Lost in Light » Abstract

Painting with Camera

Aaron — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 03:45:50 +0000

click image to play video in Flash | Quicktime

This week’s post features “Painting with Camera,” a Super 8 film made by Aaron Valdez around 2000 in Austin, Texas. Transferred by videotaping the film projected on a wall, this piece exploits the flicker inherent in film projection along with graphic explorations of the urban environment to create a kind of moving painting. Running at 18 frames per second, Super 8 allows for a gentle blur during rapid camera motion, creating beautiful abstractions out of ordinary images.

The film was made for one of the Austin Cinemaker Co-op’s (now Austin School of Film) quarterly Super 8 film festivals. Super 8 film fests are alive and well around the globe, including the fantastic international Flicker network. OnSuper8.org also has a great list of worldwide small gauge screening and filmmaking opportunities.

We’re always looking for creative work to showcase, so if you have a small format film (new or aged) that you’d like us to consider for this site, drop us a line. You can send us a permalink, provide it on video, or we can always transfer the film to video for you. For more details, check out our Call for Work page.

Scouts

Aaron — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 04:49:56 +0000

click image to play video in Flash | Quicktime | MPEG-2

My favorite kind of 8mm film is the accidental double exposure. 8mm film comes on small 25′ rolls that are 16mm wide. The camera exposes half of the surface area of the film in the first 25′ run and then the user has to manually flip over the reel and rethread it for the second 25′ run in which the other half of the 16mm wide film is exposed. When the film is processed the lab slits the film down the middle resulting in your 50′ of 8mm home movies. The double exposure happens when the filmmaker forgets how many times they’ve flipped over the reel. In essence the amateur becomes an unknowing artist and the results are usually beautifully synchronous.

For Helen Hill

Jen — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 21:35:24 +0000

This is a painful post to write. Yesterday, the film community lost a vibrant star. Filmmaker Helen Hill was killed by a gunman at her home in New Orleans, a victim of a rash of violence that has plagued the city since the new year (story here). To add to the tragedy, she was an active volunteer in the local community as well as a well-loved contributor to the filmmaking world at large. Although her husband was shot as well, both he and their small son survived the attack.

A memorial site is being set up at helenhill.org. Photos and memories can be sent to memory(at)helenhill(dot)org.

By all accounts, Helen was both an incredibly sweet and generous person as well as a dedicated filmmaker, animator and film preservationist. When much of her amazing collection of home movies was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina, she took on the task of carefully rescuing the works–and in many cases simply making the best of the damaged films she could salvage (hear her discuss them here). Her enthusiasm for handmade, DIY films, and willingness to share her expertise and passion, was an inspiration to many, including myself. She will be missed terribly.

I never met Helen in person, but we corresponded by email and she graciously included a little write-up of mine in her fantastic and much-loved DIY filmmaking guide, Recipes for Disaster. Much of what I learned about hand-painting film for that article came from working on the film I’m including here.

This Super 8 film is one of my first experiments in hand-painting, created in 1998 in Austin, Texas, and it was largely due to the amazing collection of knowledge included in Recipes that I was able to continue experimenting in this form. Even though we never met, I owe a lot to Helen, and I don’t think my films would be what they are today without her influence. This film is dedicated to her memory.

Click image to view video in Flash | Quicktime

We at Lost in Light send our best wishes and deepest condolences to her family and friends. We are tremendously upset by this news, and she will be in our thoughts.

NB: Forgive the quality of this transfer; this film was not transferred using our Lost in Light transfer system, but is rather a shoot-off-the-wall style transfer from several years ago.