Thursday, September 30, 2010

Scratch Film Junkies

What are Scratch Film Junkies?

'We are a group of digital filmmakers - a spin on the term, since we truly use digits, the ones on the ends of our hands. We're making films by hand, direct animation as it is known, with the purpose of exploring the possibilities of truly analog work in a digital world. This is a quilting bee with celluloid as fabric and sprockets for stitches.

This should not be seen as a retreat from the state of things, but a means to find what strengths the art form has that are parallel to that which is computer generated. Even given the greatness of film's history, one hundred years is a small period compared to the centuries-long development that the traditional art forms have enjoyed. We believe that much of what is great and unique in the art of handmade filmmaking is still to be revealed and digital technologies have much to offer in support of the art form, as opposed to the contrary notion of a replacement technology.

All films are handmade for your optical pleasure -- do not take with other medications!'

How to...

I found this really helpful website with basically total instructions for making a scratch film and also ideas for making them coloured through using household type of things such as felt tip markers and cellophane...colour is definately something I will be trying and exploring further...I am a little bit worried about what I have done so far though in terms of the patterns that I have created and how different they are from the previous frame and the size of each frame, but i'll see how it goes.

I have managed to fine 2 other artists that do similar work,

I love Stephanie Maxwells work, I find it extremely interesting as she incorporates other

images into her scratch films...





Thad Povey is another artist thatI came across who has an eccentric sort of style of film making


Original Celluloid from Scratch Film Junkies

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Film scratching

I split my film strip into 4 parts lengthways with the intention to create a scratch film if i manage to find a film reel....
At the moment I am just at the experimental stages but I am enjoying the film scratching and I am keeping each different pattern in similar sized grids...I still need to head down to the film archive to see if they can help me out with this...
I have started my series with different shapes and patterns and eventually a character emerges from the chaos of shape...and colour possibly (I am still thinking of trying chemicals and different dyes to get a good range of colour) he will then start to creep around the other series of photographs I have which are mainly of landscapes...
We shall see ....



Film scratching with the compass






My set up


Monday, September 27, 2010

Narrative?












I was thinking of doing a sort of short film clip narrative starting with scratch film ...

Beginning with abstract patterns scratched into my over exposed film. The patterns would merge off each other and then would end with a little old man emerging from a scratched ball and walk through the scene pictures that I had taken that came out ok, these ones are all of settings in town so I am looking for a way to have the little old man walking through these scenes....maybe projecting somehow? Not sure yet...I need to find this out...
I think it would be quite cool mixing the old with the new in terms of remediating...

I also found this website
With some of Len Lyes earlier films from the 1930s
and I just found out he is a New Zealand artist :D awesome!
watch the vids they are very cool!
I'm thinking of also experimenting with dyes and cellophane to incorporate a little colour...

Sunday, September 26, 2010

First Film

So I took my first film last week but I haven't been able to get my pics to upload onto my blog? I have no idea why? So they're on my flickr account for now... Click here to have a look :)
So I was also talking to Matt last week and he suggested since a lot of my photos were over exposed that I should think of doing a scratch video...

Len Lye does some scratch film
You can view it here on youtube this film was made in 1958 and i think this is something i may look into doing with my film as my photos did not come through as well as I would have hoped

Here are a few images that I liked...


Len Lye explores some really abstract and colourful images which is why I think I am so interested in his work...theres something captivating about the way he makes his scratch film




Thursday, September 9, 2010

Final Images


Cherry Tomatoes

Ripe for the picking

Tom goes under the knife

Kiwi Disaster

The bruised banana

Red wine

Angry mob
Banana slip

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Project two final proposal

Throughout this project I have looked into the photographic qualities of food. My main focus however has been on fruit in particular. What I am trying to suggest through this project is that by giving fruit a face people should start to feel the way that vegetarians feel towards eating animals. Fruit is consumed on a regular basis without a second thought for it's feelings. When I looked into the way that we consume fruit the acts in themselves seemed quite sinister and murderous.

