Re: [Frameworks] Artists Filmmakers who have used Super 8 Film
IIRC, Scott and Beth B.'s punk films were shot on Super-8. Reynolds and Jolley's Seven Days Til Sunday, The Drowning Room and also (I think) burn were shot on Super-8 IIRC, Jem Cohen has done a lot with Super-8. (Lost Book Found ??) Frameworker Ken Paul Rosenthal's Crooked Beauty is a fine example of how lovely Super-8 footage can look after a high-quality scan to HD and post-processing to remove dust sots and other artifacts. Which leads me to note that there are at least two different Super-8 aesthetics that a programmer trying to survey the artistic use of the medium might want to identify and compare/contrast as part of the program: The first embraces the whole typical old-school Super-8 production chain in all its lo-fi glory: scratches, dust spots, not-quite-right exposures, slightly-off color balances that vary from stock to stock, etc. Here Super-8 tends to signify a raw immediacy directed toward the subject on-screen and a don't-give-a-fuck attitude towards any aesthetics of visual refinement. The second (e.g. Reynolds/Jolley and Rosenthal) isolates some unique visual qualities of super-8 stock (grain, saturation, color bleed...) toward some form of visual refinement that provides a more studied 'look' appropo to the larger thematic of the work and not not necessarily 'inherent' in the pro-filmic event in the sense the lo-fi aesthetic would take it to be. For example, both Crooked Beauty and Seven Days Til Sunday foreground formal qualities of monochrome Super-8 in not-at-all lo-fi ways, but to very different ends. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] removing dust marks on transfer
I was thinking it would be an expensive process to remove digitally. It's not necessarily _monetarily_ expensive. You can do it manually if you can afford the time. Of course, you want as clean a transfer as possible, but there are still likely to be some big nasty dust spot every X number of frames. The trick to manual dust removal is that your spot is only on one frame while the image likely persists over several frames. 1. So you put the film in a timeline in FCP or Premiere or whatever in two layered tracks. 2. The top is the copy-to-be-repaired and the bottom os the patch. 3. Offset the bottom track/layer a couple frames in either direction. 4. Make a four-point garbage matte around the first dust spot, applying a lot of smoothing to the outline and a lot of feather to the edge. 5. Voila. The frame below should now fill in the dust spot. 6. Copy the matte, paste it into the other frames with dust spots, and move it over the spots. (This is easier than drawing a new matte). Frames with more than one spot need more than one matte. 7. Review each filled spot. Most will probably look OK as the part of the patch frame peeking through will be similar to the hole in the repaired frame. Where the camera or subject have moved enough, though, there will be no match and the patched hole will as obvious as the original spot. So we need to get a proper fill under the hole: A. Cut and trim the video in the patch track, so you can move this particular patch frame around without messing up any others. B. An appropriate fill area is likely to be available either in some other part of the patch frame, or a on a frame offset in the other direction - i.e. if your patch track is +2 frames offset from the main track, a frame at -1 offset might work. C. To save time you'll prefer to do one or the other: 1) offset the XY center of the existing patch frame, 2) try a different patch frame a few frames away, but not both unless it's absolutely necessary. 8. of course, you only want to perform this operation on frames that are for sure going to be in the finished film, so it comes after you have a tight edit (but before you do any slo motion effects in software...) ... Yes, I've done this for a half-hour film. Yes, it was incredibly tedious. Yes, it took a very long time. Yes, it took several passes because I kept finding spots I'd missed on the previous pass. Yes, the results were worth it. In this case anyway. As Jeff noted I think only half-jokingly, a certain amount of imperfections can be part of a filmic aesthetic. It all depends on material and purpose. Sometimes you'll want a little dust, sometimes it won't matter, sometimes you need the frame to be really clean to preserve the fragile poetics of a shot. So when I say my labor was worth it, that's contextualized by how much clean-frame-vs.-dusty-frame mattered in terms of the aesthetics of the particular work at hand. YMMV. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] mov files from avid (pc) for quicktime projection (mac)
I'm not an Avid expert, but I know they typically use proprietary codecs. What container were they in? AVI? If QT can't play the files, that could either be an issue with the codec per se, or your Mac not being equipped with the extra widgets needed to handle the headers of PC-based containers. All H.264 encoding software is not created equal. Use x264, which is freeware available as a stand-alone plug-in that works with stuff like MPEG Streamclip, and also comes built-in with recent versions of Handbrake (also freeware). There are more tweaks available in the interface than Carter has pills. I've never had any odd color or contrast problems using the presets (since the individual setting parameters are mostly WAY over my head), but if you did get results you don't like, you could probably find a setting that would do the trick if you got under the hood far enough. Anyway, as Aaron said, the problem may be the playback software, not the files you've generated themselves. I agree with Aaron that H.264 is usually the best thing to send out, if only due to file size. For shorter pieces, I'd use ProRes if the venue accepts it. For the H.264, I recommend putting it in an .mp4 container, as that's more universal than .mov .avi .mkv etc. etc. tested some mov files today (exported 'same as source' from avid 3.0 on a pc) on a mac, quicktime wouldn't open them vlc played them back deinterlaced ( with a green line at the top, in one case) any ideas what's up? i've tried H264 exports but the colours/contrast get washed out, so i'm avoiding that option; thought that 'same as source' would be better than any form of compression ...? ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Bolex 16/super 16 conversion
Does anyone have experience with, comments on Ultra 16mm which creates wide-screen 16 by widening the gate to expose between the top and bottom of the sprocket holes, thus: 1. The mount does not need to be recentered. 2. Pretty much any 16mm lens should cover. 3. The footage can be used as regular 4x3-ish standard 16mm. I assume one issue would be finding a transfer service able to scan it to HD or whatever, since blow-ups to 35mm no loner seem to be a thing, as 35mm no longer seems to be a thing. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Broken mini DV
I've transplanted tape innards into a different shell, and also just replaced the door. I can't remember if I've done either with mini-DV though. I just looked at a tape, and it's not held together by screws, and it's not obvious how to take it apart. It looks like there are 4 holes on the bottom into which you would insert some sort of tool to release lock catches. If worst came to worst, you might have to break these catch points to get the cassette apart, in a way the cassette couldn't be reassembled properly permanently. However, you could probably just tape a repaied cassette back together temporarily, capture the whole thing to your computer, and lay it back to a fresh DV tape. You (Gene) probably don't want to try any of this yourself. Get someone with nimble fingers and basic mechanical ability. In any case, experiment with tapes you can spare (e.g. blanks) before touching the one with content you want to save. Check YouTube and Google for videos and/or web-pages on how to take the cassette apart. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] cat films
What else could we shown in a Cat Film Fest? As Ekrem mentioned, there's Cat Cradle and Fuses. Dunno if the amount of kitteh-kontent is high enough for a feline fest, but the presence of the pussy... er, scratch that [Meow!] I mean the context of the cat, is the unraveling intertextual ball of string tying the two works together, or maybe being batted away from StanCat by CaroleeCat, or maybe the mirrored meowser is Schneeman's way of saying, 'my little furry pet is purring because she just pounced on some wee bit of pickle, and by the way, did you know that cats are independent creatures who do their own thing instead of licking their masters fantasy boots, and cats have really sharp claws they can dig into your untutored eye if you piss them off by mixing up which human is owned by which cat, and somehow indicate you think you own even one cat much less two, so go pine in the pines with your poor putrefying pooch and leave my kitty alone! You could show Marker's 'Case of the Grinning Cat' which also might be a little light on actual kitty-kontent, but again the cat-concept is pretty important, and any excuse to show Marker is always a good excuse. Or you could go conceptual rather than representational: I read somewhere that felines large and small are creatures who spend most of the time sleeping between brief bursts of activity. So I'm thinking you could show all 5 hours and 21 minutes of Sleep, in a room filled with sofa and actual cats, so after puzzling over what do do with themselves for awhile, instead of getting annoyed and heading to the box office in angry mass protest to The Management, the viewers would figure they can emulate the cats and sooner or later pretty much the whole audience would be sleeping along with John Giorno, curled up on a couch like Giorno, but with cuddling kitties, sometimes coming and going but mostly sleeping as cats mostly do. Taking the cat cues, they might conclude that 'Sleep' is not the title of a 'movie' you 'watch' but might be a gentle imperative, like a Yoko Ono instruction, to stage the most simple and mundane action as a form of Art. Or not. Either way, they're in cat-mode, so it's basically nappy time whenever they feel like it no matter what else is going on in the room, and from time to time they'll wake up, yawn, stretch, look around a little bit — maybe watch the screen for awhile, maybe watch the other people sleeping, maybe think about how many hours John Giorno has spent sleeping since 1963, maybe wonder how many hours of sleep they'll have before they join Warhol in eternal slumber, maybe think about what a room of people sleeping because a silent black and white film of a man dozing on a couch can't keep them awake means in light of Warhol's claimed intent of documenting sleep for historical purposes since no one slept anymore due to the miracles of modern chemistry. But, being cat-people for the evening, they wouldn't think about those things too long or too hard before slipping back into a REM state with a dreamy revelation that the proper nouns 'Walter' White' and 'Warhol' all begin with a 'W'. Then, maybe 90 minutes later, they wake up since the man-cat on the next couch is shattering the silence with loud irregular apneas and hypopneas because he didn't think to bring his C-PAP to a film screening, only, on awakening, they don't dig out their cell phones to check how much longer the film is going to run, they just realize they're hungry, and the smell of chicken and fish is coming from the lobby. So they amble out of the screening room and over to the concessions area set up especially for the screening, where they get served sashimi and/or poulet kabobs, (or Tuna hot dish if it's at The Walker), and at this spot there are benches set up by big picture windows where they can sit awhile and watch birds fly back and forth from the feeders outside, but the benches aren't that comfy so they head back to the couches in the screening room soon enough, tummies full and fall back into the rhythm of Sleeps sleep. When they wake up again after a big orange Maine Coon cat licks some hot-dish off their cheek, they sit up, the cat hops onto their lap and starts to purr, they reach down to pet it without thinking about it. Then it dawns on them that since they're doing the stroking and not getting stroked, their personal cat analogy is breaking down, and they start thinking like a human again, but still retaining a kind of felinious disposition. Some thoughts that might follow: Andy Warhol was like some kind of mutant future-cat, since he maintained a feline indifference and inscrutability while never sleeping and working constantly; Sleep is celluloid-projection-as-cat since it has 'bursts of activity' mixed in with the sleeping, and combining the two is pretty much the only way to make it from beginning to end (though 'sleeping' might be more figurative than literal); why am i
Re: [Frameworks] Largest purchaser of Kodak 16mm film stock, NFL Films, has switched to digital production
Well, even though NFL Films has gone digital, and will probably close their lab after their current supply of stock runs out, they know the value of their massive archive of 16mm footage, and the archival value of photochemical film. I can't see them committing that history to any conversion to any digital format for the purpose of dumping the film archives. Digital formats are always relatively short-lived, being superceded in one way or another, and there's always a newer and better film scanner down the road. Besides, the task of converting all that material boggles the mind. The practical requirements of maintaining an archive such as NFL Films has offer some small solace to photochemical film artists. Obviously, the biggest threat to the future of photochemical filmmaking is now the continued existence of stock. As many have noted, Kodak is only capable of stock production on a mass-industrial scale, and as the demand for big orders of stock decreases (as it inevitably will as this is all about Big Business bottom lines) Kodak will certainly close up shop altogether sooner or later. It remains to be seen whether there will enough of a market to support production of photochemical film on a smaller scale, both in terms of the initial cost of developing the limited-run production technology, and in terms of subsequent sales. But, let's say someone steps up to fill that gap. For years, Fred Camper has been saying the greatest threat to 16mm as an art-form is the vulnerability of the projection equipment. Projectors are more likely to go awry than are cameras, and qualified repair folks are extremely hard to find. One can imagine a say when all the projector techs have retired or passed-on, all the shops closed, with the knowledge lost to the next generation. (Also a possibility with cameras, of course, though less likely.) However, as long as well-funded archives of 16mm exist, SOMEBODY's going to need to know enough about sprockets and claws and shutters and so on that mechanical knowledge of photochemical cinema will survive Film-film artists may be able to tap into that in order to keep their chosen medium viable. Still, it wouldn't be a bad idea for photochemical film artists, curators, archivists etc. to form a tools-preservation cooperative. A first step would be to acquire complete service documentation on every common make and model of 16mm projectors, cameras, flatbeds, etc. A second and even more crucial step would be seeking out and acquiring EVERY specialized tool referenced in that documentation, before all those special widgets get dumped in the landfill, and engaging a mechanical engineer to document the exact specs for each tool, such that a machinist would be able to produce new ones from scratch in the future. (Assuming there will still be machinists in the future...) Third would be stockpiling spare parts, and things like projection lenses. I shudder to think about how much of this stuff has gone into dumpsters in the last 15 years. (The last time I tried to find anything wider than a 50mm for a Pageant it was like searching for the proverbial needle that might or might not even be in the haystack. That was 6 or 7 years ago, and I'd guess it's gotten worse since. Heck, even wide/fast lenses for Eikis and Elmos have gotten seriously scarce. Last time I checked there seemed to still be some supply of options for wide-barrel BellHowells, but the idea of running prints through one of those gives me the willies...) ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Kodak Film Stocks to be Discontinued, Announced in December
Alex Balkam wrote: It may be time for Frameworks to consider contacting the higher ups at Kodak to express the importance that the less industrial, less Hollywood products really need to be maintained during this challenging time in order that we can continue to expose young filmmakers and the public to the merits and beauty of film. Been there. Did that. Pleaded, cajoled, begged John Mason, former higher-up in Kodak's Ed division (now retired) that they continue making tungsten color reversal so schools with non-studio-style programs (and budgets) could still teach photo-chemical filmmaking in color. I told them they were driving us little-folk into digital. Deaf ears. All they really cared about were big schools that bought lots of stock and fed students into the industry as camera crew. Their position was: 'You teach basic cinematography in BW, and anyone doing an advanced project will have the time and resources for color negative.' I am thinking there must be some way to make them realize that the only way we will have Tarantinos lobbying major production companies to guarantee Kodak contracts in the future is to be able to show the next generation what it means to work on film. They know that. You have to understand Kodak was a giant industrial corporation that had no economic path to shrinkage, and is now is capitalist hospice, waiting out its last days. All they're trying to do now is slow the bleeding, and save as much stock value as they can for the next quarterly report. Even if someone in the higher-ups still plans to be around for the next generation of output by major production companies (and that's doubtful), they're not in a position to 'maintain less Hollywood products,' plan for the future, or do anything but maximize profits from the Cinema Division right now as a bandaid on the larger corporate hemorrhage. Kodak used to be a big sponsor of UFVA, throwing a big Banquet at the conference each year, and bringing in a major personage from ASC for a featured evening talk, e.g. Vilmos Zsigmond, Laszlo Kovacs... (Their concept of 'filmmaking education' beginning and ending with cinematography for narrative film. If any of the many Ed. reps who used to go to UFVA even knew who, say, Al Maysles or Jem Cohen were, they didn't give a poop.) Kodak even hosted the conference one year at their corporate HQ in Rochester, in the fancy RD building they had put up maybe a decade or two earlier. Most of the facility had been vacated, and the place already smelled of death. That was 2001. It was either around that time or in the next couple years (memory fails me) that they made their Big Move to show the next generation what it means to work on film. This was the introduction of the exact BW stocks they are now discontinuing or making unavailable in 100' loads (read 'phasing out'). The old Plus-X/Tri-X processing was considered too toxic, and they had to entirely reformulate the stocks for new chemistry. This cost them a lot of time and money, and it was all spearheaded by the Ed. Division. The read-between-the-lines message was: 'We don't make enough money on this to justify the RD economically, and if it was up to the bean-counters corporate would be dropping all of this stuff, but we (Ed. div.) went in and fought for you (teachers), and convinced them that profit-or-not, we need new BW stocks so the academies can still teach cinematography at a reasonable cost.' A few years later, the Ed. Division had shrunk to a fraction of it's former size, Kodak was no longer sponsoring UFVA as before, and the sumptuous Kodak Banquets and prestige ASC talks had been replaced by crackers-and-chesse receptions and bozo editing talks sponsored by Avid. By the last time I taught my photochemical filmmaking class in '09, I was spooling 100D off 400' cores onto 100' daylight reels so the students who could afford color stock could get something into our clockwork cameras. When I'd found out Kodak had discontinued the 100' loads of 100D, I had just shaken my head. What else was I to expect after 10 years of watching the ship sink, but another nail in the non-Hollywood-photochemical-film-education coffin? In conclusion, if non-Hollywood makers and educators are going to organize around the preservation of reasonable-cost 16mm stock, I think it would be wise to aim those efforts beyond Kodak. Try to funnel as much $$ as possible to the manufacturers that have the best prospects of staying in business the longest, try to make it in their interest to expand distribution in North America, and offer student discounts. Lobby them for the latter, perhaps by gathering commitments from schools to order X amount of stock if a discount becomes available. Explain to them that when Kodak goes under, the students aren't going to have the option of paying more for un-discounted stock, and they'll almost all just go digital. Look at the development rate of
[Frameworks] Daylight Spools, and 16mm activism: Anyone? (Buehler?)
