Scratch Film Junkies

Well, it is a very different thing watching these films after you have learned many of those techniques that they use to make them. I feel really good about how ours turned out. But, I feel that now that we did it and also watched what it looked like, there are many things I would like go back and re-do. But, I guess that that is pretty much the process of this sort of filmmaking. You are “experimenting” with the different effects of every technique. I think I would really like to play around more with bleach. Bleach was one of the last things that I played with and applied to our project, and I truly loved the effect. I believe that I saw a bit of that in the Scratch Junkies film. I don’t know. There is this effect that I saw in that film and a couple of other people’s in class that has this sort of bubbling green thing going on. I remember you mentioning that this is bleach, but most of the bleach stuff that I did just cleared away the spots to white, rather than this color. I did sort of get this effect on one part of our film, but I thought that it had merely turned green because of the green markers and paint I had applied to it. I really want to incorporate this film manipulation into my experimental senior seminar project. I can’t decide if I want to just find some old film to do this on, or if I really want to risk taking some of the film that we are shooting off and manipulate it. This is a bit risky with the cost of film and developing, but maybe if some of the film doesn’t turn out to great we may use it for this.
Something that I would like to play around more with is the actual drawing of animation on the strip. I had actually done this with a little fish and some water that slowly filled the frames, but when I applied the bleach I got a bit carried away and messed it all up. I kind of wonder why it still didn’t show up on our strip when we watched it, because I had not only drawn over it with marker but I had also scratched the animations in. A bit time consuming for it not to show up. I also felt like the film we watched played a bit with that tape and bleach method, because there were some great lines of white that I just didn’t get how they did it. I am just assuming that this is the method for this look? I am actually upset that I didn’t get to see the first Scratch Film Junkies. I would have been curious to know how my viewing and feelings have changed about it. I do know that all of the Stan Brakhage films that I have watched over the years are in a new light for me. I feel like I would just watch them in a bit of a trance and maybe zone out a bit because I didn’t know what I was looking at. But, now I feel like I am probing them and wondering how they did everything. So, this could be a gift or a curse, because I can no longer watch these films and feel them as they are. Now, I watch them and am constantly thinking about things outside of the art itself. Yet, this is how it is for any sort of filmmaker I guess. Dr. Sue said that once we had taken her class and many other theory classes, we would never be able to watch film the way that we used to. Or the way that most people just go to a movie to “not have to think,” as many say. I find all of filmmaker thought processes far more fun than just zoning out and not thinking. But, she is right. Once we have learned how something is done, it is held in a different place. And sometimes we can even appreciate the filmmakers more than before. This is definitely the case with this sort of film manipulation. I am now fascinated by it, and I want to get out and do more of my own. Where can I get these old strips of film?