The aim of my project is to portray fruit with emotion to get the viewer to see themselves as a villain, murdering these poor pieces of fruit. I have also only included the fruit that comes as part of a collective or grows together which are cherry tomatoes, grapes, kiwifruit and bananas. I feel that if the fruit comes from some sort of collective there is an essense of family which we can relate to. There is also that essense of wanting revenge for their murdered fruit family members. I also decided to include tomatoes within the fruit series as there is the common misconception that it falls under the vegetable family when in fact it is part of the fruit group.

In terms of aesthetics I wanted to keep the series light hearted and comical much like the work of Terry Border within his project 'Bent Objects'. The Bent Objects series took the natural characterisitics of fruit and portrayed them in a comical way, giving them a personality. I drew each of the facial expressions myself and then layered them onto each photograph in photoshop. The process was simple and I believe it looks effective.

The narrative of the story begins with happy cherry tomatoes I particularly picked tomatoes as the main characters of the series as they are thought of as more of a vegetable than a fruit when really they are classified as fruit. The series sets the scene with a group of happy cherry tomatoes it then goes on to show a human hand reaching down to grab one disturbing this happy environment. The next shot shows the tomato almost ready to be chopped, waiting in anticipation. My series then goes on to show other fruit that have been victims of these activities. The kiwifruit has been slaughtered and chopped with a kiwifruit looking on, a banana has been brutally bashed and beaten and shows the rest of his bunch in shock, the next image suggests the fate of the grapes with them staring up at a wine glass full of red wine. The next shot shows an angry mob of the fruit families gathered together with a little bit of tension between the tomatoes and the others as they don't yet see them as part of the family. The last image takes their plans for revenge out into the real world with a banana skin lying on the ground ready to be stood on by the upcoming human.

I believe the narrative is clear, aesthetically I am really pleased with the images and I believe that they work better as stand alone images without text as I want to show not tell, keeping an air of suspense in the next shot.

Terry Border Bio


Terry Border is a 45 year old man who currently resides in Greenwood, he has worked several years as a commercial photographer and soon picked up working with wire sculpture as a hobby.

The work that has most inspired my work however is his project 'Bent Objects'

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

I found a few more comical photographs of food by Terry Border on his blogspot page. Click here to view
The photographs i have posted so far are all part of Terry Border's 'Bent Objects' project






I really admire the humour within his photographs, and the characterisation of these everyday objects that are otherwise personality-less. He brings out the unique characteristics of each object and portrays them in a humorous way.
I love his use of colour to keep it light hearted and the small messages he is putting across in each image.

Introducing three new characters :)

















These three images are the most recent I have been working on, I am thinking of drawing up a few other faces to use in the images.














Monday, September 6, 2010

Woohoo

I found an awesome photographer that takes everyday objects and makes them into something comical retaining their natural characteristics.

Terry Border
You can view some of his work here






I was searching for precedents and ended up on youtube and found this it's hilarious
I like the storyline but also the angles from the fruits perspectives\

Also found this corn video

Narrative and Characters

I am going to include another 3 groups of characters; grapes, bananas and kiwifruit into the storyline as victims.
The reason I have chosen the selected fruits are because they all come in some form of collective group and so look after their own.
The narrative will revolve around each characters victimisation by the human, a mob meeting of all of the fruit gangs and then a plot to get back at the evil human!

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Precedents?

I found this image on deviantart in my hunt for precedents and thought it was really comical
I'm finding it really difficult to find photographers that do the same sort of thing..

Thinking...

After speaking with Matt I have decided to start working on a more interesting narrative, visually I think it is all there in terms of style but atm I am just trying to brainstorm more ideas for the finished product :)
This is what I have been working on so far, Im not too sure if I like the lighting yet...I think I can do a bit more with that...but i am liking where I'm going with this...I'm also going to incorporate a narrative and show it in comic book style...I think...









These are the two other faces I have been working on :)