The daylight spool issue is important. I always try to remember to ask the lab to return them otherwise they keep them and sell them. I don't know how things are in the UK or US at present, but back in the last decade when I was spooling off 400' cores onto 100' daylight loads for my students, there were several labs (can't remember which, sorry) that would send me as many 100' daylight spools as I asked for for the cost of shipping alone. The labs that processed lots of 100' loads for schools etc. always had more empty daylight spools than they wanted to store, since they always returned the processed film on those white plastic reels. I suppose (sigh) when labs have gone under, their stock of daylight spools have mostly gone into the recycling bin. But there might be a bunch in a storage locker somewhere. It would certainly be worth contacting any and all labs that still process any significant amount of 100' loads to find out what they do with the empty daylight spools, and under what conditions they're willing to part with them. .. Which brings me back to the subject of 16mm makers and teachers organizing to deal with issues related to keeping the format viable. I'm disappointed (though not at all surprised) that there has been zero response on this list to Alex Belkam's original suggestion about this, or my reply. The idea of Organizing experimental film folks may seem like herding cats, but it had to have been possible to some degree at one time at least, or else the Coops wouldn't exist, right? The 'vibe' I'm getting from the comments in the [Frameworks] Kodak Film Stocks to be Discontinued, Announced in December thread is 'someone will pick up the slack of stock production when Kodak folds, so we don't have to do anything, at least not collectively.' IMHO, any such thought is painfully naive. The 16mm ship has been sinking steadily through our young century. The first big blows were the discontinuation of 7240 and Fuji stepping out of the game, and the situation just keeps getting worse every year. You can't look at the actual trends over time, and the continuing relevance of the reasons behind them, and realistically imagine things are going to level off at some point, or even slow down, more or less by themselves. You can search the Frameworks archives going back 15 years, in the endless 'film vs. video' threads, and you'll find the posts about 16mm viability and the future prospects of 16mm to overwhelmingly dominated by what has proved to be sad wishful thinking. The time to organize is not now. It was 15 years ago, but at that point in time a little foresight would have been required. But by 2005, the need for collective action should have been obvious. Now it's screaming at the top of it's lungs, flailing it's arms and jumping up and down. Is anybody paying attention? The daylight spool issue Nicky raises is pretty damn important, but it's just the tippy-top of a very big iceberg. Who's the youngest tech anyone can name who can fix a Bolex or Beaulieu? If you came name anyone who'll service a Filmo or K100, same question. Can you name anyone under 30 who's learning this trade? How do you imagine the knowledge and skills of Dieter, Jean-Louis, Bernie, Andrew, Dwight et. al. are going to be passed on to the next generation? If we don't hang together, we will surely all hand separately - Benjamin Franklin. Given that 'you should organize' is a fairly vague proposition, I shall suggest a possible concrete step in that direction. A 16mm maker/teacher on the full-time faculty of a well-regarded college or university (**cough**howboutRogerBeebe**cough) should try to get their institution to hold/sponsor a conference/symposium/whatever on 'The Future of 16mm Filmmaking' to which all the significant players would be invited (travel funds supplied for without institutional support), for the purpose of sharing ideas, coming up with a plan, and moving toward putting it into action. As an exemplar of such a move's utility, I would point to Dan Streible, who more or less single-handedly started the Orphan Film movement by getting symposia off the ground which pulled in enough people to start a Movement for the Cause. As a pragmatic aside, I'd note that being in on the ground floor of an academic movement is a great way to achieve tenure, or get promoted from Associate to Full. And you won't even have to sing the chorus of 'Alice's Restaurant' to a psychologist. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] CAPTURING DVD
MPEG Streamclip will not do the job alone for commercial DVDs. They're copy protected. Capturing clips from them for educational/scholarly purposes is Fair Use, but the technology to defeat the copy protection is illegal. AFAIK, there are only two current Mac apps that rip copy-protected discs: 'Mac DVD Ripper Pro'http://www.macdvdripperpro.com/ This works pretty well. 'DVDFab Mac'http://www.dvdfab.cn/dvd-ripper-for-mac.htm This is a Mac port of a popular PC app. Can't say how well it works. The full version lets you select specific clips and out put in various formats. There's also a freeware version of the decrypter that just does the whole disc or main title: http://www.dvdfab.cn/hd-decrypter-for-mac.htm Once you have a decrypted file or VIDEO-TS folder, you can open it in MPEG Streamclip, define specific clips, and export them to a variety of formats. ... On the Windows side, there are more options, most notably AnyDVD, which makes encrypted DVDs appear unencrypted to the OS, and thus you can use and copy conversion whatever software on them. The no-longer developed (i.e. shut-down) old reliables DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink still work on most DVDs. ... You can always see what's available out there by checking the 'Tools' page on WideoHelp.com http://www.videohelp.com/tools The specific sub-categories are all for PC, and all the Mac stuff is gathered under 'MacOS video tools. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] CAPTURING DVD
Most of the DVDs I've come across aren't copy protected, but it's still a two step process. Handbrake, which is freeware will rip the NTSC DVD to a mpeg 4 format, then I use mpeg streamclip to make a mov file. With PAL DVD you can rip it with just mpeg streamclip. That's a poor workflow. The mpeg4 from Handbrake is too compressed, and will degrade the image. MPEG Streamclip will open an unencrypted DVD directly. You can just de-mux it into elementary streams that won't change the data at all, just make it usable by (certain) other programs. Or you can output a combined mpeg2 A/V file that leaves the video unchanged but converts the audio from AC3 to mpeg. Or if you're going to edit the content in an NLE, you can convert direct from the DVD files to any Quicktime codec installed on your computer. DV's a good general purpose codec for SD. On a Mac that has any 'Pro Apps' installed, you can go with ProRes422 LT if you want higher quality, but in most cases from DVD source you're unlikely to notice a difference in the vast majority of footage. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] DVR compression
I assume that video recorded on a satellite DVR receiver is compressed much more than on a DVD, right? Not necessarily. Some DVDs are much more compressed than others. Satellite receivers are getting MPEG2 streams, the same basic data format as DVD. I'm not sure exactly how much bandwidth is used by SD satellite feeds, and how that compares to a typical SD DVD. Most satellite feeds are HD these days though, thus creating the same image you'd see from a Blu-Ray, not a DVD. I would guess HDTV feeds are more compressed than Blu-Rays, but I don't really know... I have seen some 'classic' films on satellite that looked considerably better than they do on sloppily encoded DVDs. HD looks good with a satellite feed if there's no weather interference. In contrast, any terrestrial HD feed looks visibly inferior, with Verizon DSL streams being extremely compressed and crappy-looking. In short, whatever you get on a satellite DVR should be fine for any general purpose. The trick is getting it out of the DVR and into a computer. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Bolex EL Power question
If it shows as charged, and then runs the camera at all just not well, does it still show as charged after that? A bad cable would likely produce intermittent power, not weak power. . The thing to do is isolate the source of the problem. Don't go out an get your battery recelled until you figure out what's going on. 1) Find something else that runs on 12V, and see if the battery will power it: how well, how long... A light is good, if you have one, as it should draw down the battery at a similar rate as the camera. Anything that's just electronic doesn't draw enough to make a good test. 2) See if another 12V source will run the camera. You can jury rig it to a car battery, for example. If the camera has been sitting a long time, it could be 'stuck' and in need of a CLA. The source needs to be apply to supply the minimal current to run the camera, about 1A (1000mA). There is no such thing as a source with too much current, the device only draws what it needs. (The thing you can't go over is Volts, but few devices are that picky, so if you're a little over you'll be fine, e.g. a 14V supply is highly unlikely to burn out a 12V device -- e.g. in emergencies...) Battery capacity is rated in Amp/Hours, i.e. a 3.4AH battery should supply 1 Amp for 3.4 hours. .. The battery tech used in any older 16mm camera is old, old, old. The cells would be NiCAD's, which have low capacity, discharge quickly on the shelf, are subject to the dreaded 'memory effect', and are environmentally toxic beside. If you get a battery re-celled, NEVER get it re-celled with NiCADS!!! Replace the cells with NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) cells, preferably the low-shelf-discharge variety. If you can't find the same cell size/shape as the original NiCADs for any kind of external battery, either improvise, or if that doesn't work, just chuck the whole thing and get something new. You can make a DIY belt pretty easily for a lot less than anything you can buy. If you do re-cell a NiCAD pack with NiMH, you'll need a new charger. NiCAD and NiMH chargers have slightly different electronics, and a NiCAD charger probably won't put out enough current to charge up the NiMH cells anyway. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Bolex EL Power question
Ooof. Sorry, I was imagining a battery belt. Sorry, I think my info is bad. Any NiCAD/NiMH battery is made up of a number of individual cells, whether it be configured as belt or brick. !2V almost always = 10 cells at 1.2V ea. The only kind of battery that comes as one big singular thing is Sealed Lead Acid, essentially a miniu-version of a car battery. I doubt Bescor ever made one of those, but I'm not sure. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Constructing A Foley / Sound Studio
Matt: I doubt you'll find good models at other schools. In my travels, college sound facilities have either been created from the ground up as part of an expensive building project, or jury rigged into some existing space so cheaply and poorly they're barely worth having. If you can find any schools that have gone a DIY route, they'll probably be useful mostly in telling you what NOT to do. I've have experience with some small pre-fab booths, and they all stunk. Also, they are designed as essentially the opposite of what you want: the idea being the talent goes into the booth to do a VO. To get anything functional, you're going to need a custom constructed studio booth designed to fit the room. The materials with need to be custom cut, and the booth will likely need to be constructed mostly in the room, rather than making larger sections in another location and assembling them in the space. I would guess you could hire a contractor who specializes in sound booth construction to create something for you, but i'd also guess the cost would be prohibitive. There are any number of books that lay out principles and methods for DIY booth construction. Perhaps you could work with the college's physical plant to design and build something 'yourself' (that is, within the college). I would guess what you can accomplish will depend on how much time you (Matt) can put into it. That would be an advantage your program has over most small college film programs: your labor, knowledge and commitment to getting it right.. Since it's an educational facility it doesn't have to look nice to impress clients, it just has to be functional. Whatever you save on aesthetics, do not scrimp on basic functionality. You'll need a serious double pane glass sound isolating window, serious sound seals on the door(s). The trick is the sound isolation of the booth. It's ideally a six-sided double-walled room within the classroom, with the bottom decoupled from the classroom floor, and the inner and outer wall of the booth decoupled... There are a number of books, and maybe even some plans on the web. I have no familiarity with any of them. This one was recommended: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/home-recording-studio-rod-gervais/1100355128?ean=9781435457171 I'd probably do plenty of research, check several books, before making any plans. Other things that are not going to be cheap: A classroom probably has old-school tube fluorescent overhead lighting which will have to be replaced. LED lamps probably, but I don't know if they have counter-EMF issues. You'll probably have to isolate the stage part of the room from the buildings ventilation and heating system, as that's likely to go on and off at will and generate too much noise. Then you'll need a way to ventilate the booth, as it will be a sealed space and the equipment in it will generate heat. Finally, classrooms have a shit-ton of echo and you'll need serious sound deadening treatments for the walls and ceiling. In short, it's a major project, and if you can't do it right, it's probably not worth doing at all. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] 16mm/Super8 Screening Panel Discussion @ NYPL Jefferson Market Library
Cherry-picking a definition from Google will not do for prescriptive lexicopraphy: of, relating to, or being a mechanism in which data is represented by continuously variable physical quantities http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/analog A photochemical film frame is an analog reproduction. The density of silver halide particles is an analog of the light intensity striking that part of the frame. Analog reproduction existed before 'signal': phonograph recordings. Pip's objection would seem to be that 'analog film' is redundant, and semantically dependent on the opposing term 'digital film' which Pip finds a distorting neologism. However, film HAS come to mean any moving picture production on any medium. Were Matt Whitman to title his event simply Persistence of Vision: Young Filmmakers no one would know from the title what was unique about the program. IMHO, promotion of an event sponsored by a Public Library has a responsibility to communicate in terms the general audience of library users will understand. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] HIGH SCHOOL workflow
Jeff: BW neg, quite clearly, probably Kodak Double-X Would they have pushed the stock? My impression has always been that Direct Cinema first generation looked pretty crappy to begin with because they were getting a lot of grain and getting grayer blacks etc, to shoot with available light. What were the typical doco original stocks at MIT back in the day? What did you guys use for Seventeen? Were you pushing? I don't remember, does reversal have any advantage over negative in terms of dust etc. that would come up reloading 400 ft. mags in a hurry in the field inside a changing bag? (I only ever shot reversal myself...) ' IDK what the camera original of 'Window Water' would have been (Kodachrome?), but I'm sure it was slow, tight-grained, deep blacks, etc. As I'm old enough to go back to the VNF stocks, I remember the world of difference between 7240 and 7250, and just how blah the image became to get that extra speed you needed to shoot doco with a 12-120 without bringing in a shit ton of lights. ... The OP reminds me of the old Film/Video debates on FRAMEWORKS, to which I always objected that neither were one thing (though NTSC was pretty blah no matter what). What is 'film'? 35mm, 16mm, 8mm? What is 16mm? Kodachrome? ECO? 7250? What's the print stock? How's the print? nobody says anything when they're shown 16mm at its best Maybe because that almost never happens. It's hard for me to recall seeing a fresh 16mm print of a good film and NOT being blown away. I still remember renting The End from FMC in '83-'84 to show in colloquium at Temple, and getting a very recent print that must have been the result of J.J. Murphy's restoration/revival efforts for Maclaine. There was no visible wear or fading of any kind on the print, and it was absolutely STUNNING. When I rented the same film to show my class in '02 (or so) it was such a let down, washed out, scratched, bad splices that jumped out of the gate. I was always telling the students 'No, it's not supposed to look like this! It's really beautiful. Trust me! ...Just...imagine!. Didn't have Blu-Ray then, but when I screened 'Garden of Earthly Delights' from the DVD with our 3-chip DLP it looked much better than any of the vast majority of prints I got from FMC or Canyon. HERESY! Yes, I screened 'Mothlight' from DVD too! So I couldn't take the print out of the can and have them look at the individual frames, yada yada yada, and yes that would have been nice, but in terms of the scope of the course the benefit would have been nowhere near justifying the resource allocation. Anyway, the points are A. A Blu-Ray of WWBM SHOULD look better than a fresh print of High School because the camera original stocks are apples and oranges. B. A Blu-Ray of WWBM SHOULD look better than circulation print of WWBM because it's hasn't been through the not quite clean gate of a cranky Bell and Howell Autoload a dozen or so times. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Experimental shorts with science-fiction themes?
The obvious but not yet mentioned: Sins of the Fleshapoids - Mike Kuchar Science Friction (and other works) - Stan Van Der Beek America is Waiting, Mongoloid, Cosmic Ray, Mea Culpa - Bruce Conner ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Response to Gene Youngblood
Chill out, people! This is a Listserv. People write short posts quickly, and hit 'Send'. Rhetorical excess comes with the territory as we dash off our thoughts w/o reflecting deeply about whether our wording will read to others with the meanings they had for us when they popped into our heads. I took Sasha's OP as meant to advocate for films that have a sort of perspective not-yet presented in the thread -- works one perhaps could call more 'post-modern' engagements with culture and identity. I took the crack about Wavelength as essentially tangential and polemic -- an observation that many contemporary students are not much engaged with the aesthetic concerns of that work. It's not clear whether Sasha's pique was directed at Wavelength specifically or 'mid-century High modernism' in general -- i.e. maybe all 'structural film' and/or Brakhage abstractions etc.?? Regardless, intentionally or not, her language was destined to stir the pot, make some folks feel poked with a stick, and fire off testy replies. No film is beyond criticism, including observations that whatever it's merits for other situations, it's a poor choice for a given programmer or teacher's goals in addressing the specific audiences they have at hand. Sasha's snark was phrased as too universal: seeming to suggest Wavelength is no longer any good to ANY group of curious, excited young artists. But, indeed, I'm sure there ARE groups of curious, excited young artists without a background in cinema who would find Wavelength alienating, at least initially, and it's perfectly valid to pass on that film for an introduction to experimental film in favor of something more immediately engaging to the group at hand. As Gene so pungently observed, the problem starts with the absurdity of Donal's original query. First, the 3 films concept makes no sense, since experimental films range in length from a few minutes to several hours. (My gag 3: Star Spangled to Death, Sleep, The Extravagent Shadows... no intermissions or bathroom breaks!) Second, essential is just silly and off-point. Unlike Hollywood films directed at mass audiences and respecting a common set of conventions, experimental works are often very personal, and incredibly varied in form and content. Thus, what works are and aren't essential is not remotely universal, but conditional and contingent on for whom? and for what purpose? Third, this variety and specificity means trying to crowd-source a list of '3 essentials' is utter folly, that can only lead to unproductive arguments if people play along. In the thread OP, Donal didn't tell us anything about his own approach to the realm of the moving image or what kinds of art practices and aesthetics the folks attending the workshops will be coming from. For all we know, the attendees could all be middle-aged ceramicists or landscape painters. Ultimately, he needs to pick works that speak to him in some way he thinks will enable him to use them to engage 'noobs'. So it is with any instance of programming films. The work must 'fit' the programmer, the audience, and the purpose. Given the lack of info in the query, responses have (as one would expect) presumed teaching or exhibition situations with which the posters are familiar: Andy and Gene spoke of their students; Sasha referred to YOUNG ARTISTS. But I read the OP as posing an audience of experienced working artists who presumably already have some sort of aesthetic perspective, rather than the sort of student population that would sign up for a studies course in experimental film. Just as there is no universal 3 essential films, there is more than one valid pedagogical approach to introducing noobs to experimental cinema. Sometimes you want to ease folks in, showing work that has some familiar elements. Meshes is probably the most widely used introduction to experimental work, and over the decades so many of its elements have been incorporated into pop culture (advertising, music video, etc.), and it's subject matter (angst at gender roles and domesticity) is so enduring, that it offers a variety of access points. That works. But for some groups being introduced to experimental work, what I call 'deep end of the pool pedagogy' can work as well or better — tossing the initiates into the strangest water possible w/o a life-jacket, then tossing a safety line into the trashing if it's not getting anywhere... Andy and Gene speak of student appreciation of Wavelength, but under what conditions? What courses have they taken before? Is Wavelength the FIRST screening on the syllabus? Sasha's put-down seemed to me to posit Wavelength as a poor choice for point-of-entry, not something not worth screening at all, and I totally understand that. When I first taught 'experimental' I screened it about half-way through the term, but found the 'bang' too minimal for the screening time, and concluded any pedagogical purpose I had for showing
Re: [Frameworks] Films on nuclear energy, The Cold War, utopia
-utopia Sins of the Fleshapoids, and of course, Zardoz. -nuclear energy/war -The Cold War Cristopher Maclaine: The End (essential) Lots of Conner besides Crossroads: A Movie; Cosmic Ray; America is Waiting; Report Craig Baldwin: Wild Gunman, RocketKitKongoKit, Tribulation 99, ¡O No Coronado! Paul Sharits: Peace Mandala Brakhage: 23rd Psalm Branch ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Is there any editing pattern on Critical Mass by Hollis Frampton?
