Palmer did indeed pioneer a number of techniques that became staples of independent filmmaking, but I’m fairly positive they didn’t develop A/B roll editing. That said, I’ve wondered when it first came about, and imagine that there are probably American Cinematographer or Business Screen or some other trade/hobbyist magazines referencing it as a new thing sometime in the 1930s or 1940s.
Just from my own anecdotal experience, the earliest Brakhage film that he edited using the technique was 1954, with The Way to Shadow Garden. Flora Mock’s 1952 film Waiting was as well. I can’t remember for sure, but that might be the earliest experimental film I’ve inspected that uses the technique. James Whitney’s Yantra is also A/B, but that’s a bit later, though he worked on it for years. I’ve never inspected her materials, but I’ve wondered if Sara Kathryn Arledge’s Introspection from ca.1946 was A/B. However, in 1946, an independent production company called Planet Pictures was interested in promoting the use of 16mm to make feature films and they made a film in 16mm Kodachrome called The People’s Choice that was cut as A/B rolls (I’ve inspected the originals). I guess part of their concept was that you could shoot on 16mm and then either print on 16mm or blow up to 35mm, making the shooting process a lot more economical, but I guess it didn’t totally take off at that time in that way. Mark > On Nov 10, 2024, at 12:11 PM, Scott Dorsey <[email protected]> wrote: > > I think that AB rolling may have been a W.A. Palmer invention. So many > things in 16mm production were. > > --scott > > -- > Frameworks mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org -- Frameworks mailing list [email protected] https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org
