"It's the Process" by Matt Joyce

I grew up surrounded by videos. I owned hundreds of them – VHS movies or videos of films. So, to me, the words ‘video’ and ‘film’ were largely synonymous. As a spectator all I saw was the final product, which I called a ‘film’, and the closest I got to the medium was dissecting my VHS tapes. These were my prized film reels, endless loops of magnetic tape. I just assumed from the word that movies were shot on something called ‘film’ though I had never seen a film camera before. So when my friends showed up on the scene one day with a camera, which spat out VHS tapes, I said, ‘Okay, let’s go make a movie’. As you can see, I was not a techie. In fact I didn’t even know what the word ‘medium’ meant until I took Media class in grade 11.

Around that time, the term ‘digital video’ started appearing in conversation, and I remember first seeing memory cards being tossed around. Photography students running through the halls like someone just died. I didn’t get it. All it did for me was to make me think a little harder about what ‘film’ meant – how was it different from the stuff in those tapes of mine? In retrospect, thank god digital arrived when it did because I could have easily entered my adult life without ever knowing what ‘analog’ meant. Jokes aside, I inevitably ascribed to the consumer understanding of motion pictures; soon, in sight, in mind, digital was the only medium around me. Sure I learned a certain degree of digital terminology just by living in this world but I never delved into it. Despite offering a practical skill, it didn’t seem hands-on to me.

It felt elusive and intangible. I saw all the creative controls as existing behind a layer of complex technology. And since most tasks on a computer were already a mystery to me, I gave up and stuck with acting. It wasn’t until a few years ago, after being baffled by the fact the cameras on the local ‘Movie of the Week’ shoots had no film cartridges attached to them, that my final question was answered – there’s no such thing as high definition ‘film’!

To this day I have never shot on film before. No surprise, I’m sure. I’m a kid of my generation. Throughout my scattered experiments with videography I’ve never even come in contact with any part of the original filmmaking process. However, my frustration with the intangibility of digital technology has made me often wonder about the lure of ‘film’. Despite having no experience with the medium, I have accumulated thoughts, feelings and ideas concerning this potent medium we call ‘film’. I’ve just spent the last four years in university studying the theory behind filmmaking, which has played a significant role in channeling these thoughts. But it wasn’t until I first studied Norman McLaren, that I finally entered into the mystery, riveted by this image of a man alone in the dark with one little light examining his reels. There was something inherently special about this process of making a ‘film’.

Though I had never connected with celluloid in this way before, I somehow intuitively understood that ‘film’ would suit me. I saw myself alone in the dark, overlooking a flat bed of trims, pieces, all my raw ingredients spread out in front of me. I could see my elements. I could touch the pictures I’d created, hold them in my hands in their native state. It’s a sensory thing – the chance to be physically connected every step of the way, watching my film take shape inch-by-inch, frame-by-frame. From that moment on I knew that the two, ‘film’ and ‘video’ were completely different in terms of creative process. The vision of a band of die-hard filmmakers, purists who wouldn’t switch over to digital if their life depended on it, suddenly made sense.

I know now that there is a unique bond forged by working with tangible media. Whether it is Norman McLaren or Steven Spielberg, there is something that intrinsically binds these artists to the film medium, regardless of depth of field or questions of aesthetic preference. What I have heard thus far for choosing ‘film’ is the conviction that there is something in this hands-on experience of making ‘film’. As Roger D. Wilson (independent filmmaker) says, and it seems to me now the essential truth, “it’s the process”. This felt reality of being inside – of bodying the creative act – cannot be realized any other way.

“I Am Human” by Irina Lyubchenko

Have you noticed that capitalism converts rebellion into a viable commercial product? Hippies, punks and Che Guevara have all been assimilated into an infrastructure of consumerism. It appears as if film’s becoming ever less profitable in this new digital economy; its role in the market place is being slowly re-conceptualized in order to accommodate new markets for celluloid. Film, being less widely used, becomes marginalized and considered more as an alternative than a standard. Film is a tool for revolt, a non-conformist weapon in a digital age. There are a variety of new products being made that attract with their exaggerated “filminess”.

The grain and distortions caused by lens, uneven speed and imperfections oppose themselves to the refined superficiality of digital images.  It feels that film has to prove its right for existence by emphasizing all that is considered filmic. It reminds me of a popular sci-fi theme of robots, cyborgs and other techno creatures trying to be human. However, in our inverted scenario it’s humans trying to be human. The “filminess” of film has become a popular product and I am rather convinced that its demand will be satisfied. I am also tempted to predict that one day soon this rediscovered novelty of film will fence its market territory and, possibly, it will be the time for digital technologies to prove their right for existence. In the end, nobody could ever predict we would have film, video and digital technologies a little more than 100 years ago. We can’t know what ways of image making are awaiting us in the future. However, my future is with film, because I am not trying to be human, I am human.

IFCO's TRIM BIN: Discussions on Contemporary Celluloid Practices

“EXPERIMENTAL CINEMATIC EXPRESSION: TO BE OR NOT TO BE NARRATIVE”

 What If? by Irina Lyubchenko

What does the word “experimental” mean? To me, an experimental approach in film is similar to an experimental approach in science. The difference is that there is no need to prove or disprove any hypothesis or agenda. Or, I guess, the hypothesis in experimental film is that there is no agenda. Genre films employ strategies that are traditionally used in telling a story; Love triangle, for example, has often served as a structural buttress for romantic drama films.   Placing characters in scary settings from which they can’t get out creates a sense of the unfolding doom and is a common background in suspense/thriller/horror type films. Themes of drugs and alcoholism are almost a requirement for a classic drama story. Genre films aim at a particular part of the human brain, a certain neurotransmitter, such as adrenaline, responsible for feelings of fear, or dopamine, the chemical of love. For instance, horror films attempt to scare us; a detective story – puzzles and, melodramas – play a sort of tug of war with our hearts and minds. These genres all include some form of explanation; whereas as to me – to experiment is not knowing the outcome of the experiment ahead of a time; not making any attempts at manipulating the viewer’s reaction.  To experiment is to ask the question, “What if?”