Watching the film one could assumed Frampton followed a random process but i'm not sure about it. It's not random at all. IIRC, both the length of all the cuts and the advance between cuts are numbers of frames with some 'significance', e.g. I think the shots may all be ~ 40 frames / 1 foot. Frampton worked with algorithms, not randomness, but as a form of 'poetry'. Thus, a certain percentage of the 'art' is rooted in the nature of the algorithm, which is derived in part from certain non-obvious poetic associations... ... For another example: I can't recall reading anything about (nostalgia) that references the length of the shots. So one time I screened it for class, I timed them roughly with simple stopwatch. My conclusion: each shot is a 100 ft. load (I didn't examine close enough to see if they were loaded on daylight spools, with the light leaks at the ends then cut off, or loaded/unloaded on cores in absolute darkness minus just threading leader, etc.). This is not only a sort of obvious and convenient practical way to do the film, it also has resonances with the subject matter of Frampton giving up one art form and adopting another, memory and loss, etc. The prints burn on the hotplate until the film runs out. Any camera only holds so much, for so long. Etc. ... Also of note: working by hand in 'analog' media, Frampton was not ultra-picky about hitting any of his patterns EXACTLY all the time. Things will be off a frame or two here or there (and no matter how you load them, different 100 ft. loads of 16mm stock will yield slightly different lengths of usable footage). Apparently, this was not just the result of pragmatic 'accident' either, and Frampton introduced some of the minute deviations intentionally, perhaps keeping his 'human' hand in the game (?). ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Battery for super-8 Beaulieu 4008ZM4
When looking to re-power any Beaulieu, remember the original batterie were made from no-obsolete NiCad cells. If you're going to the expense and effort of re-celling a battery, you sure don't want to wind up with NiCads -- low capacity and the dreaded memory effect. At a minimum, you'd want NiMH cells, preferably the low-discharge type used in Eneloop and other rechargeable brands (I'm not sure if these are available in the sizes used in the original batteries). With any NiMH celled battery, using the original Beaulieu charger may be dicey, as the rspecs for NiMH charging are slightly different. No loss, as the little wall-wart chargers are primitive and slow, and a good charger for NiMH cells isn't that expensive and a great benefit to battery readiness and maintenance. I don't know about the voltage(s) of the Super 8 batteries, or whether they even can be repacked with standard size cells. The fatter R16 batteries can be re-done with AA cells, and the smaller standard ones with AAA cells. Typically, you wouldn't use the regular kind sold for flashlights cameras and such, but ones made for building packs, which come with solder tabs attached. (Soldering leads onto the bare ends of a standard rechargeable battery is not recommended for amateurs.) As it happens, R16 batteries are 7.2V, which is the same as the battery packs used in many RC toys, so you can pick up a charger at a hobby shop -- it's easy enough to take the plug end off the original Beaulieu charger and wire it to the new one, or get a compatible plug at an electronic shop (3 pin DIN for the R16) and preserve the original charger for whatever. As Chuck notes, if you can live with a wire running from the camera to your pocket, making-up an external battery pack is the least expensive and most flexible way to go. It's an easy DIY project (you should be able to snooker a friend if you find soldering too intimidating yourself). Not to take business away from Jean-Louis or Phil, but those guys' time and expertise are waay above the necessary skill level -- it's like hiring a Indy car mechanic to change your oil... On Apr 22, 2015, at 10:56 AM, Jean-Louis Seguin wrote: A new battery is no less than $200 USD. Plus you might Need a new charger. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] sound examples in film + video
For Hollywood film, 'Die Hard' ia masterpiece of sound production. The SFX carry a huge amount of information, tone and style, and (naturally) they're all post-production, including lots of Foley. I heard the lead Foley artist give a talk on it as part of an audio-art series many moons ago, and the level of detail was absolutely fascinating. Of course, all the footfalls are walked on a Foley stage, and the Foley artists not only walk in character (how would Hnas walk? how would Mclane?) but select shoes that SOUND like what they imagine the character would wear. Typical of all 'realist' filmmaking, the actual thing does not function to represent itself through the process of mediation — in this case genuine expensive shoes (of the sort Hans would wear, e.g.) don't SOUND expensive, but the artist (a woman) had a pair of old thrift-store-bought shoes that had evoked luxury sonically. The Foley artists have huge kits of 'junk' purchased at thrift stores and auction for their unique sounds — more shoes than Imelda Marcos, each pair have a different sonic character. One of her prized possessions was a massive old padlock that, when dropped, sounds like what we expect a dropped gun to sound like - and when scraped over various other mundane things makes metal-on-metal sounds that work for all kinds of specialized effects — all based on the Foley artist knowing how to use them just so. For example, when the thieves lock-down Nakatomi Plaza, there are sounds of various metal gates coming down, door locking shut, etc. — all shot MOS, with the audio added in post from stuff out of her Foley kit. An older classic film with a heavy reliance on audio for storytelling, including defining off-screen space, is 'M' where the plot revolves around a blind man as the only witness to a murder, but who can identify him by ear. As it was made very early in the sound era, Lang and his collaborators were very conscious of using sound as a creative tool, and innovated a lot of devices that became common after that. 'The Conversation' having already been mentioned, I'll note the audio work on 'Apocalypse Now' and 'Rumble Fish' is also brilliant. '2001' for the parts WITHOUT the score - especially the scene with Dr. Floyd on the shuttle with a very telling conversation just barely audible in the background. 'Touch of Evil'... Welles' b/g in radio drama also figures in 'Citizen Kane' of course. 'The Birds': absent any non-diegetic sound, but with an electronic SFX track on which bernard Hermann served as a consultant. Spaghetti westerns, Hong Kong martial arts movies, and other commercial films make explicitly for international audiences do interesting things with dubbing, score and not-very-realistic diagetic SFX and soundscapes... The classic exemplar of non-diegetic sound (narration and music) revealed as framing the meaning of images is in Marker's 'Letter From Siberia'. Direct cinema documentary typically uses 'tricky' audio editing (J and L cuts) to create the illusion of temporal continuity in sequences where the shots weren't actually contiguous in time (being single camera shoots...) 'Primary' has lots of examples if you study the sound track, and think about how the changes in visual perspective DON't correspond to changes in audio perspective at so many points. It was made pre-crystal-sync, using a cable-sync hook-up that didn't work a lot of the time, so there was even more diddling in post to get the 'fly-on-the-wall' illusion. For experimental films, the first thing that comes to mind is 'The End', by Maclaine with it's long stretches of narration over black (punctuated by a few poetic SFX) and it's use of vocal performance and music throughout. 'Christmas on Earth' has no fixed sound-track, but rather instructions on how the projectionist might come up with something to play over the PA that provides the proper psychic tumult'. 'Meshes of the Afternoon' has an iconic music-as-SFX score that wasn't created until 16 years after the film was shot (how different might it have come across merely silent, or with a variety of other sound accompaniments during those 16 years??) Audio manipulations are central to Hollis Frampton's 'Critical Mass' and '(nostalgia)' (the later including Frampton's choice to have his narration read by the apparently under-rehearsed and disinterested Michael Snow -- which is especially weird in the segment where Frampton talks about his relationship with Snow...) ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Compression Codecs
If you're doing a screen capture to create footage from Google Maps, the resolution of the image, the frame-rate, and the compression codec will all be determined by the capture program. If you tell us what software you're using to create the original files, and with what settings, we can help you. I'm testing out Google Maps as a terrain for video-making. The footage, exported and recorded through Quicktime, is compressed as an .MOV file. The aspect ratio is apparently HUGE so editing in Premiere and then trying to export the final product as an .mov file is a problem. Basically even though my sequence settings are set to match the footage, which is apparently very large, I am unable to compress without losing basically a third of the perimeter and somehow getting a weird zoomed in image. Does anybody have a clue how to explain this? Go slow. 'Aspect ratio' is, well, the ratio of the width to height, 4:3, 16:9, etc. It has nothing to do with size. 'Resolution' is the dimensions of the image in pixels, e.g. 1920x1080 for 1080P Quicktime is a CONTAINER format that be used as a wrapper for many different codecs. File size is a product of resolution + frame rate + codec efficiency. Your already captured footage is compressed, the question is with what codec. What you've tried to do it seems is not compress the footage (which would not change the resolution) by down-rex it. That is, I assume the frame is bigger than 1920 x 1080 and you want to make it 1920x 1080. If you're getting cropping, you just have the settings wrong. If you can open the footage in Quicktime Pro 7, then Export / As Quicktime Movie / Options... / Settings = (pick your preferred editing codec and framerate: probably either ProRes or Apple Intermediate and 24fps / Size 1920x1080 / uncheck 'Sound' if it's silent. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] 16fps 16mm projectors?
I don't know of any specific models, but since 16fps was once the standard, there must be really old 'silent only' projectors that run at that speed, yes? I vaguely recall that some sound projectors can be made to run at 16fps by changing a pulley. I'm guessing they wouldn't be Elmos or Eikis though. Maybe Singer/Graflex? Depending on how much the speed matters (and what kind of resources are available) you could probably get a custom pulley fabricated (and find a proper sized belt) for a Graflex or maybe some Bell and Howells that would make them go at 16fps. I wouldn't want to try that on a Pageant: too hard to take apart. CONFESSION OF HERESY! The first year I taught experimental, I rented a couple films that were meant for 16fps, but had only a 24fps projector to show them. Not good, just ruined 'Serene Velocity' for example. So i subsequently obtained (COUGH) video copies of the works in question that had been telecinied at 24fps, dropped them back to 16fps in Final Cut, output them at something our video system could play (I forget if it was 24P or 29.97 interlaced standard NTSC - this was pre-HD). Despite all the pull-down, frame blending, and what have you, they looked fine on screen, and having the intended speed made a huge difference for the better in the aesthetic - what had previously been all but inaccessible to the students (and me) became 'Oh. Now I get it! BACK TO THE MECHANICAL That said, it all depends on the specific work. A lot of experimental films were made in light of exhibition conditions that would vary a lot from one screening to the next, including projector speed. The artists knew this was just how it was (whether they preferred it or not) and the works gained some kind of notoriety and identity in the world by having some aspect that transcended variations in exhibition contexts. That is to say, their aesthetic accommodated a fair measure of randomness. Which is all to say, while I wouldn't want to show anything specified for 16fps at 24fps, ever, I think a good number of films speced for 16fps work just fine - i.e. more-or-les the same - at 18fps. But others don't, YMMV etc. etc. Hi all, anyone know of 16mm projectors that run at 16fps? As far as I know most Pageants, Eikis and Elmos run at 18 if they have a silent speed. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] 16fps 16mm projectors?
It is in fact 'Sleep' that we'll be showing in Austin, TX in October; I'm not hopeful that I'll be able to find two functioning 16fps projectors locally... I got an email from someone encouraging me to instead use four projectors, as it would cut the screening time in half. So...Why two instead of one? Warhol would have been interested in the creative misuse of the apparatus, and in the footage being submitted to and deformed by norms enforced by mass-production and standardization. Would it not be within the spirit of 'Sleep' then, not only to have the viewers endure the wait for reel changes, but to rewind each reel and put it back in the can before threading the next one? I mean, given the TRT and the aesthetics of boredom, what's a few more minutes? I'd argue 'Sleep' is a performance art piece based in creating a mind-fuck around 'what it means to watch a film', which becomes about what different people in the audience at any screening DO in response to the challenge of 'how am I supposed to engage this thing' when faced with a work for which no existing conventions seem to apply, and which offers no hints of what 'rules' viewers might apply to it. Which poses a question of 'extra-textuality' for exhibitors – as in announcing a screening and inviting an audience some set of expectations are set forth, if only by the larger context of how the screening space or organization is framed (we show avant garde films), or the most minimal of rubrics (a film by Andy Warhol). That context would change if the screening was framed as a Happening, and the audience had access beforehand to the idea I just presented (this is about what different viewers do with it...). E.g. it's one thing if viewers are cued to the idea that it might be more interesting to attend to what other people in the audience are doing than to attend to what is or isn't happening on screen, and another thing if they're left to discover that possibility for themselves. But like everything about 'Sleep' I don't think there's a 'right' answer. Related random Factory-al thought: How about a screening where two bowls of pills are placed on a table to one side of the screen, one containing Adderall tabs, the other Klonopin? Thus other audience members could see who goes for which pills and when... Related random post-Factory-al thought: How about getting a couple of analytic projectors and showing 'Sleep' as a Ken-Jacobs-Nervous-System thing that goes slowly back and forth through the footage at different speeds and lasts, say, a whole week 24/7?? And who says four projectors would cut the TRT in half? Why not have four screens and just shuttle the reels from one to the next, still sequentially, Friar Jacques style? ...But if you set up something like that as one of those f***ing museum installation loops so it just went on and on forever without beginning or end and with people coming and going at random points whenever the hell they wanted to, THAT would heresy! HERESY, I say!... :-) ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] countryside film
Experimental filmmakers don't seem to get out of the city that much, and when they do they're more likely to wax rhapsodic on 'nature'. I'm not sure the violence and ignorance that reign in the little villages is something most experimental makers would have cred handling, w/o condescendingly talking-down. You kinds have to be from there or of there to mount a critique. I think a lot of the relevant narrative film are better qualified in that regard... Deliverance OK, if we're going to do fiction films for the violence and ignorance that reign in the little villages in opposition with the hippie vision of the countryside, I've got three words that IMHO more-or-less ought to end the discussion: Texas.Chainsaw.Massacre. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] countryside film
An experimentalish narrative feature: The Draughtsman's Contract Maybe those early 70s S8 films of the British countryside by Derek Jarman, I always feel they contain menace in the pastoral views. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Sound ? from an Eikie
Yes! That looks like EXACTLY what you need, and that's a good price for a readymade box. Connecting a 16mm projector with only a speaker jack to an audio system usually requires TWO things, and the Rolls box offers both: 1. An attenuator circuit to drop the output level from the speaker and match the impedance of the audio system input. 2. An isolation transformer to eliminate ground-loop hum. Some but not many projectors do have line level outputs, which don't require attenuation, but can still require isolation to prevent ground loop hum. You can usually get isolation cable with RCA jacks on each end at specialty car stereo stores. I haven't used that Rolls direct box, but I like that it has a variable attenuation circuit. I've made some simple one-value attenuation circuits, but every two devices you connect are a bit different, and it's hard to find one perfect level that fits all. Do note though, that the output of the Rolls box is a mono balanced line with an XLR connector – ideal for connection to an audio mixer, but to go directly into an equalizer you're probably looking at unbalanced stereo inputs (RCA jacks), so you'll probably need a custom cable for that. It should be a straight connection though — that is, you don't need another transformer to match the balanced out of the box to the higher-Z inputs of the equalizer. > I would recommend an attenuation box to cool down the speaker level signal. > > This is a pretty cheap one that works: > https://reverb.com/item/1133262-rolls-db25b-matchbox-direct-box-w-ground-lift-and-attenuator-switch?_aid=pla=USD=1=CPKBxcr278gCFdKGfgodVzYDuQ ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Tech help - extracting clips from DVDs
> I have a relatively new Mac laptop and I've uninstalled/reinstalled both > programs. Be aware that every new release of the Mac OS breaks old reliable tools for ripping clips from DVDs. MPEG Streamclip doesn't work past 10.6. There are a few dozen or more similar software packages sold by a variety of interconnected brands (all in China, IIRC) - Aimersoft, Iskysoft, WinX, Wondershare, Xilisoft. Each brand offers a handful of similar programs with slight feature variations at different price points. They're all basically front-ends for the same Unix-based open-source command-ine engines that actually do the work. (e.g. FFMPEG) Handbrake does two things: 1. Extracts the data from the .VOB files inside the VIDEO_TS folder of the DVD, and 'demuxes' it into its component video and audio streams (usually MPEG-and AC3, respectively. 2. Re-encodes and compresses the streams into a single h264 file, either in an .mp4 or quicktime container. I don't know about what works and doesn't with PPT, but in general, lf you're using files for teaching and running them off a local computer, you don't really need all the compression Handbrake creates, which adds a lot of time to the process. The best thing about Handbrake is it incorporates the x264 software encoder. All h264 encoding software is not equal – Apple's is notoriously sucky - and x264 is the best. But what it's for is making small files for web streaming that still look pretty good (though you have to master the settings). Handbrake will not defeat copy protection. As an alternative to Handbrake, you can rip the streams from the DVD and convert them into some other codec besides h264/.mp4. You'll get bigger files, but the process will be faster, and the quality should be closer to the original. There are any number of options for codecs to use, and software to get there -- but again the problem is the tools keep breaking with every OS update. For most commercial DVDs, old or new, you need something to get past the CSS copy-protection. All software that cracks CSS is supposed to be illegal in the US under the DCMA. There was a program called Fairmount that was similar to AnyDVD on the Windows side: that is it fools the computer into mounting the DVD as a data drive, making it accessible to any program as if it wasn't copy protected. It's no longer available separately, having been rolled into a product called Mac DVD Ripper Pro. It works. It's $25. http://www.macdvdripperpro.com/ The problem is it won't extract a short clip, only the whole title. So you have to take the time to rip the whole film, then use some other program to extract just the clip(s) you want. You can just have Mac DVD Ripper Pro mount the disk with Fairmount, then use some other program to extract clips. MPEG Streamclip was great for that, but, like I said, it doesn't work with the newer OS versions. If I was still teaching, I'd get a cheap old Mac, and set it up with Leopard and/or Snow Leopard, just to do convenient video rips with the old reliable tools. Another possibility is to use virtualization software to set up either Windows XP or 10.5/10.6 inside a virtual machine on a newer Mac running Yosemite, El Capitan or whatever. I've never been able to go through the headache of getting that all going, but once you do, it should be reasonably stable, if a tad slow. An old (long dead) piece of Windows freeware called DVD-Shrink could not only defeat CSS, but (if you dug down into the interface enough) let you rip short clips. It only saved files as VIDEO_TS folders though - which VLC can play, but i don't know about PPT. I had that set up on my Mac for awhile using Crossover, and it worked OK IIRC, but that was awhile back, and I don't have a reason to rip clips anymore... Another option for teachers, for mainstream films anyway, is to see if there are pirated versions on The Pirate Bay or MickAss Torrents. These will typically be highly compressed h264s, in either .mp4, .avi, or .mkv containers. You might need to extract from the Matroska containers first, but Quicktime Pro should open the files, and let you edit them down to short clips. One advantage of this is that the pirate copies may be HD (720p or 1080p) where your library DVD is just good ol' SD 480i. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Any DVD
> 1. Is there a Mac equivalent of Any DVD? Yes. It's called Fairmount. It was once available as a standalone, but is now incorporated into Mac DVD Ripper Pro: http://www.macdvdripperpro.com/ (not to be confused with MacX DVD Ripper Pro...) > which allows you, for example, to play PAL DVDs without restriction I'm not sure if the software does that. That's "four times before it switches" isn't a PAL/NTSC thing, it's a region-code thing, built into the firmware of the optical drive. For some optical drives, you can find firmware patches online to defeat that function, or to reset the counter. But if you have lots of non-region-1 discs to deal with, it's probably easier to get another external drive, connected via USB, that's either region-free or you can leave set on region 2 or whatever, rather than monkeying with the internal drive in the iMac. > 2. I want to make a compilation CD, but Toast doesn’t copy copy-protected > discs. Is there copying software for Mac which will allow that? Do you mean CD or DVD? Audio or video? Regardless, making a compilation disc of protected video was never easy, but it's gotten a lot harder as most of the key tools were broken by OSes past Snow Leopard. The problem with the aforementioned Mac DVD Ripper Pro is it only rips whole titles, not short clips. You can have it just mount the disc w. Fairmount, but the go-to freeware program for exporting short clips -- MPEG Streamclip -- is kaput past 10.6. There are other programs -- the Mac version of DVD Fab, MacTheRipper... all of them hinky in operation and/or sales methods. Another tactic is to set-up a virtual machine to run old PC software like DVD Shrink, but like all the other options, it's a pain in the butt. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] NEW DIRECTOR NEEDED for Millennium Film Workshop
