

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