We will spend the next seven weeks exploring film in ways that might be new to you. Our theme is "Outside the Black Box." In English, sometimes the term "black box" has the same meaning as "cinema".
I want you to think of the idea of "outside." What do you think the meaning is, for this class?
Can film express something other than a story?
This blog will be like your textbook for the class. Pay special attention to bold words. Bold words are special vocabulary words we will discuss, in English, in class. You will be expected to know how to use these words in filmmaking.
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The Beginnings of Film
Almost 100 years ago, film was a new medium. Nobody had ever seen moving photographs before. Two brothers, Auguste and Louis Lumiere worked for their father in a factory that made chemicals and equipment for photography. In 1895, they made a machine called the "cinématographe". They tested their invention by shooting the factory workers as they left the factory at the end of the day. This was the first film ever made.
Film cameras shoot many tiny photographs onto a strip of celluloid. Small holes on the sides of the celluloid help register the film. That is, the holes help keep each photograph steady long enough for the brain to "see" the image. Seeing many photos each second tricks the brain into thinking it sees movement. This trick is called persistence of vision. Persistence of vision is an important concept in animation.
The Beginnings of Film as Art
Some artists were not interested in using film to tell stories. Marcel Duchamp was interested in understanding motion and human perception. It is easy to see this in his famous painting, "Nude Descending a Staircase":
He decided to try using film to make art about motion. In 1926, he created "Anemic Cinema," by filming spinning discs that sometimes appear 3-dimensional. The film also shows spinning words - French puns.
Man Ray was another modern artist of the early 20th century who experimented with different media. He used painting, photography, and film to explore Surrealist philosophy. He made photograms, which is a method of photography where objects are put on a piece of unexposed film. The film is exposed when a bright light shines on it for a short amount of time, and the object leaves a dark shadow on the film. You can see examples of Man Ray's photograms in the film, "Retour a la Raison" (1923). The photograms were created by small nails, string, and dirt being placed on the unexposed film.
Some artists decided to use film the same way that a painter paints on a canvas. In the early 20th century, painters like Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich, and Wassily Kandinsky were exploring human perception with their abstract paintings. Two of the best known early artists to experiment with film in a similar way were Len Lye and Harry Smith. In Lye's film "A Colour Box" (1935) and Smith's "A Strange Dream" (1946), shapes are painted and scratched onto clear film leader. When the films are projected, they look like abstract paintings in motion.
Beginnings of Film Art in Canada
Norman McLaren lived and studied art in Scotland until the 1939, when he moved to New York. Like Len Lye and Harry Smith, McLaren was also interested in using film as a canvas, and he made several films without using a camera. In 1941, he was invited to move to Canada to start a national animation studio for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). While he was there, he created some of his best-known films, such as "Begone Dull Care" (1949).
Norman McLaren also experimented with how to make sound in his films. In some of his films, he hand-painted his own optical soundtrack on the sides of the film. This documentary film shows McLaren in his studio, experimenting with different shapes to make sounds.
Here is one of his early films, "Dots" (1940), which features his hand-painted sounds.
Hand-Made Films Today
Many people thought photography would make artists stop painting when the first cameras were invented, but that didn't happen. Nowadays, many people think celluloid film will disappear, too. But several artists continue to use it as a material to express their own artistic ideas, because it is different from digital media.
Richard Reeves is a Canadian artist who creates all of his films completely by hand. He draws and paints every frame and paints his own soundtrack the same way Norman McLaren did. Here is a clip from his film "Linear Dreams" (1997).
This clip shows what Reeves' sounds LOOK like:
Several Korean artists also experiment with film. You can see many examples of Korean art films at the Seoul EXiS Festival this week. You can also visit Space Cell in Seoul to learn more about how to experiment with film, and meet artists who use film in this way.
How can you use film to communicate your ideas?
I look forward to seeing your creations!
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