Francisco Torres wrote: >> I figured it couldn't be that bad, that I could surely draw inspiration from >> artists with a lifetime of experience, and that it could enrich my practice >> and inspire me. > > Do people really talk like THAT? Is this guy for real? Hmmm. Maybe not. Could be a troll post: a parody of a spoiled millenial squawk writing style intended to get older FRAMEWORKERS to react with dyspeptic curmudgeonous, and the author is sitting back giggling at the thread. Googling 'Jona Gerlach' yields no likely suspect for the post: just a Facebook page of a student in Germany with no apparent interest in film (and the post doesn't read as ESL), and a Twitter account with all of two short original tweets, both apparently snarky replies to existing threads: "you just broke the toilet" and "really excited about the hookers". But maybe it's a fake of a different kind... The thing is, I don't know why anyone who's heard about FRAMEWORKS "from many sources" would imagine this is a place to "draw inspiration from artists with a lifetime of experience" yada yada yada, or that ANY listserv would offer such an experience. Posts that discuss the ART of experimental film only show up here once in a blue moon. That's natural. It's a deep subject, and email lists are filled with short quickly fired-off little notes on stuff that doesn't take a lot of time to think about. We get announcements, tech questions, requests to fill out silly lists of films fitting some vague and over-broad one-line definition... If you want inspirational substance, you watch the damn films (get hip to bit-torrent of you don't live near NY, London, or some other cultural capital), read Scott MacDonald's interview collections, Google the websites that have actual critical essays discussing relevant filmmakers... I honestly can't imagine thin-skinned millenial cry babies would even know what a LISTSERV is, much less lower themselves and take time away from Twitter and Instagram to read and post on one. Shit, Facebook is for dinosaurs, which makes us, I dunno, the promordial ooze of the information age or something. Now, perhaps Sasha Janerus -- who Google reveals to be an actual person in the NYC film scene, having curated a couple screenings co-sponsored by MFW (assuming the post to which 'Jona' replied is from that 'real Sasha Janerus' -- one never knows) -- would have some insight on who might respond to her post under a pseudonym, to complain about 'negativity, people being shamed and attacked over the most innocuous things, old grudges and hostilities...' and call for us all to unite together into a flying wedge charging the enemies of experimental film. Like bitching at FRAMEWORKERS and unsubscribing after two hours is a step in that direction. Maybe somebody associated with Millenium is a little butt-hurt at Janerus's allegations? Somebody who's been a party to old grudges and hostilities, even? Is it just me, or is it more than "innocuous" if someone is "grifting" around phantom remains of one of the most important institutions in the history of our obscure little corner of artistic practice? I know bupkis about doings at MFW, present or past, so Janerus's post could be nothing more than gossipy shade for all I know. But someone trying to present such matters as "innocuous", rather than just calling out Janerus for being full of BS, makes me wonder if those doing are indeed not innocuous at all. [Seriously, I don't shit about any of these people or the history at issue. I just 'smell' ... something... in the words of the exchange. I just got off jury duty, and my sniffer may be over-sensitized as a result. So if I'm showing a bit of unwarranted paranoia here, forgive me... but with the craze for The Donald still being A Thing, dark imaginings do tend to run through the mind, eh?]___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] High-definition frame grabs
> My concern in the matter of film stills is not making money, but having the > films reasonably well represented. This is kind of a moot point for images used to illustration a point in an academic essay published in a journal or book. They will appear as a halftone with a max screen of maybe 105 lpi. A still export from a DVD will be good enough for that, and having a better source image likely won't improve on what is a very crude printing technique. Esaay authors have no control over the reproduction methods used by a press. > I'm sure others would feel likewise about their films. Chuck already noted there are plenty of exceptions, but let's say "having the films reasonably well represented" was all any rights-holder cared about. Even such an apparently innocuous and proper principle is open to a wide variety of interpretations and could open "a can of worms" that stops publication dead in its tracks. What if a rights-holder would demand calibrated color images printed on coated paper for an essay to appear in something like the old print version of Jump Cut? > an image to illustrate a point isn’t “plagiarism”. But the other reasons are > more then good enough to ask permission from the artist. Nope. The problem is the whole concept of 'permission' as opposed to say 'cooperation', 'agreement', 'approval' etc. You have the absolute right to employ visual quotation under Fair Use guidelines, a right copyright-holders have been trying to deny or limit for decades, and you should NEVER concede any limit to that right by even suggesting PERMISSION is required. Without getting into all the nitty-gritty details, Chuck was right that even making an inquiry about permission puts an author into a potentially dicey legal position. Is this going to happen most of the time? No. Is it an unacceptable risk? Yes. But the issue goes beyond the individual author, and the individual rights holder. Asking for permission is a tacit admission that copyright-owners have rights they don't have, reproduces misconceptions and adds ideological support to bad practices. But, again, I'm just talking about PERMISSION. Showing due respect to artists, working with them (or their representatives) to find the most representative or appropriate examples, to get the best reproductions possible, paying reasonable fees for assistance, etc. etc. are all outside of that question. They are matters of "How should you do it?" not "Are you allowed to do it?" _ To elaborate on the above: Once artists present their work to the public, they have no moral right to exercise any control over how anyone chooses to express response to it, and in the U.S., Fair Use law is meant to enable the generation of new works (scholarly or otherwise) that continue a 'conversation' which any previous work may have entered, by liberal use of quotation. For example, First Amendment theory calls for "no prior restraint" on speech, with a very few number of exceptions (e.g. "clear and present danger"...). The law only provides mechanisms for punishment of those who abuse the privileges of free expression. In practice, though, the history of copyright law shows a long and steady campaign of rights-holders successfully gaining more and more control over 'conversations' with new works via a wide variety of means, and academics especially being more and more impinged in using visual references in discussing visual works. Scholars, educators, and artists have had to fight tooth and nail for every inch of fair use against this steady erosion, and it's only quite recently that they have been able to stem the tide, and gain back a bit of ground. Against this background, asking permission of anyone for anything is ideologically regressive, and frankly irresponsible. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that in a domain like experimental film scholars and artists must be irrevocably hostile to or uncooperative with one another. Marilyn has every right to request that Brakhage films be "reasonably well represented" in any form of quotation, to whatever standards she sees fit, and to condemn any use that fails to meet her criteria. Scholars can, and should, make inquiries about such things. As Pip notes, the rights-holder may be able and willing to provide better-quality sources than a frame grab from an SD DVD. A scholar might even have reason to seek approval or endorsement of quotations, which is quite different from asking for permission/authorization. If Marilyn deems it appropriate to charge 'small' fees that go to Fred for his labor in providing "high quality images to represent the films", that seems fair, but her 'small' could be a struggling PhD student or fan-blogger's bridge-to-far, and she has no right to exclude their ability to participate in discourse around the films by using any fee, or a demand for any aspect of reproduction, as a gateway obstruction. I would suggest that any
Re: [Frameworks] experimental cinema and the anthropocene
> Some of Brakhage's animal studies might fit -- such as "The Domain of the > Moment" or "The Presence" Actually my first thought was that a lot of Brakhage could be appropriate – c.f. the famous opening of 'Metaphors on Vision' Adventures in perception, the un-tutored eye seeing as before the Framework of language... etc. Anticipation of the Night could be said to view the modern world as a pre-human might. In other ways, Mothlght, Sirius Remembered, Dog Star Man, of course. All films do have the POV of human agents somewhere in their texts. The question, it seems to me, is which films can be reworked through contenxualization to be viewed as representing life beyond human/no-humn dualism – regardless of whether that's the typical interpretation, or what the film 'actually means'. Still, only a few films are open to such a game of 'let's pretend'. 'Highway Landscape'? 'Print Generation'?'Private Life of a Cat'? ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Shower scenes...
Don't know if they've already been mentioned: Showers: Eastern Promises, Starship Troopers, The Faculty Baths: Goldfinger, Fatal Attraction, Slither ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Athena Projector
> If you are interested to see more, follow this link where I demonstrate the > problem (password is 'loop'). There are probably folks here who know projectors better than I do, but I'll offer my best guess fwiw in case you don't get a more expert response… I suspect your Athena needs some fairly serious service. At the beginning of the video, there's no lower loop and it takes several pulls of the loop former to get the lower pop to take. This would suggest the claw isn't engaging the sprocket holes reliably in the gate, failing to push the film down, with the friction drag in the gate causing the upper loop to grow until the lower loop is tight. When you stop the projector the first time the lower loop holds, then loses a frame when you throw the lever back to 'play'. I assume this happens because the claw isn't engaging a sprocket hole in 'stop' mode as it should. It doesn't push the film down until after the sprocket wheels begin turning, which is wrong. The second time you move the lever to 'stop' the lower loop loses a frame both on the stop, and then again on the restart to play. So, again that seems like a problem with the claw in the gate, and the lack of a loss on the first 'stop' was just luck. I suppose there could be a problem with the pressure plate not holding the film correctly in the gate, or the film stock used in the test just has 'issues'. Did you try it with different samples/types of film stock? But I'm thinking it's the claw. The projector, like most cameras, is supposed to complete a pull-down cycle before coming to a abrupt stop, and rest with a frame directly in front of the aperture in the gate. This is a mechanical thing, engineered into the stop mechanism. So, for example, if you turn the projector off and on with an electrical switch in-line with the power cord, it won't stop with a frame in that stop position, claw engaged, just any old spot in the cycle and it will slow down first for a second before the inertia runs out. Then, if you restart by turning that inline switch back on, it will miss at least one frame in the gate as it speeds back up and the claw finds a hole to engage. What your Athena is doing looks enough like that to me that I'm guessing there might be something amiss with that 'come to a stop' mechanism, rather than with the motion/sync of the claw in general -- though I suppose that's possible. Good luck. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Sally Berger, film curator, fired at MoMA;
Chris: Thanks for the clarification on Vaxxed/Tribeca. But it wasn't 'Tribeca recognizing that it needed to firm up its institutional character and to counter a reactionary push from powerful autocrats (De Niro)'. RDN bypassed the programmers to put Vaxxed on the schedule, and he alone pulled it out in reaction to the public heat in order to salvage Tribeca's reputation. It wasn't a move to shore up "institutional character" in terms of accountability, transparency, etc. > Yanking a film because (as far as we know) a hypothetical compromise of > MOMA's emails, is super bad programming. we are all in agreeance on that, > right? Well, compromised emails weren't the issue. Berger ≠ Hilary. According to the NYT: "Berger expressed concern in late January about screening the film after reading an article suggesting that any organization that did so risked retribution from North Korea." That retribution could have been any number of things, not just a Sony-leak type document dump. Anyway, whether or not it's 'super bad programming' would depend on quite a few contextual factors -- including whether or not the film 'needed' the screening and the merit of whatever would be chosen to screen instead. MoMA's 'exposure' isn't a matter of yielding to wing-nut trolls. If anything, by NOT screening a film critical of 'commies' Berger may have incited the wrath of the right and her 'bosses' may have been concerned with some pressure from those quarters. When I said MoMA faces a different dilemma than small indie forums, I meant only in the specific case of worrying about North Korea. MoMA's unique as an art film venue in being a big enough institution over-all to have valuable assets that could be targeted by cyber-terrorism and to have enough status to qualify as a symbolic target for reprisals. I mean, if North Korea messed with Facets, they'd look like petty clowns, not international badasses. > Don't we want our cultural institutions to hold themselves accountable and to > be courageous? Well, I'm not going to endorse no-consequences cowardice. But it's far from clear those were the stakes here, or who was the unaccountable coward if anyone was. > If this were journalism, and a publication pulled a story because of outside > pressure, we would be going ballistic. Not even remotely analogous. Besides, news outlets drop stories all the time for one reason or another, and we just never hear about it. > With MoMA, we have to TRUST that they acting as they should. It's a private organization, with no government funding, more or less run by the Rockefeller family. 'Trust us, or f**k off,' is SOP for 1%ers, yes? Anyway, all of this is just to address your concerns over 'larger issues' hypotheticals. I doubt these were really central to Berger's dismissal, which smells like an internal power struggle, personality conflict or the like. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Sally Berger, film curator, fired at MoMA;
> But, isn't censorship also a serious issue? Haven't we been fighting for > institutions, especially cultural institutions to commit themselves to stand > up for and support artists who are being attacked? Remember the dust up over > the anti-vax movie that tried to screen at Tribeca? The argument seems the > same: large, powerful, "important" cultural institutions need to get their > shit together because its scary out there. WTF? Curators make programming choices. Most work does NOT get picked. That's not censorship. Yes, institutions should support artists under attack from the prevailing powers that be, but that's not the case here. Under the Sun has already been widely screened at festivals, received some commercial bookings, and generally been praised. North Korea is angry, though, which presents a different dilemma for MoMA than it does for Facets or Film Forum, as MoMA is big enough to be a target for hacking that would actually harm the institution. MoMA drops one film from it's festival –– their loss since people want to see it -- out of due diligence for the museum's security, and the film just screens somewhere else. If anything, Sally Berger helped promote Under the Sun by activating the Streisand Effect. If her choice to drop the film from the Doc Fortnight was indeed the reason for her dismissal, as Su freidrich says, that's "insane!" Of course, that may just be an excuse for something else – and who knows what the real story might be... Vaxxed? Seriously? Andy Wakefield isn't a film artist. He's a scam artist, and public health menace who exploits kids with ASD for profit. Wakefield conned Grace Hightower and Robert De Niro, and RDN stuck Vaxxed onto the Tribeca schedule going around the programmers, (and against their objections, apparently). It was hardly 'censorship' when De Niro took it off the schedule since it already had a commercial distributor, and they had already lined up the commercial booking at the Angelika. The film demeans and stigmatizes neuro-atypical kids, is full of documented falsehoods and blatantly mendacious editing, and just plain sucks as documentary art. Again, there are only x-many screening slots at any venue, and the choice to show something is also a choice NOT to show something else. The real censorship in the works at Tribeca was some worthy documentary submitted through proper channels getting passed-over so De Niro could screen a piece of hack-work propaganda as a 'personal privilege'. Sheesh. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] 2 Video Installation Questions
> So do we use a very small dvd player or is there a way to play a looping > digital file through a projector? Your best bet is probably a mini 'digital media player', e.g.: http://tinyurl.com/hf6a62b http://tinyurl.com/zh7r7nw There are various similar models on Amazon and eBay, between $25 and $45. They're like 3" square with and HDMI output and play files off an SD card or USB drive. They play files of a variety of codecs and containers, but mainly H264 variants, which will look very good at an efficient size if you encode it right (e.g. with proper setting in x264). That is, once you get to a certain obtainable level of quality with the video file itself, it's all about the projector. The one drawback, which would be a caution with an optical disc player as well, is that it may show a 'play' symbol or other screen display at the start of each new file, with no way to repress that in the menu. If the projected piece isn't super-long, I'd get a big USB thumb drive or SD card and make a playback file with as many iterations as possible of the piece one after the other with proper interval. That way you'd get many 'loops' before the player actually repeats the file, perhaps bringing that display stuff up for a moment… I think there may be either media players or Blu-Ray players that let you turn off that display info, so they can go right to the beginning of the next file (or repeat) without putting anything on screen. Alas, I don't know which, and that's usually not the kind of info the put on the product pages. Sometimes the vendors/importers/mfrs have instruction manuals you can DL online, which might answer the question. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Experimental Films on Farming/ Agriculture
Chuck Statler - 'Ain't We Havin' Fun' definitely Werner Herzog = 'How Much Wood Could A Woodchuck Chuck' maybe > Any suggestions on avant-garde/experimental films that deal with any aspects > of farming/gardening/plant or animal agriculture? ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Buying a VCR in 2016
Check thrift stores that let you return electronics (usually just for store credit) if it doesn't work: Salvation Army and Goodwill usually do. Thrift stores are where all VHS decks go to die – and the stores just want to move them, so they price the good ones the same as the crappy ones. For digitizing, I think you'd want one with: • s-video output • separate heads for SP and EP • some kind of built-in frame-store buffer on the video out The later JVC S-VHS models fit the bill. They weren't super-reliable, but now you're basically dealing with a disposable item that should cost less than a pizza -- $5-$15. If one works well when you get it, it should serve for a god while if you take care of it. VCRs either run at the correct speed or don't play-back a clean picture at all. If the transport mechanisms are bad, the problems are generally obvious: they either don't load/eject the tape, don't Play or FF or REW, or do obvious damage (e.g. creases) to the tape. Run a junk tape through the various functions: and if they all work, and there are no suspicious noises, you're probably good mechanically. The electronics generally either work or don't. They don't degrade. At some point, a capacitor dies or something, and the machine just gives up the ghost. If you have a working unit of any substantive age, there's no saying how long the circuits will last, so keep the investment low and don't worry about it. The part of a VHS VCR that will cause the picture to degrade with use is wear on the heads. But all you can do about that is check the image at home. Aside from JVC, Mitsubishi made some good S-VHS decks, though they didn't have frame-stores... ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Annette Michelson and Peter Gidal
I've been thinking, about the original query from John Muse in light of the follow-up query about Michelson, doing some wild-ass speculating. Mark's post (he certainly knows WAY more about this than I do) suggests my imaginings are at least not grossly inconsistent with known facts. And my concluding suggestions are that John's project is misconceived in taking 'structuralist/materialist' as a genre, and could be more productively framed as 'films by women relevant to the debates around "structuralists" and "structuralist/materialist" cinema'. ___ I wasn't thinking about the possibility any interpersonal tension might be involved in Gidal's choices – and I'm not at all surprised there isn't any. Rather I was thinking about the function of his choices in relation to the theoretical/critical issues around different concepts of avant grade film, 'formalist' aesthetics, etc. From what I remember (it's been, errr, awhile) Gidal's own essays are quite polemical, define 'structuralist/materialist' quite narrowly, and pretty hard-line towards anything/anyone that doesn't fit his aesthetic politics. I took the core of the position to be a radical left politics of representation – a sort of '_Screen_ Theory' on steroids – in which the goal is a sort of film that disrupts 'the dominant ideology', but goes way beyond the Brechtian concepts someone like Colin McCabe celebrates in the work of Godard. As radical politics, the 'structuralist/materialist' writings have some qualities of political manifestos – 'out there' in a bold way designed to disrupt and stir the pot, not necessarily to be followed to the letter. Thus, it makes sense to frame an edited anthology around the pot, not just the spoon. Having some stuff to debate is part of the fun of most good anthologies, and helps sell the book, as faculty will be more likely to use it if it offers useful contrasts between essays. 'Wrongheaded' is not necessarily 'bad'. 'Bad' would be something so off-base it's not worth arguing about. Michelson would be worth arguing against for Gidal simply because she's Michelson. Gidal's reply to Mark indicates he saw Michelson's piece on Wavelength as paradigmatic of the 'American' view, a good example of 'wrongheadedness' (in the sense of both 'typical' and 'strong') and thus a very good choice for 'problematizing a terrain rather than imposing one position'. If you're out to slay an idea-dragon, you show the dragon. And you take on the Big dragon, not some weak second stringer... > “fetishization of process and idealization of the formal in its weak sense.” Ahh, the 1970s. Those were the days, eh? This quote strikes me as pointing nicely to how the Brits were defining 'structuralist-materialist' in OPPOSITION to the essentially apolitical aesthetic formalism of American critics including Sitney and Michelson. They had a high-theory, hard-line POLITICAL take, yes? Film, including avant grade film, played a role in the class struggle whether the makers and critics wanted it to or not, and any film or commentary that failed to address the question of the IDEOLOGY of form was indeed 'blind' – the joke version being that footage in focus was hopelessly bourgeois. The choice of 'structuralist-materialist' as a rubric was a challenge to the 'establishment view'. Since Sitney's 'structuralist' label for similar films was already in place, 'structuralist-materialist' couldn't help but create confusion and conflict – to "problematize". You could say the Brits wanted to appropriate (as in 'righteously steal) a chunk of terrain from the bourghy formalist wankers as a prize in The Struggle. In an intellectual turf war, you want there to be more at stake, so you take a wider view of the territory. As a thought experiment, consider that Gidal et. al. could have just called it "materialist film" from the get-go, and made it clear that despite some apparent similarities, works like Wavelength and the sort of critical/theoretical position presented by Michelson were NOT what they were talking about. Had that been so, had they been defining a new genre, then there'd be no rationale for including Mcihelson's piece. But they wanted that turf. They wanted to say that Snow and Michelson were 'doing it WRONG!' As such, I'd suggest John's notion that he's working against the grain in including Ono and Ackerman is 'wrongheaded' in that the grain is not one of conformity to polemic principles, but tension and dialogue between those principles and other ways of looking at avant grade film practice. Thus, I'm thinking John is actually intuitively going with the grain, as the lumber in question can't be cut or planed smooth in any direction, and the whole point of the wood-crafting is to pull up splinters… ___ In that spirit, I'll note one film/maker not included in Gidal's anthology, and not yet mentioned in this thread that strikes me as essential in looking at the
Re: [Frameworks] 360 degrees
Folks, Gene asked for 360° _tracking_ shots, not pans. Is there an old DePalma film that DOESN'T have one? I can't recall if any of the 'bullet time' slo-mo shots in the Matrix films, or subsequent action films that aped that technique, went all the way around But I'm guessing there are examples (??). Or under-cranked examples (??). It seems almost so common now that exemplars in commercial cinema just fade into 'oh no, not that again'… Though Gene specified on-tracks or Stedicam, I think I might have seen circling some subject in handheld/nausea-cam stuff. Are there examples in any documentary actualities? It seems like something Pennebaker would have done at least once… 'One PM' maybe? ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Annette Michelson and Peter Gidal
> My notion of "including Ono and Ackerman [sic]" is, you're right, wrongheaded.