So, could or should an experimental film be narrative? If being narrative means telling a story, then aren’t all good films, experimental or not, narrative? Story means experience. Some stories are born to be told with words, some with pictures. Traditional narration in film cannot live without the use of words; it heavily relies on logos; words serve as tools of persuasion and reasoning. It seems to me that the more the structure of the visual experience is detached from the sign systems that are used in daily life, the more experimental it becomes; the more difficult it is to re-tell the film’s events if asked what the film is about. However, I would argue, the story is still there, the narration is still taking place since a new and unusual experience is being shared with the viewer. I believe this experience to be more subjective and personal since it comes from a place where words are not necessary, and cannot penetrate the psyche of the observer.

Music + Editing = Narrative by Stephanie Conkie

Experimental films are like an improvisation of music: unique, spontaneous, but still require an educated skill. To say there is no narrative, agenda or set plan to experimental films is like saying there is no purpose in artistic audio or visual expression.  

It would be easy to rule out the experimental when discussing broad and mainstream films as the prototypical way of expressing narrative and set cinematic storytelling techniques. However, what we fail to recognize are the number of other approaches to storytelling that experimental filmmakers use in their films. 

For this approach I would like to suggest that narrative could be found in experimental films, through the expression of music that accompanies the image. 

Would it be wrong to state that a number of experimental films depict what music looks like, if it were an image? 

Take for instance Norman McLaren’s short film Begone Dull Care (1949). An example of an early animation film, it can also be seen as experimental for the music that accompanies the image, which consists of coloured and scratched celluloid. 

As a graduate student and teaching assistant in the film studies program at Carleton University, a screening of Begone Dull Care in a first year film course proved that music could depict narrative in experimental films. 

Upon completion of the film, a student replied to me, “That short film, that is what jazz looks like”. Having no prior knowledge of the film the student was able to find the purpose of the film without ever knowing that Norman McLaren was doing just that, creating a visual representation of Oscar Peterson’s jazz music. Therefore, it was the music that appealed to this student, the process in which he made a connection to the abstract images on screen and the story they were trying to tell. 

In Begone Dull Care and other experimental films it is the composition that determines the exact images as they appear on screen, through a rhythmic editing process. 

Therefore, would it be wrong to state that the tone and rhythmic impulses the audience hears determine what is seen on screen? 

Rhythmic editing, a process that is often attributed to experimental filmmaking tends to downplay temporal and spatial relations, which often serve as pillars in continuity editing and provide signs of a narrative. However, there is still a narrative through the images and the rhythmic way they are shown on screen. 

The majority of film viewers who are only familiar with continuity editing may automatically see experimental films as abstract and suggest that there is no narrative. However, instead experimental films ask more from its viewers, to dig deeper. Therefore, I am suggesting that experimental films contain a narrative, whether through music, rhythmic editing or projected images, the challenge is to look beyond the surface of the film and find a story for yourself. 

Like this writer, who tends to prefer open ended conclusions to fiction filmmaking, the narrative in experimental films are often always open ended, and allow the individual viewer to find meaning in a variety of different ways. 

There is no "story" in the word "experiment" 
by Dave Johnson

          Experimental film/filmmaking/cinema, not to sound glib, is just that...an experiment with film/cinema. This experimentation is to explore the meaning of filmmaking/cinema through light, time and space. It is the unfortunate curse of mainstream cinephiles  who need to be spoon- fed a story, therefore consider experimental cinema “shit”, “pretentious” , or  “a waste of time”( during the premiere screening of Michael l Snow’s film “Wavelength” the audience members threw their chairs at the screen!).  I’m not trying to sound elitist, I too enjoy watching mainstream cinema...even cinema which would turn some people green, blue and purple... I’m CRAZY about the television series River Monsters! ... But I digress. 
        The point I’m trying to make is that experimental cinema is a work of art in which a story doesn’t need to be told. The more “successful” experimental films are those which convey an idea, or take the viewer to a sense of enlightenment in a new or different way. The way in which this is achieved, in my opinion, is through timing and rhythm.  In academia, film/cinema has been referred to as a form of poetry (this can contain either visual or include both image and sound). If one refers to this idea, not all poetry tells a story, but expresses a thought or idea rhythmically...think iambic pentameter...haiku...etc. 
        Stan Brakhage, one of the most important figures of experimental cinema, taught and inspired two filmmakers who went on to create one of television’s most successful and crass television series...we all know who they are...Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park fame....or David Fincher (of Fight Club and Seven fame), where Brakhage was a family friend.  One of my most memorable introductions to Brakhage’s films was his silent film Mothlight. This is a film where he collected blades of grass, flower petals, and moth wings, glued them to Mylar tape and re-photographed it to the timing of a Bach Fugue. The result is literally a visual poem created through light, time and space....and it doesn’t tell a story! In conclusion, experimental cinema should be just as it quite literally states...an experiment with film. It is then up to the filmmaker to be responsible for determining  the “story”, “message”, “rhythm”, etc.