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

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

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...

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

Lomography

Lomography group

Final Images

Cherry Tomatoes

Ripe for the picking

Tom goes under the knife

Kiwi Disaster

The bruised banana

Red wine

Angry mob

Banana slip