Sorry if the double-negative was unclear, but I was saying including those
makers is NOT wrongheaded at all. The gag (I was going for a bot o' irony) was
that your thinking that doing so 'went against the grain' was 'wrongheaded', in
that there isn't really a genre grain to go against. Rather there are fiber
strands going different directions, criss-crossing, bumping into each other,
tangling contentiously. Thus, my thesis is that drawing boundaries defined by
Gidal's polemical principles, or even his choices of what to argue against, is
kind of against the grain of the larger 'thing' Gidal was partaking in, which I
might guess he saw 'dialectically' (??).
> Why Kubelka's "Arunulf Rainer" doesn't make the cut. Compositional rather
> than algorithmic perhaps?
Sounds right to me. I suppose you could argue that 'Arnulf Rainer' and 'Adebar'
are 'materialist' but not 'structuralist'.
> Ono's Four (Bottoms) and Akerman's La Chambre, would they please him at all?
Qua Mulvey, "please" might not be the right term… ;-)
> Or be infuriating because…
What? There are structuralist films that AREN'T infuriating? ;-)
At least to someone…
(Did Gidal ever have anything to say about 'Awful Backlash' or 'Bleu Shut'?)
> Once I've moved to "relevant to the debates" then we still need to either
> resurrect or have those debates.
Indeed. I didn't mean to suggest 'were relevant to the debates at the time'.
Nor 'have been taken as relevant in the literature then to now.' If you think
the Ono and Akerman are relevant, then they are. Regardless of what Gidal
thinks of those works, I'm guessing he'd be pleased that someone is working
through his ideas with work no one's considered before, testing film against
theory, and theory against film - regardless of whether he agreed with your
conclusions (not that you need to have anything but interesting questions…)
> I say Ono and Akerman become more interesting when considered in relation to
> these debates…
'Nobody's explored that before' = 'publishable journal articles' = 'how to get
rid of the "visiting" in front of your job title… Or better yet, a book
contract. Not only may there be enough films by women (old and new) that
haven't been been considered in light of these dabates, but AFAIK crunching
Gidal-relevant theories of the politics of representation against feminist
theory (new and old) is relatively unexplored territory as well..
I can't speak to Gidal's standards, but as _I_ understand it, "unity of time
and space" hardly disqualifies a work from any 'structural/structuralist'
rubric I can imagine. ('Wavelength', after all, has a unity of filmic time and
space, if not shot in real time.) I think 'algorithmic vs. compositional' is in
the right directions, but I'm not comfortable calling some of the simpler
"predetermined shapes/outlines" (Sitney) "algorithms", as to me that implies a
somewhat more complex formula, and one that usually establishes some pattern of
change over the running time (e.g. Critical Mass, Serene Velocity, Print
Generation, etc.) It's more like the maker appears to give up some choices we'd
see in other 'not-structural' films to that predetermined concept. Not that
this giving-up alone makes a film 'structural/ist', but it seems to be a
necessary condition. "Unity of time and space" can be some kind of 'not-editing
where'd you expect there to be editing'. I'd put 'Highway Landscape' in the
'structural' bin, or at least not toss it out… The Fluxus slo-mo single-take
films count too, IMHO, and while we're on all things Ono, I'd suggest
Mieko/Chieko Shiomi's 'Disappearing Music for Face' might fit your search, if
you haven't already included it.
I did think of one fairly recent (and likely not well known) work in light of
your query: 'Summer Solstice' by Nina Yuen (one of Louise Borque's former
students). It's a long take with the camera mounted in a car, pointed out the
front windsheild. As the car (driven by Yuen's mother, whose voice is heard on
the soundtrack) moves back and forth along the length of a driveway, Yuen
enters and exits the frame performing a sort of ritual dance for the solstice.
Louise showed it, among other works by young women makers, at a feminism and
avant grade conference at the U. of Hartford back in the previous decade. I
thought it was very cool…
Cheers, and thanks for the engaging dialog…
djt
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Re: [Frameworks] seamless media player recommendations?
> if you are coming from a Mac, the media players are all Windows-formatted Not true. I have an old Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player that reads HFS+ (Mac) hard drives and thumb drives. It also goes directly from the end of one file to the next alphabetically w/o putting any display on the screen. The WD TV Live also reads HFS+, though I'm not sure the display icons can be turned off. Not to say any media player is the solution for looping, a task I've not tackled. > There is a file-size limit on moving media onto a Windows-formatted thumb > drive from a Mac. No, there's a file-size limit on FAT format drives, period. Which is how most thumb drives come, as all PCs and Macs can read/write to them. If you reformat them as NTFS, they will accept large files. Depending on your Mac, you may need additional software to use NTFS: Tuxera, Paragon, etc. > You can use MPEG streamclip which is open source free software, to transcode > your finished files into h.264 mp4…. MPEG Streamclip is long dead, and won't run on recent versions of the Mac OS. If you have to make some sort of h.264 file, realize all software encoders are not equal, and tweaking the settings matters a lot. The x264 encoder is the best. It's built-in to Handbrake. The 'Slower' preset should do a very nice job w/o too much further diddling with specific settings (check the frame rate setting…). ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Ganon GL-2 minidv camcorder repair
I have no experience with either of those shops, but I'll offer some general comment on video gear service. Over the years, I had nothing but problems with local, independent shops that were listed as service facilities for my geographic area by the manufacturer. I resolved to only send repair work out to factory facilities operated by the manufacturer, (including Sony, JVC, Panasonic and Canon) and they always fixed the stuff right, and in a reasonable time frame. Typically, they charge a flat fee, regardless of what's wrong. Sometimes that turned out to be a bargain vs. a charge based on actual parts and labor time, sometimes not. On the other hand, independent shops with a national customer base that specialize in the type of gear you have are a different story. I only dealt with one of those, for repair of a Japanese Sony DV-SVHS deck that US Sony wouldn't take as it wasn't US product. They were good. Now, most of these repairs, and all the ones that turned into trouble with local shops, were for electronics issues. If your camera still works, it sounds like you only need the LCD screen mount on the case fixed. Anyone with access to the parts, and a guide on how to disassemble the camera should be able to do that. > -- they quoted $150 repair without seeing the camera. That sounds reasonable for the problem you described. They'd know what part likely broke, what it costs, and how much time it takes to switch it out. For $150, there're assuming you won't need a new screen. Most Canons are fragile, including the GL2, and they've probably fixed a lot cock-eyed LVCD screens from tripod tip-overs and the like. Unless the quote was 'minimum $150 just to look, and could go higher depending...' As for Jeff's idea of replacing rather than repairing, GL2s are old enough now that anything you'd get on eBay would be a bit of a pig-in-a-poke, and if yours has been light used, babied and is a known quantity, you probably want to stay with it as long as the repair cost isn't too high. If you can get it fixed for $150, that's less of a gamble. If it was me, given that it sounds like we're talking about a broken plastic part, I'd probably try to figure out if I could fix it myself using Sugru/epoxy or something. But I'm 'handy', and a little crazy... ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] SCOOPIC 16 battery recalling (Spain/Europe)
Making DIY Scoopic battery packs is pretty easy. I made a .pdf: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pdfzutv84jcj370/scooby.pdf?dl=0 Original Scoopic packs used NiCad cells, which less run time than the newer NiMH cells, and also have 'the memory effect' which NiMH doesn't. Even if you revel an original pack, you should get NiMH. The thing is, the electronics for charging are slightly different, and the original Scoopic charger may not work so hot with NiMH cells. It's easy though to get a new charger. Scoopic cells are 12v. (I'm assuming here you're talking about the later black body Scoopics, not the old original gray body. Those have different size and voltage batteries.) > Does anyone know places to get battery packs for a Canon Scoopic 16 recalled > in Europe? Also, if someone out there has the battery box accessory, I would > be interested. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] recording audio from a Pageant
I don't have the OP, only Scott's reply, so I'm not sure what setup is desired, But, in general, getting audio from a Pageant into a line-level input on recording gear is more than just connecting cables: you'll want an in-line isolation transformer to avoid ground loop hum, and a simple attenuator resistor circuit to match the level and impedance. A Rolls audio DB25 direct box should do the trick on both counts, and they're pretty cheap, about $25 IIRC. You'd need the cable Scott describes to connect the Pageant to the box. Alternatively, for the ground loop isolation, you can use the RCA isolation cables they sell at car stereo shops. You just need an adaptor for the end that goes to the Pageant, or better yet whack off the RCA plug and attach the plug that fits the projector. You might be able to get by without the attenuator, or find an attenuator cable (not a common item, unfortunately), or get someone handy to make one (just 3 resistors, schematics on the web…). > you could make a cable with a .206" plug on one and end a 1/4" phone on the > other and plug the thing into a DI box. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] two more
> Empty city streets. Force of Evil (Abraham Polonsky) 'I am Legend' and various similar post-apocalyptic films, e.g. '28 days later'. Also maybe the current TV shows 'The Walking Dead' and 'Last Man on Earth' (which i haven't seen…) ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] recording audio from a Pageant
> Those things have transformers inside them... not very good transformers, but > transformers nonetheless. Yeah, the quality varies. I've used some that worked fine. The thing is they're not THAT cheap, you still might need an attenuator, and the Rolls direct box is priced right at $25. I haven't tried it out myself, but someone on this list reported it does the trick. The only reasons I can see to go with something else is if you already have the isolation cable on hand, or you need to get the connection up in a hurry, faster than you can receive the Rolls direct box ordering online. > I've had very good results merely plugging in a 1/4 to xlr unbalanced to > balanced adapter and plugging the other end directly into my Canon xh a1 > camera. This probably works because: 1. running the camera off the battery eliminates the possibility of a ground loop. 2. the XH-A1 pre-amp is forgiving It's a good note though if you only need occasional audio recording, as a simple cable with the camera running on battery power is cheap and easy enough to be worth a try if straight capture is all you need. An XH-A1 will also serve as DIY telecine with a conventional 3 blade projector if you use the 24F setting (which can be tweaked for precise sync in the menus to match minor differences between projector speeds and exact 24). So no need for a 5-blade. [I have done this successfully and with no problems using exactly an XH-A1 and a Pageant, so it's not just 'should work in concept'.] Just don't tell Jeff you're going DIY, and/or promise that if the footage is really valuable you'll get it scanned with a Kinetta. ;-) HOWEVER, if you need/want to put any AC powered audio component in the chain, you'll likely have a ground loop problem (not that it hurts to check if you're not running valuable film in the projector). And even on batteries, your video camera's pre-amp may not be as chill with the impedance mis-match as Sean's XH-A1. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] (nostalgia) versions...
> each segment has a slightly different length. About ten years ago, I was showing (nostalgia) in class, pondering the duration of the shots, looking at a watch occasionally as the edits went by, and I had a kind of revelation: Each shot is a 100' load. I don't know if any one's written about that one way or the other, but (if true) it would be a kind of obvious conceptual match - one still photo burned shot with one spool of movie film. Exposed and processed 100' loads only contain approximately the same amount of usable image. If HF loaded/unloaded under light, the leaks on the head and tail snipped off would be different, and even if he used a darkroom, getting the camera threaded will take up slightly different lengths off the head. Finally, depending on where he got the stock, 100' loads might not be exactly 100', or exactly the same. So, the algorithm component wouldn't be 'each shot is [X} feet' or '[X] duration on screen', but 'each shot is all the usable footage that came out of one load of an MOS camera'. Quite elegant, if that's indeed what it is... ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] subtitle question
> I'm currently laying it out in 42 point Verdanna, keeping it under 40 > characters per line… Standard printing and screen fonts, like Verdana, are not good for subs. The strokes are too thin and the detail too fine to render well in video and provide maximum readability. There are a number of specialized fonts, or weights in large font families, used for subtitles. I can't recall any of the specific names, but if you Google 'subtitle fonts' you can find some useful discussions of the issues, and also recommendations. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Resources on history of 16mm technology
> I'm writing about the use of 16mm in experimental filmmaking of the 1970s and > am looking for texts that deal with the history of film technology, scholarly > sources that look, for example, at the emergence of 16mm as an > amateur/documentary/artists' medium. Hmm. If we distinguish 'amateurs' from 'artists' 16mm emerged as an amateur medium decades before the 70s, and was all but submerged for amateurs by the 70s, in favor of Super-8. You'd be hard pressed to find any artists who worked with the 'amateur' 16mm cameras that were made at least through the 1950s: Kodak K100, B+H 240, Reveres… and only spare use of 'amateur' Kodachrome and Ektachrome stocks that didn't come back from the lab with edge numbers. The history of documentary tech is a whole 'nother creature -- all 16mm up to the 70s -- but marked by advances in blipping, sound sync, battery power, coaxial magazines, reflex finders, etc. etc. (I have an AC-power only Yoder-style chop-top in my closet, if anyone wants one…). Only in the 70s did portable video emerge as a documentary medium, e.g. in the ½" open-reel 'Four More Years' by TVTV. Experimental filmmaking was not articulated to 'amateur' filmmaking as much as industrial/educational filmmaking. Experimental filmmaking was dependent on the wide availability of cameras, projectors, stocks, labs etc. primarily used by the 'A/V' market. Once that market moved to video, those sources began to dry up, posing ever-increasing difficulties to photo-chemical experimental work. A tech history of experimental film in the 70s should also look at it's intersections/oppositions to technologies used in 'video art', e.g. in Scott Bartlett's 'Off/On', and computer graphics, e.g. John Whitney. All that said, for the history of 'amateur' film, it would be remiss not to mention the work of FRAMEWORKER Patti Zimmerman, noted on the CHM site Buck linked. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Resources on history of 16mm technology
> the vast majority of artists working in 16mm from the '40s through the '60s > did in fact use Kodachrome and Ektachrome. Color negative didn't even exist > in 16mm until 1964, and very few "experimental filmmakers" used it much until > the later '70s or even early '80s. 'Amateur' making was all reversal, as home movie makers always projected their camera original. My experience with film only dates back to the mid-70s, and I didn't use 16mm until 1979, in grad school at UW-Madison. All we used was 'professional' 16mm color reversal stock, which was all one form of Ektachrome or another: the VNF stocks mostly, 7240 (nice) and 7250 (yuchh) for 16mm, and 7244 for S8. (There may have been some people using ECO, I don't remember…) We got all our stock and supplies from the schools AV bureau, and it was processed by the Com Arts Dept. in the basement of Vilas Hall. (Mark Webber ran the lab…) Of course, the 16mm Ektachrome had edge numbers... There was a consumer camera store on State Street that still carried Kodak 16mm reversal stock boxed in 100' daylight spools, as well as S8. I'm pretty sure they carried some form of 16mm Ektachrome, but I think it was only daylight, and wasn't the same, or as nice, as what we could get at school. But I could have that confused with the S8 stock. But this store definitely had tungsten Kodachrome, because I used it a film I made '80-'81. Very student-filmy: I used 4 different stocks, to give different sections different looks. I actually got the idea from stumbling across the Kodachome in the store, having gone in there for something else, and remembered Lipton had written about Fleshapoids being shot in Kodachrome. I don't think anyone at UW knew this store carried it, and afaik no one else at school had used Kodachrome 16mm for anything. The store was the only place I could get the Kodachrome, and the only way to get it processed (of course) was dropping it at the store, which sent it to Kodak. And I couldn't get edge numbers. I asked, because I knew I was going to get work print, then conformed the original and have a print made. So, when the Kodachrome original came back from the camera store, I ran it through a synchronizer, and scratched in edge markings every so many feet (a sort of roman numeral code, as I couldn't scratch tiny arabic numerals). Then I'd send it out for the work print, getting something I could conform later. I think the instructors and other students thought I was nuts to go through all that. Ahh, thems were the days… Jeff wrote: > Kodak worked hard to shoot themselves in the foot (their area of expertise) > and kill off color reversal. Amen to that. At UFVA conferences in the early '00s, when Kodak was till a big sponsor, I spent many hours trying to explain this to their head Education Division guy, but they never showed any interest or even awareness of either experimental work or the kind of liberal arts or fine arts programs that taught it. They were all about the big industry-feeder schools, and their only concept of production education was 'cinematography', and as far as they were concerned that was BW reversal for 'intro' classes, and color negative after that. Their big Education initiative was reformulating 7266 to be more eco-friendly, instead of dropping it altogether. The came to UFVA all super-pleased with themselves, like 'we did this just for you, even though we won't make good money on it' and previewed a slick advertising and promotion campaign supposed targeted to 'indie' folks (you know, people who use Bolexes) that was so clueless I winced. They had t-shirts with one of the ad slogans: "Craft services is for wussies." And I said, guys, the market that needs reversal, and you need for reversal, and that BW reversal stocks that were doesn't even know what 'craft services' means… In the early 00s, I could still find color reversal short ends for my small biennial 16mm experimental class. By, I dunno '08 or so, Kodak no longer came to UFVA at all, and the only was my students could shoot color was to pool their funds and order 400' of 100D on cores, which I'd spool off onto 100' daylight spools so they could put it in our MOS 16mm cameras... ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] experimental films with philosophical text?
i guess I’m the first to mention the obvious: Michael Snow, "Rameau's Nephew by Diderot" ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] pageant arc projectors
I’m more techy-geeky than most. I once tried to get an old pageant arc projector going in an effort to get a brighter image in our schoolo auditorium, but gave up. The technology is not really suitable for infrequent use sans tech support: there’s that massive old-school power supply driving a short-lived arc-lamp, and it’s all ‘analog’ in the sense that if it’s not in tip-top condition it still ‘works’ but in a substandard way. Thus, while I did get the one we had going, the image was far too blue to be usable and not much brighter than a regular Pageant either. I thought about getting a new lamp (dude, it’s not a ‘bulb’) but after checking price, availability, life, and the odds that would make it usable (too dicey), I scrapped the project. Part of that was concluding the best I could get it would still leave any prints I could readily get projected too far out of proper color balance for reasonable aesthetics. I.e. Xenon lamp color balance is off for most available prints, but tolerable most of the time, but the arc lamp seems significantly more cool than a Xenon and intolerable with a tungsten balanced print. My firsat conclusion was/is that these old Arc Pageants just aren’t worth the time/effort/operating expense now. It’s a shame because they are ‘classic’, and sort of film-artifacts in themselves. But if the idea is to get a nice celluloid image on a screen, they’re just a ball of frustration, and there are better ways to spend your budgets of money and (especially) labor. After I junked the Pageant Arc, we inherited a pristine Xexon lamp Elmo, and I thought we were set for the extra brightness I was hoping to get. But even that was hardly a no-brainer in terms of bightness v. color-shift tradeoff. So my second conclusion was that the best 16mm projection option was getting the brightest tungsten lamp and fastest lens. I found you can use a brighter lamp than the one speced for the projector if you’re careful, assuming there’s one that fits… The auditorium I was using didn’t have that big a house, but did have a fairly good sized screen, so the throw was pretty short, requiring a fairly wide angle to match the image from the video projector in the booth, around 27mm IIRC. I never was able to obtain an ‘optimum’ combo of 1) bright lamp, 2) fast/wide lens 3) reliable projector mechanism that would be kind to the film. Lenses were hard to find in the mid-late ‘00s when I was searching, and I can’t imagine it’s any better now. So my final conclusion was the then-Frameworks-heresy that video projection from a three-chip DLP (we managed to get a nice, big Panasonic ‘professional’ model) from a DVD source was the best solution to both represent the films I was showing the students well and preserve what was left of my mental and physical health. Since even the SD digital sources looked fine (upconverted to 720P by the players), I can only imagine any native HD would be even better. Sure, nothing beats good projection of a fresh celluloid print, but you don’t get fresh prints from FMC or MoMA – you get shifted color, lots of scrathes, and plenty of ineptly made or now-separating tape splices that look like crtap at best, if they don’t send the print off the sprockets or collapse the loop, or just come apart and dump the film on the floor or in some other way add even more damage to the print - keeping in mind that your old 16mm projector no one within 500 miles can service has seen better days, too. So (yes, reluctantly) each time I taught my class I wound up using more video sources, only using 16mm for the films I felt I absolutely HAD to have on the syllabus and weren’t available in any electronic form — most notably ‘Christmas On Earth’. Of course ‘A Roll For Peter” falls into the 16mm only territory, and the ionstitutional situation is different for a cinemateque than for the sort of small college where I worked, so YMMV. There’s no getting around the fact that 16mm projection is a real challenge. So rather than tear your hair out trying to make it ‘excellent’, my been-there/done-that advice is just do the best you can with the resources you have, and save your stress and energy for the non-technological aspects of keeping ‘experimental cinema’ culture alive and well in the age of Trumpism. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] iOS 10 update - think twice before doing it
> For those of you who might still be running OSX 10.6.8 on a Mac (for FCP > editing, for example). I’d heard that FCP 7 has ‘issues’ past 10.6.8, but also that it works fine on Yosemite (10.10.5). I don’t do mobile, so I don’t care about iOS, but I’m curious if Adam or others have info on how FCP 7 behaves under the newer OSes… @ Chuck: I live in NoCal now, but haven’t tossed my New England winter coat and Upper Midwest down vest either. You never know… And, yeah, I have old Macs around that will boot and run OS9, too. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Experimental Christmas films
> The first film I'm thinking of is: Xmas on earth by Barbara Rubin ( 1963) It’s a great piece, not really a ‘film’ but a two-projector performance… But it’s not really about Christmas, and it might not be the best choice for "an audience which will include people who have little to no experience viewing experimental film” since it’s in inner image of people wearing g full body makeup performing a variety of sex acts, inside an outer frame of a handheld camera moving in out and around a close up of a woman’s vagina. That really ought to be mentioned in any recommendation, I think. _ I don’t have any films to suggest myself off the top of my hat, but I’d suggest playing the Residents as the audience comes into the screening room: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FX8rAEAtUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF19pIjgYRI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ytmrHLYNps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C50bKOslmjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBUxjqDJdAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2df9ABZrE0 (remix of the previous) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihvoYAoEQP0 ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] 16mm projector sales in Germany/Europe? + wide angle 16mm projector lens questions
> I would get a projector first and get the lens for the projector I would, too. But Benj wants a projector that will accommodate his looper, and that may limit his choices. > How does putting a magnifying element in front of a 50mm lens this compare > optically to using a dedicated WA projector lens? You lose some brightness, and your 50mm might not be as fast as the WA to begin with. The main issue though is that the adapters don’t decrease the effective focal length that much. For decent screen size and a short throw you need a very wide lens. > Someone mentioned using a re-housed Super8 lens. I’d put the odds of that covering a 16mm frame w/o severe vignetting at about zilch! > I have a decent lens from one of the top of line Elmo super8 projectors, any > advice about rehousing this if you’ve done it? The barrel should be narrower than the opening on an Eiki 16mm projector, so just take out the Eiki lens, and hold the Elmo lens in there if you need confirmation it won’t work. Elmo barrels are a bit narrower than Eiki barrels, and there are slide-over-the-barrel adapters to make Elmo lenses fit in Eikis — if you can find them, and if you can find an Elmo WA at all, much less one that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Buhl made narrow barrel lens that can be shimmed out with similar slide-on adapters for use in either Elmos or Eikis. Good luck finding a WA one of those, too. Your best chance of finding some W/A solution would be with a later model true Bell & Howell or Singer-Telex, both of which have lens barrel diameters of 52.5mm (vs. 40mm for Elmo and 42.5mm for Eiki). That would probably be getting a 38mm lens, and putting some adapter glass in front of it to widen it out to around 25mm. But then there’s a higher risk of the mechanism eating the film, and you may not be able to jury rig your looper, either. I wrote up a 16mm projector guide with info on this stuff a number of years back. I’ll leave a zipped .pdf it in my Dropbox for awhile if anyone wants to take a look: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2816030/projectorguide.zip ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Films on Gold and Gold Mining
The Man Who Invented Gold; Christopher Maclaine ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Auto-load projector problem
> I keep encountering auto-load projectors in 16mm and S8 mm that don't load > for me. You push down the thingie at the top of the threading pattern to > start auto-loading but when the film feeds in it goes straight up after the > first curve without entering the gate. Do these projectors have issues or is > there a trick? The only tricks are setting whatever lever, knob whatever closes the loop formers and trimming the end of the film properly with the cutter on the projector. Sometimes there’s a registration pin in the cutter that has to engage a spoke hole, so the film end is at a precise point in the frame, otherwise it won’t get stuck in the gate and the to loop will just keep bunching up. If the film "goes straight up” from the top sprocket without even heading toward the top of the gate, then the load mechanism isn’t engaged, meaning either it’s broken, or you just haven’t set the projector into the proper ‘load’ mode. Also, on most auto-loads, the loop formers should retract automatically after the film goes through the lower sprocket, and if they’re cranky, that won’t happen correctly. Auto-loads stink. They’re hard to avoid in Super 8, but in 16mm manual thread is the only way to go. Auto-loads usually have no way to get the film out of the projector if there’s some problem m mid-reel. Slot loads would seem to solve that problem, but if the projector is long in the tooth, rarely used or in need of service, they can eat the film when you start them after threading. With Eiki’s SSL’s especially, make sure the film is properly seated in the film path, check it again, and then move the lever to ‘forward' very slowly and carefully… ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] ISO a wide angle (38mm) lens for my 16mm Eiki projector
> You could adapt a barrel from a 16mm format to the 35mm format lens. If fits > perfectly in my Bell and Howell 16mm projector. B+H barrels are a lot wider than Eiki barrels, so that might not work for the Eiki. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] using a hot splicer
Excellent advice from Scott. The heat is just a drying time aid. Less expensive glue splicers don’t have heaters. Glue splicing is all about scraping technique, good cement, and technique in applying the cement properly. It takes some practice to do it right, so newbies should experiment on outs/trims/slug before cutting precious footage. But… I’m not sure glue splicing is what you’d want for digitizing from negative. Historically, glue splices have been used for preparing A/B rolls so the lab can create prints with invisible edit points. Thus, the splices all involve a scraped lap of the negative being glued to a full from of black. If you glue splice an ‘A’ roll, the splices will be quite visible. If you’re going to digitize camera original, it makes no sense to create your edits in the film stock. I would think you’d want to cut the sections you want to digitize several frames long on each end, and tape splice them together. The tape splices would show in the digitized footage, of course, but then you just edit them out to the proper in/out points in an NLE. You could do the same with glue splices, of course, but the only reason I can think of to do that is if they’d run through the gate of the scanner more reliably. AFAIK, the flatness of a properly aligned tape splice would be better than the bump of the lap in the glue splice, but I could be wrong on that. Anybody have more knowledge on this? Scott Dorsey wrote: > It won't get very hot, it only gets slightly warm. And you can make a > perfectly good splice with it even if it's not warm, it just takes a lot > longer to set. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] film scanner
I found the instructions for older models on the MovieStuff site. Roger Evans had produced three different lines based on Eiki projector mechanism before going exclusively to the “made totally from scratch” ‘Retro' units. The earliest and simplest of these ran at standard projector speed, with modifications to eliminated flicker and insure even illumination across the frame. Capture was done with a standard camcorder the user attached to the base. So, basically these devices were similar to shooting the image from a telecine projection aimed at a wall, but with all the kinks worked out. The later and more expensive ‘Sniper’ line, however, were self-contained 6fps scanners with an HD video pickup installed in the film path and capture controlled by computer software. It was these ‘Sniper’ units I had recalled, wondering if used ones might be a lower cost alternative to the Retro for yielding reasonably high-quality results… if used ones could be found. _ For cheap DIY HD 16mm transfers, you can project onto a flat white surface in a dark room with a conventional projector (I used a Pageant), and shoot the image (manual exposure, experiment for proper setting) with a camcorder capable of 1080/24P. I used a Canon XH-A1, which has a ‘Clear Scan’ feature allowing you to make fine tweaks the scan frequency if you wind up with any flicker, but I never needed to use that with the Pageant. I mounted the camera next-to/behind the projector as close to the center-line of the projection beam as I could get. That left just a tiny bit of parallax that I did not find objectionable, as it was very hard to spot even if you knew it was there. The one problem is that film has a wider contrast range than the video camera, so on some footage you’d lose details in either deep shadows or bright highlights. But that didn’t muck up the vast majority of student footage I was transferring, and overall, I was quite happy with the results. I’d have to imagine the results were a lot better than you’d get from the Wolverine, since one of my students had a short produced that way (camera original rushes transferred to HDV, captured and edited in FCP) accepted at a competitive festival. I never did this method with Super-8, though I’d assume it would work fine with a projector that held a steady speed close enough to 24fps to land within the range of the Clear Scan tweaks. Of course, a real scanner would be easier on the stock, and depending on the camera head, capture at higher rez than 1080P. If I was going to do another DIY transfer with the Pageant, I’d try using a Panasonic GH4 in 4K video mode instead of the XH-A1. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] film scanner
> I wonder if there is any alternative to it at a decent price (under 10 K?) Did you really mean “under $10,000”? Well, there’s the MovieStuff Retro, $4.500: http://moviestuff.tv/moviestuff_home.html Mr. MovieStuff, Roger Evans, used to make film scanners based on projector mechanisms, probably similar in function to the Reflecta. Some (i’m not sure if all) of these carried the name “Workprinter”. He kept refining the design, moving away from the projector working like a projector to a more controlled scanning method. I’ve never seen one in person, but the guy has been in business a long time now, so I can’t imagine the stuff is bogus. There are probably used models of that older ‘Workprinter’ type out there somewhere. > I know there are filmmakers who have cheaply rigged up an Arduino setup for > it.. I think that may refer to this: http://kinograph.cc/ ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Digital hd projection
> If you're seeing lines on the edges of the frame, I'd wonder also if the > blacks aren't really very black at all. Careful there, though, Scott. You’re not going to get black blacks out of any brand new ‘affordable’ video projector. I have an Epson VS335W, which I bought in 2014 (~$525 at the time), which I’d guess would be similar to what Shumona’s host have provided for her installation. There’s no condition where a black projected frame does NOT appear gray in comparison to the ‘black’ of the rest of the screen in a darkened room. That’s just how most video projection is. That said, I’m quite happy with the image overall, considering what it cost. And I’ve never seen it produce those disconcerting edge color effects Shumona describes. As you’d expect from a projector in this range, the VS335W has menu controls for Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Tint. The Brightness control, more or less Black Level, is basically useless. Boost it all, the image washes out. Drop it at all, it just all gets dark. What does affect apparent brightness is the Contrast setting (sometimes labeled ‘Picture’ on other devices). If the image seems ‘weak’ that’s what gets cranked up. It’s a ‘usable’ control though, in that small changes aren’t too dramatic, and different folks could diasgree on what setting looks best for any given material and environment. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if any projector Shumona might obtain produces some white blow out at any setting usable in an installation environment. But it shouldn’t be too much: the sort of thing that would be obvious and distracting to the museum/gallery public. They’re not image purists, and they’re probably fine with things that would make you or me cringe or scream. Video installations in museums are in dark projection rooms sometimes, but other times out in more open gallery space which, even made as dim as possible, still has a fair amount of ambient light. Even for shows of celebrated artists at prestige museums — where you know they have the budget for higher end gear — I’ve never seen projection in that kind of installation I considered any better than ersatz for any work that was intended for conventional projection (as opposed to something more ‘sculptural’, integrated with other physical elements of the installation). I mean, i might find it too painfully to even look at, but the other visitors would be stopping, watching, commenting on the content… So, “it is what it is”, and that’s probably okay, IF the projector isn’t total garbage, and IF it’s working properly, and IF the settings are tweaked for the best, considering the particulars... ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Eiki EX-2000A power cords
Got a picture of the receptacle on the projector? > If anyone has any suggestions about where I could find some for a reasonable > price, they would be much appreciated. Or even advice about the part name or > number! ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] digital-era distro
A more general way of framing the issue is that moving pictures have moved toward ephemera, or, in a more historical vocabulary a spreading dominance of ’television'. How else could we explain the low adoption of Blu-Ray among both individuals and institutions? HD-DVD is long dead, Blu-Ray platers are now cheap commidity items ($15 used at thrift stores), no new ‘hard copy’ technology is waiting on the horizon. People stream on Netflix, or Amazon, or use the VOD on their cable TV, etc. I have no idea what libraries are doing these days. Given how long they still collected VHS into the DVD era, my guess would be they think DVD is good enough, and there’s no compelling reason to add another format to the collection with all the organizational issues and demands on labor power that presents, even if the tech itself is cheap. In a way, it would be hard to argue with that, as DVDs seem perfectly adequate for study purposes. However, personal/experimental work isn’t a good fit for the model driven by streaming-media TV shows like ‘Black Mirror’ and other Netflix/Amazon fare. Anyone who will pay to see it once will probably want the opportunity to see it again, at their own discretion, so at least for individuals (if not for libraries) the interesting in collecting a library should be pretty much the same. What has changed, then, is that this colllection is more likely to live as files on a hard drive, rather than individual optical disks. How then to get files to the folks who want one, and collect a bit of $$ in return? Penny Lane is distributing “Nuts!” via NUTS! iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Vimeo On-Demand, Vudu and BitTorrent. The last of these is ther most interesting to me, a site set up to collect a $10 minimum pay-what-you-want fee, for which you get to DL (and, obviously, keep) high quality files of the film (and it’s ‘extras’)in the form of a torrent, as opposed to just having access to a video stream for a fixed window of time. Watching the film via iTunes, Amazon, Vimeo etc. actually costs a bit more than getting the BT DL, and apparently doesn’t include the extras. Of course, being up on those services makes it easier to find, or for folks just browsing to stubble across, and not everyone wants to keep 9.8GB of data for the film on gheir hard drives forever… But I don’t think any electronic distribution can substitute for the functions of touring filmmakers like Roger selling disks out of the trunks of their cars. Roger doesn’t just screen his films at his personal appearances, he talks about them and discusses stuff with the audience. The avaiabilty of ‘merch’ is integral to the whole theory/ethos of non-commercial making and distribution. Even though the copies may be digital in the form of a DVD, there’s a materiality in passing a piece of plastic hand-to-hand that fits the hand-made aesthetic of TB/TX Dance, the Strip Mall Super 8 film, etc. etc. That object then has a circulation of it’s own based on its materiality: you can loan it to a friend, give it away… If nothing else, the material disk acts as a souvenir/realization of the experience of Roger’s visit and the attendant discussion. And since a few extra bucks never hurts, the folks in the audience are likely to be far more willing to part with a few extra bucks right after the screening, when the experience is fresh, than to actually follow up with a BT download once they get home. I don’t think a USB stick is a good choice though, because it’s too expensive, and it’s impermanent. It’s not ‘the work’, but a container that has the work in it temporarily, which can be dumped out, erased, replaced with something else — just like everything else in the society and culture this kind fo work is straining against. So, as an alternative to an authored NTSC DVD, I’d just get good quality HD scans of the film originals, and make high quality .mp4 or .mkv files of them using the x284 encoder (e.g. in Handbrake), make a master data DVD-R containing them, and duplicate those as needed for car-trunk merch. You could even make a simple cover sleeve to give the disk some visual identity. There’s not that many people who only have optical-disk-player-free computers, and such folks could still easily find a friend to copy the files from the data-DVD to a thumb drive… Just my 2¢…. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] mental problems
I know the request is for features, [just about everything by David Lynch, but especially Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive] but there’s lots of recent TV that goes into “inner states of mind” with mentally ill protagonists: including ‘River' [UK] about a haunted, hallucinating detective, the near-Lynchian [if Lynch had politics] conspiracy thriller Mr. Robot, and the beyond-Lynch weirdness of ‘Legion’ [a Marvel show, believe it or not]. All excellent too, IMHO. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Looking for Angenieux 12-120mm lens or another Auricon-compatible
On the versions of the dogleg Berthiot I’ve used, you can change the orientation of the finder by unscrewing a ring at the rear of the barrel. Then the barrel detatches from the C-Mount, and can be re-positioned, either freely or to a different position fixed by tabs and slots, depending on the model. But I second Scott’s dislike of those lenses, and preference for the Angenieux. In addition to being soft, they’re awkward. Folks will say the 12-120 isn’t the sharpest lens either, but it suited my needs OK. There are also dogleg Angenieuxs that are physically smaller, and zoom from like 17-42mm IIRC. They’re reputed to be sharper than the 12-120... > I have a Berthiot 17.5-70 (silver one) but it's not the right thread -- > suited for a non-reflex bolex with the viewfinder on the right side. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] optical sound film screening
Sorry Roger. Yes, yes, yes. TBTX Dance is PERFECT (maybe essential?) for the theme of optical sound produced by non-traditional means, and unique afaik in the use of laser printing. It’s also just a cool film, and the prefect (short) length for a program that seeks to survey and explore a vasriety of means of generating sound on photochemical film. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Kodak Super8 digital camera
> Mindless design. No optical viewfinder, just a flip out video screen. Plus, > it is overpriced. The projected price of the initial "limited edition” version is $2000, with a less expensive “standard edition” supposedly to follow. It’s a film camera, so the real cost is in the stock and processing: > Filmmakers using the new Kodak camera can send the 50’ cartridge to Kodak for > developing and for a $100 developing fee Kodak will mail back to the > filmmaker the developed film on a reel as well post a scanned digital version > of the 2.5 minute film in a password protected cloud file. I’d have to guess the concept and pricing reflect a similar approach to The Impossible Project’s new design Polaroid film camera, also very expensive. These things seem targeted at cost-no-object users in Hollywood and hipsterdom, who get off on having whatever tool – vintage or new-fangled – has been used by some cel;ebrity maker in some high-profile project. > Before the reborn Super 8 camera has even hit store, big Hollywood names such > as directors Steve Spielberg, Christopher Nolam, and J.J. Abrams have > endorsed the product. For reference, Pro8mm in Burbank sells rebuilt Beaulieu 4008’s for $2000. I’d expect folks who want to do experimental work in S8 to stick to old Canons and Nizos or whatever shows up in decent condition at the local thrift store or on eBay. Jeff: what’s the problem with having what amounts to video assist versus a dim optical finder? Isn’t the good news here for photochemical filmies that some sort of stock and processing options will remain available from Kodak a while longer now that they have this thing to support? There’s a 46 second test clip from a Kodak prototype on YT [http://tinyurl.com/yayv8yok] complete with plastic pressure-plate registration flutter, dust and scratch in the negative glitches, and a nice chunk of crud in the gate. Ahh, the memories... ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Kodak Super8 digital camera
Nicholas wrote that the Kodak was designed by Logmar. I couldn’t find anything about this online, but I assume since Nicholas has one of the Logmars, he’s in touch with the company and knows what he’s talking about. Logmar apparently made 50 units in one batch in 2014 and that was the end of production. If the Kodak is a more simplified mass-mkarket version of the Logmar then we might see a declining price curve, since the Logmar was $6000, the 'limited edition' Kodak is supposed to be $2000, and I found an early projection for the ‘standard’ Kodak at "around $400 to $750". They may have abandoned that target, as they’re already way past the release dates they projected when they first showed prototypes. Heck, the whole thing may turn out to be vaporware. But if not, we could wind up with a tool that’s priced accessibly enough to a base of niche users big enough to keep it afloat. Or not. The question then is, who is in that niche, besides the professional customers served by Pro8mm, and "trust-fund hipsters”. For experimental makers, I think Jeff identifies well that the question goes back to the format itself, and especially to the stocks available. I share Jeff’s sentiments that "the S8 aesthetic” is really based on reversal stocks. Thus, I just shook my head seeing the dust and scratch marks in that test footage: negative! what a pain!m I’d go beyond that to argue that most experimenatl work is best served by shooting reversal, in 16mm too, if only because you can do so much more work with it yourself. We might hope if the ‘digital’ Kodak sells to whatever targets Kodak sets for it, that might lead to new stocks being released, including reversal. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. Once video supplanted Super 8 in the 80’s, Kodak seemed to ditch any interest in ‘non-professional’ users of motion picture film. Back in the early aughts, every year at UFVA I used to plead the case for small colleges doing more ‘personal’ filmamking with the Kodak education reps, including the importance of color reversal. I might as well have been talking to a wall. No one from Rochester was capable of understanding filmmaking outside of some commercial model, and all the ‘education’ efforts were directed at the big industry feeder schools and framed within the context of training for professional cinematographers. The new camera, and the negative stocks (to be processed by Pro8mm, apparently) suggest that mentality hasn’t changed at all. That is, seem to not even be aiming for the trust-fund-hipsters, but that ‘pro’ Super 8 thing keeping Pro8mm going. Jeff argues that "Color neg in Super 8 just looks like bad 16mm,” and 16mm remains a better, more cost effective choice for experimentalists and other ‘personal’ makers. The question then, is why anyone would choose to work with this digital Kodak S8 over 16mmm. Professionals are likely to have a negative view of 16mm – that it just looks like bad 35mm. For them, the format and the gear of 16mm aren’t different enough to speak a different aesthetic from what they’re used to. To ‘think different’ they have to go smaller and shittier, even if that’s not the lovable 'small and shitty' of a Canon 814 shooting Kodachrome oldsters like Jeff and myself once knew. For us in the non-commercial world, who are generally happy with 16mm, even in the absence of the reversal aesthetic I can imagine some uses where the smaller all-in-one form factor of the Kodak would be a benefit. This would be especially so if it turns out to be quiet enough for decent sync shooting. One of it's features is that it records digital audio to an SD card when the film is running. Presumably, this comes back in sync with the digitized video as a single file in ProRes or whatever. That’s something you can’t get in 16mm – easily syncable double system hifi sound all in one self-contained hand-held body you toss into a backpack or whatever like a mid-sized camcorder… But yeah, if you’re shooting MOS true-film, I don’t see why you’d forsake a Bolex or an R16 or whatever for one of these… Maybe people who are licking their lips for the Kodak could say why, speaking specifically to the comparison to 16mm? ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Seeking advice for licensing a 1929 film owned by Warner Brothers
For an “essay film” I’d guess the way you’d incorporate only “some clips” would be textbook Fair Use, and you shouldn’t have to pay anything for rights or obtain permission from anyone. You can check out the American University Center for Media and Social Impact (formerly The Center for Social Media IIRC) which publishes a series of ‘Best Practices’ guidelines for different categories, all of which have been vetted by top IP experts in legal practice and academia and been declared “bulletproof”. http://cmsimpact.org/program/fair-use/ ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Christopher MacLaine
IIRC, J.J. had looked into Maclaine’s writing, and he might have some photocopies of poems or the magazine, so i;d definitely contact him. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
[Frameworks] San Francisco Video Store
Björn" For non-blockbuster cinema on optical disc in SF, check Amoeba on Haight (near Stanyan and GG Park). They have as good a browsing selection as you’ll find in the US (since Mondo Kim’s is no more). There isn’t much experimental stuff on disc of any kind, much less BluRay, so Ken’s right that you can find more online. But I used to enjoy looking through the sections of Classic, Foreign, Cult, Documentary, etc. there, and I sometimes find titles I’d never have thought to look for online. They often have used copies of Criterion releases, imports sometimes, and some bootlegs (not that the quality of those is any good), though nothing is exactly cheap there. Not all that far from there, you might also check out Green Apple Books, which has a smaller new/used video selection, but is also eclectic and “non-blockbuster” oriented. Green Apple also bought out the last ‘art/foreign’ video rental house in SF (Le Video) and opened some kind of video thing at the old Le Video location, though I’ve not been there and am not clear on what’s there exactly. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Titles on film
IIRC, the old school method was printing the title on a card, white text on black, and shooting it with special high contrast film, yes? Even if using an LCD screen, it would seem the stock matters a lot. I ‘spose if you’re on a certain budget, the LCD method lets you get decent results with whatever stock you’re using otherwise, and fewer steps. But it seems we’re talking about ‘conventional’ looking titles, and many experimemntal films have used ‘experimental’ titles of one form or another. Why not play with a lightbox, especially since these days you can get some general idea of what camera-shot titles will look like by trying them a properl;y set video camera before exposing expensive stock? ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] looking for films, works of expanded cinema, web-based projects, and installations
Belaboring the obvioius perhaps, but Hollis Frampton ‘Critical Mass’ and ‘(nostalgia)’ [each shot is one 100’ load]; Owen Land ‘Film in which…’; Robert Nelson ‘Bleu Shut’; Barbara Rubin ‘Christmas on Earth’ [non fixed image-iaage and image-sound relationships]; Michael Snow ‘<—>’... ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Vegetable films?
From the Department. of I Can’t Beleieve This Hasn’t Been Mentioned Yet… It’s not film per se, just proto-film, but how could you have a ‘vegetables on film’ program without somehow includingn "Sixteen Studies from Vegetable Locomotion" (1975) by Hollis Frampton & Marion Faller? http://hollisframpton.org.uk/ssfvl.htm ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
[Frameworks] New article about Joe Gibbons on The Daily Beast
http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-sociopath-scholar-who-made-films-of-his-crimes-tried-to-confess-to-americas-most-famous-art-heist ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Editing negative
The old school workflow of workprint/conform/let the lab do the rest was premised on making a number of release prints from the conformed original. I’m assuming Esperanza asked her question because she wants to project the work from photochemical film for some reason, not digitally. The question then is where and how it will be screened. It would be fairly rare these days for artist-film makers to just send out photochemical projection prints by themselves. More often, the maker may be touring with their own copy of the work, and not need more than one print at a time (until they wear out, if that’s a concern…). Esperanza didn’t mention how many cuts, or of what length, she anticaptes making from the original sequence on the neg. If there are lots of cuts, or some very short shots, I’d probably still go with editing workprint yourself (if you can borrow time on a flatbed or bench) then getting someone to conform the negative to A roll. But if there are only a few cuts, and none of the clips are too short, another ‘cheap and easy’ option would be to leave the negative intact, get a good quality positive print (the exiting workprint might do, depending on what stock was used, and whether or not any color/exposure timing is desired)workprint, and then cut that (carefully) as desired with tape splices. Then once a ‘final cut’ is reached, just make sure each splice is taped on both sides, clean aligned with the frameline and tight, and then you could project that. If it’s not going to be shown a lot, it wouldn’t be too much of a pain to do that again if the first print wears out, using the edge numbers as a guide. Of course, there’d be the usual bubbles etc. visiblebe on the screen at the edit points, but that may not be objectionable, depending on the work/audience.maker… Just another option… ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Editing neg?
I wouldn’t suggest conforming any negative you care about yourself unless you have plenty of experience both with handling negative and with a glue splicer. Any dust or whatever that gets on the neg will show up in the print. It takes technique to scrape just the right amount of emulsion off correctly, apply the glue properly, and so on. Rather than contract a lab to do the work, I’d look for some indie maker with experience and an editing bench who’s willing to do it. They should be cheaper than a lab, and be more communicative, I’d hope anyway… ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] How to Make a DVD Screener?
You should first contact the programmer and ask if the jury has the ability to view an HD digital file from a computer connected to whatever screen they use, or just on the computer, if that’s how they’d view the streaming file. You’d need to compress the Quicktime output to h.264 mpeg-4, similar as for streaming, which is best done in Handbrake. Then you’d burn that file to a data DVD, and send that off to the festival, with instructions for them to copy it to a hard drive before viewing. A DVD-video (that will play on a DVD player) is only SD, so the film won’t look very good with that. If they insist, you’d have to downconvert your final cut to SD. You'd want the final DVD to be anamorphic 16x9, but I’m not sure if you need to do the anamorphic part in Quicktime, or if that’s handled within the DVD authoring program. As for a program to make the DVD, the choices are basically the old Apple iDVD and Toast. Of course, I can help you do whatever, if you like... > A programmer from a coastal film festival with poor streaming access has > solicited a DVD screener for their jury to preview. > > Can someone share some simple instructions for making a down & dirty DVD that > will play on DVD player, Mac or PC computer? ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] analog cinema machines
Uhh, Peeping Tom. > I'm looking for movies (experimental or not) that feature the analog cinema > machines (Man with a Movie Camera de Vertov, Kodak de Dean)... ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Entertaining the film
> "What I was picturing specifically was something where a movie goer at a > cinema walks into the screen, or is otherwise drawn into it and finds > themselves in that films world." > > Does VIDEODROME (1983) count? Probably not, as the question is stated, but methinks it would be a useful counterpoint, as it’s basically the reverse: the filmic world enters and then overtakes the reality of the character in the diegetic ‘real’. Of course there are any number of narratives where one or more characters from a fiction within a fiction leavew the filmic world and enter the primary ‘real’, but that’s not the inverse of the query, really. In Videodrome, it’s more a full world takeover, for Max anyway. I can’t think of any other similar examples at the moment. Can anyone else? ___ > The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore, the > television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore, > whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those > who watch it. Therefore, television is reality, and reality is less than > television. > > It has something that you don't have, Max. It has a philosophy. And that is > what makes it dangerous. > > See you in Pittsburgh. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Entertaining the film
Reminds me I forgot Wes Cravens New Bightmare, which differs from Videodrome in that the TV world there only overtakes Max’s reality, while in New Nightmare the filmic world emerges into the diegesis as a whole, affecteing several characters. Moreover, the diegesis is presented more as actual reality, since the performers are appearing as themselves: Robert Englund is Robert England, Heather Langenkamp is Heather Langenkamp, etc. > On the videodrome tip (of a cinematic fiction invading “reality”), the > argento produced 80s horror movie Demons is about a horror movie sort of > “spilling over” into the world of the characters in the cinema viewing the > film. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] film/art for the autistic
Dan: I assume if your students are enrolled in a college class, they’re at the end of the spectrum formerly called Aspergers. I once had such a student in a documentary production class. (Alas I learned this ‘the hard way’ as he was apparently undiagnosed and his parents in denial. But I have a young cousin with the condition, and it became pretty obvious what was up.) Anyway, it was largely unpredictable how his neuro-atypicality would affect his classwork. Our first assignment was a fairly straightforward interview piece, and he showed something that had a disturbing subtext of which he was completely unaware, which was apparently completely accidental, and which he seemed incapable of understanding was problematic, despite the fact every other member of the class was wincing. Folks with ASD tend to be very literal, and struggle with any kind of metaphor, and with the first piece as evidence, I worried about what he’d do with the second assignment – a more impressionistic ‘experimental’ doc short. To my surprise he showed a very moving piece that used objects and film technique to figuratively represent the kind of heightened sense perception a lot of ASD folks get from certain industrialized environmental stimuli and the mental agitation thatb results… My advice, based on this very admittedly limited experience, is that you shouldn’t alter your assignments, but rather just be sensitive to how a different sort of person will address them, and do what you can to ensure that the rest of the class will treat the work and the maker sympathetically. As for the students themselves, I’d probably just re-double the advice I’d give any student: make your projects about something you know and really care about – make them in some way ‘personal’. Most students are afraid to go there, even indirectly, and too willing to take the route of superficially imitating some form they like or feel is somehow validated. My admittedly corny maxim was “Your work won’t be any good unless you put yourself into it, and it won’t get any better unless you can take yourself out of it (in evaluation afterwards…)” ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Films about the clock
If we take the concept of “clock” as ’time keeping device’ then it seems to me that topic might include any motion picture works that foreground how the medium keeps time: for example: any footage in the final product with timecode burned-in, or time and date stamped. Also the use of the countdown in Acadewmy leader. Here, of course, I’m thinking of Bruce Connor (again, not ‘contemporary, but I’m an old fart), especially report. It also occurs to me that in mainstream narrative film, images of clocks don't KEEP time (e.g. screen time or running time), they typically are shown to reference the DIFFERENCE between screen time and time in the diegesis, or the subjective nature of time to a character (fast-spinning clocks, etc.). I mention this in case there’s some sort of useful distinction or difference here between experimental/conventional that helps illuminate the latter. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Films about the clock
Not exactly “contemporary”, but Bleu Shut by Robert Nelson ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Cine-Kodak Special II
If the camera sat for a long time with the spring wound, you might be in trouble, as that causes the spring to lose force. What you’re hoping is that the spring is OK, and the rest of the mechanism is just gummed up from sitting. In which case you may only need a clean and lube to get it going. Which MIGHT be doable DIY... I’ve never dealt with a Cine Special, but Kodal K-100’s are fairly easy to take apart, so maybe a Cine-Special is as well. (???) I’m not a pro camera tech by any means, just have some general mechanical skills, but I’ve CL’ed K-100’s, switched parts between them, etc. [OTOH, you have to be a trained expert to even think about taking apart a Beaulieau or a Bolex]. Maybe someone else here knows how intimidating the innnards of a Cine Special are? ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Linear film editing
> I'm interested in 'linear film editing', as in cutting and splicing film at > an edit bench or Steenbeck or however you do it. That’s not linear editing. Physical film editing is non-linear, which means you can edit anywhere in the piece you want by winding the reels to that spot. Linear editing was how editing in VIDEO was performed pre-computerization. That is, you had to add each shot sequentially from beginning to to end, in that order, and once you got to, say, shot 5, you couldn’t go back and trim the cut between 1 and 2 without starting over. Needless to say, linear editing is a pain in the ass, and anyone who had ever editied film found it extremely frustrating and limitiing. Thus non-linear video editing was invented by commercial filmmakers after video became integrated into feature film produstion via special effects and ‘workprinting’. For example, one of the earliest experimental systems, the Editdroid, was built by Lucasfilm in the early ‘80s. In fact, before the term ‘non-linear editing’ came into common use in the 1990s, these systems were called ‘electronic film editing’, because they gave editors working with video footage the same flexibility that physical film editing had always offered. You have checked your definitions before creating your survey… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-linear_editing_system#History ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Linear film editing
Mary: You might want to pick up an old filmmaking book that covers the different processes on physical editing of photochemical film. E.g. Lenny Lipton’s “Independent Filmmaking”. A. There are two methods of putting the cut pieces of film together: 1) glue splices and 2) tape splices. • Both forms of splice are easily visible, the tape will have little bubbles on the frames on either side of the cut. The glue splice makes a noticable lap joint on one side of the cut. B. There are two broad categories of workflow: 1) Cutting the camera original of reversal stock directly. This would be how most 8mm and Super8 ‘amatuer’ films were made. It’s also how “Meshes of the Afternoon was put together (you can see the laps of the glue splices). 2) Striking a ‘workprint’ copy, editing that (typically with tape splices), then ‘conforming’ the original into 'A and B rolls’ There are two rolls, each running the length of the finished fedit, but with only half of the shots: The A roll would have the originbal footage of all the odd shots, and black leader corresponding to the even shots, the B roll vice versa. These rolls are assembled with glue splices, the lap of each splice going over into the black leader, so no actual exposed frames become fogged by the glue. Then you send the rolls off to the lab, with instructions, and they marry them into a single print with invisible splices. • Conforming negative film stock is a tricky business that requires an ultra-clean environment, so few filmmakers do that themszelves. Thus, for most ‘traditional’ 16mm film work, the only creative editing is done with/on a workprint. C. There are two basic tools for film editing, 1) An edit bench with hand rewinds and a simple viewer. This is all you need to cut a silent film (or one with a not-precisely synced ‘wild’ soundtrack) 2) a ‘flatbed’ editing table (Steenbeck and Moviola being the most common makes) that motorizes the shuttling of film, and keeps the film in sync with one or more audio tracks recorded on mag stock (perforated film covered with magnetic particles like audio tape instead of film emulsion). A flatbed is more or less necessary to edit films with sync sound, whether lip-sync or just precise sync for added music, sfx, narration… > the hypothesis that film can be compared to fabric and editing to stitching. Hmm. From the standpoint of what motion picture editing is conceptually, there’s really no analogy. But then. conceptualy, editing is editing, no matter how it’s done. OTOH, the actual physical work may be comoparable in some ways, and it would make sense that this physical process inflects the conceptual work in some ways. That’s certainly been suggested by folks who have edited both by actually cutting film and doing it all by computer. [There’s also typically a difference between film original and video original: since video is cheaper to shoot you tend to wind up with a lot more footage, more repeated takes, and that can be both a blessing and a curse…] Some ways the conceptual (and physical) prosesses are different: 1) The whole point of editing workprint is you can try an edit, see how it works, then change your mind… at any point. That is, after you’re ‘finished’ you can go back and change the trim on the first cut you made. I don’t think of stitching as temporary. Workprint is always edited with tape splices, so you can pull the splices apart to change them. [You save your trims in case you want to put a few frames back in]. 2) I imagine stitching is usually done more or less linearly: you start with one piece, add another and another -- the work grows and gets larger as you go. Film editing, especially narrative work, OTOH, is typically a process of subtraction. a) The editor first cuts all the discrete shots from the original — camera start to camera stop — and hangs them in a bin. b) Then they’re spliced into one long reel — called an assembly — in the rough order you expect they’ll appear, with multiple possibly-usable takes one after the other: S1T1, S1T2, S1T3, S2T1, STT2, S3T1 etc. c) From then on, it’s mainly subtraction: choosing which takes to discard, deciding to disacrd whole shots or sequences, shortening the shots to the proper in-and-out points. This is why you often hear that feature films had really long rough cuts at one point — ‘legendary 4 hour version’ … that’s normal, and those are never intended to be finished products. The operative maxim that oftens applies to student films: “I didn’t have enough time to make it shorter!’ ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Films about darkness
The End, Christopher Maclaine Lots of ‘dark’ narration over black leader. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Bolex 150 Super 8 camera
> Does anyone know where I could get a replacement part? Or at least how to > test the camera and see if the rough contact point is indeed the issue? If the problem is indeed related to the battery contact, you wouldn’t need a new part, just a rehab on what you have. From the photo it looks like it should be OK, but you could treat the contact with Caig DeOxit Red, which should revive it for any contactr issues. You can get that stuff at ‘real’ electroniucs parts stores. It’s expensive, but goes a LONG way, so get the smallest amt. possible. Even though the burst batteries suggest the battery compartment is the problem, that’s not necessarily the case. If the person who gifted you the camera can testify that it worked prior to being put away when for the period where the batteries went blooey, then the odds are there’s nothing seriously wrong with the camera, and the issue is just some other contact in the power path that has gone stale with dirt and/or minor corrosion that it’s not making a good connection. Like a power switch, or the shutter switch, or maybe a speed control…. As for testing, the only thing I can think of checkling the circuits with an ohmmeter, which a handy friend (the kind who owns an ohmmeter) might be able to do if a bit of minor diassassembly of the case is possible to get at some of the innards. I have a Canon 814XL that appeared to be totally dead after being stored for awhile. I had brand new batterries, cleaned the contacts, did everythign I could think of… no luck. (It wasn’t going to come apart to get me far enough inside with my skills and tools). Eventually, I just fiddled with all the controls for awhile, kind of giving the camera some exercise in hopes of rousing it from deep sleep… and voila, it ‘cured itself’ and strated running… ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Drone vision and violence in experimental film/video art
Maybe Iraq Campaign by Phil Patiris? https://is.gd/V3CqvY ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Bell & Howell Film 70 series
Missed this thread before… The Filmo 16 dates from the 1930s and there were many iterations over the years, including the military models used by combat photogs in WWII. Those weren’t actually model 70’s, but basically the same guts. Only the later Filmos are really modern enough to be useful, the 70dl and 70dr. The dr has the finder-objective and taking-lens turrets geared so they turn together, The dl has two turret that turn separately. The original 70d has a single finder where different aperture masks roitate in to show different focal lengths. In all but the widest setting the windows are too small to see anything. I consider that finder unusable. The 70d also had a double-claw for double-perf film. You can modify it for single perf, but it’s hardly worth the work unless you get a body for free and are very handy and into DIY. Filmos have the issues common to spring drive non-reflex MOS cameras, just to varying degrees: One of these is that you need a different and matched finder objective for each prime lens. This either limits you to what you get when you buy the camera, or sets you out on a time consuming quest to find individual parts on eBay or elsewhere. You find a nice used wide lens, but never a finder objective to match. Or the objective costs more than the lens, etc. etc. Another issue is the spacing between the three mount positions on the turret. If the width of two lens barrels are too wide, they won’t go in simultaneously. A long lens with a long barrel might appear in the frame of a short lens with a short barrell, and of course that won’t show in the parralax finder. On the Filmo, there’s also the question if the rear of the lens barrels clears the side or top of the turret center nut. IOW, while the body may be inexpensive, you be stuck either with meh lenses that came with it, or forced into getting more expensive lenses, since than you might otherwise, since (of course) the available cheap-and-decent options don’t fit… Many decades ago, I had a student who obtained a Revere. He did single-frame animation with it, and regular shoots. It served him well. I’m not sure an “upgrade” will really get you much, unless you can move up to something like a Bolex. __ One alternative to a Filmo is a Kodak K-100. It has a longer spring run than a Filmo a more usable finder, and iot does single frame. Again, locating finder objectives other than whatever you get with the body is an issue, and they didn’t make any wider than 15mm. (There are 12.5mm and 10mm objectives for B) __ One reason a non-reflex Bolex is the MOS ‘standard’ is the Octameter finder, which has a decent sized image and adjusts to a useful variety of focal lengths. __ I haven’t kept up with the used 16mm market on eBay.. But, 15 years back, say, a patient and thorough buyer could eventually get quite a bargain on a Bolex –– something with a mistaken or poor listing but a picture showing a desirable model, lens, general condition, etc. Buying anything on eBay can be a pig-in-poke matter, but especially 16mm gear and especially a Bolex. Bolexes don’t have long spring runs to begin with, and if they sit for years and tears with any tension in the spring, the spring will start to loose poop. Those potential ‘bargain’ listings will be from people closing out an estate who don’t really know anything about cameras. So they’ll wind up the spring a bit, push the shutter, hear it run, and describe it as working fine, not knowing that this doesn’t mewan anything unless it’s actually loaded with film. Such folks also are unlikely to know how to check lenses, for things like separation, or stuck rings etc. So, while you could maybe get a bargain, and I did, you could also get burned, and I did. I was trying to build a stock for use in a school program, and it was still cheaper to absorb the lemons than to just buy stuff of known quality from dealers charging as such. But I wouldn’t do it again. As it turned out, the Bolexes were still too expensive - in the context of the maintenance required to counter the abuse they got from beginning students. So, eventually, I sold off the Bolex stuff and moved everything toward K-100s, which would regularly appear cheap enough that we could consider them semi-diposable, cheaper than a similarly usable Filmo, which woukld have been my second choice… The one thing about a Filmo bargain you might find on eBay, it will probably either work fine, or be fairly easily fixed, e.g. after a proper oiling… But if your Revere is working fine, you have a bird in the hand, so to speak… [I don’t remember the finder particulars for the Reveres… I think at least one version may have used B finders ???] P.S. I don’t care for Bolex reflex models. Too quirky for the $$$ ionvolved in getting a good one. P.S.S. On the non-reflex Bolex, realize the older ones with the chrome speed dial are far less desirable/valuable than the newer ones with black
Re: [Frameworks] Tips on projecting S-8 for digital recording?
I agree that off-the-wall DIY transfers can be quite good, though I’ve mainly done 16mm, not S8. The two main things are: 1. The camera has to be capable of running at the same frame rate as the projector. (e.g. 24fps, for 16mm). You may or may not need the frame sync feature in the camera that can fine tune the speed down to a fraction. 2. The projector must be capable of hoilding its speed steady. This is often an issue with S* projectors, especially those with a mechanical variable speed nob. NOTE: for S8 especially, you aare unlikely to get the camera and projector to sync up at the speed the film was shiot at (e.g. if its 18fps as most are, not 24fps). As long as you can get sync at any speed (e.g. 24fps), you transfer at that speed – in effect undercranking the video copy – and then shift it back to the proper speed in FCP, AE, or whatever. The frame blending usually isn’t noticable to most viewers, and no more a detrement than the old school 24-into-30 of 5 blade telecines. As far as physical setup: > I then shot it onto a movie screen which has high reflectivity, and projected > it so the image size was about 1 foot x 1 foot, to make a nice bright image. You do want a small bright image, but screem material designed for a larger image isn’t necessarily the best projection surface. You want a matte white surface with no visible texture. I just got a nice big white paper sheet at an art store. You should set things up in as close to complete darkness as possible. I used to do it in my basement after blocking the little windows. > I had the camera back away from the screen on a longer lens so it was as > close to the projector angle as possible. The problem with that is light bleed from the projector bouncing into the camera lens. You want the fromt of the camera lens barrel in front of the projector lens barrel. Putting the camera as close as possible to the right side of the projector generally eliminates any objectionable keystoning. Mounting the camera on a three-way still-photo head makes for easiest adjustment of squaring things up. It’s hard to get viideo heads into the right horizen plane. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Tips on projecting S-8 for digital recording?
> There are probably very few projectors that run at 24fps or 18fps even. Actually 16mm projectors are pretty tight at 24fps. I did lots of 100’ roll transfers with a standard Pageant into a Canon XH-A1, and never had to fiddle with the A1’s “Clear Scan” setting. After all, old-school telecine projectors were only different from standard models by virtue of the 5-blade shutter, and they ran steady enough to work with NTSC cameras that had no fine tune adjustments whatsoever. My point is that a camera that has a setting for 24fps, but doesn’t have any fine tune option, MIGHT work OK with a projector running at 24fps… especially if it’s a fairly short tranfer run… Or it might not work. I just wouldn’t run out and try acquire a camera with a fine tune adjustment without testing some less expensive alternative that might be closer at hand… As I noted, I’d be more worried that the S8 projector wouldn’t run steady enough. That was the issue when I tried some S8 with a little Chinon projector I had with a variable speed knob. I thought I’d be able to adjust the projector speed to sync with the video, but I couldn’t get it to sit on the sweet aspot, and even if I got close, it drifted in both directions. I figured a more hefty projector designed for sounfd film would probably not drift so much, at least, but i never had occasion to try that out. I’m guessing that for most folks a DIY transfer is only practical if you can do it with available gear, and not if you have to go out and buy a different projector and different video camera… ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Cheap VHS transfer solutions?
I’d look for a used DV camcorder with AV pass-thru. You should be able to find one for under $50. Note, the camera section and tape transport dn’t need to work, just the basic electronics. Connect your VHS to the camcorder input with an S-Video cable, and capture to FCP or whatever... ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
Re: [Frameworks] Documentaries-diaries-essays or video/film installations that play with truth or cinema theory
Fake docs like 'No Lies' and 'Daughter Rite' don’t really question the concept of truth in any profound way. They are also genre specific to Cinema Verite. If anything, the problem with Daubghter Rite is that the gimmick of the fakery subverts the theme more than it deepens it. So you can stage sequences with the same shooting and editing codes used in verite. So what? The famous short sequence on the bridge repeated three times in Letter from Siberia probably does more to "question the concept of 'truth in documentary’" than all the clever fakes and fauxs put together. Bernie mentioned Nichols’ ‘Intro to Documentary’ as touching on the topic, but I think his “Blurred Boundaries” is probably more relevant, though as usual the prose is hardly user-friendly. ___ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
