I'm working a piece for the Powerhub Project which is essentially a 15m long pinhole camera to take a reel of super 8. I want to capture a train arriving at Maidstone East Station in one exposure (multiple apertures), and the length of the reel of film.
A couple of weeks ago I was wandering the corridors of The Powerhub taking single frame shots of the shadows of the window frames on the floor, for projection at probably 18 fps, I realised that the single frame strategy I've adopted recently is in escense a desire to break down the environment around me, but it's more than that, I want to see the whole of something in an instant, in one go and feeling that when projected that this will satisfy the desire.
On returning back to the unit where the exhibition/installation will be shown, Stavros was filming on his new 16mm Bolex camera and had left a length of 16mm on the table. I glanced up as a slow approaching train drew into the platform, and at that moment, I knew what I wanted to make for the show. I wanted to capture the horizontal movement onto the whole length of a roll of 8mm as the train moved along the tracks onto the platform.
Yesterday we got back from a trip to Vienna and a day before our trip I checked the Viennese Tourist Information site and discovered that the Viennale was on while we were there and under the experimental section, this guy Philipp Fleischmann was show his film - I couldn't believe my eyes and excitment when I saw what I could only decipher as a film pinhole experiment.
http://www.viennale.at/en/programm/
At 24 frames per second the human eye is able to perceive a moving image - and thus creates the prerequisite for the most important effect of the illusionary game called "cinema". Philipp Fleischmann breaks with this illusion by using a complex technique that no longer makes film appear as a succession of single images, but - by way of comparison - like an image created in one go. In fact, however, the effect is so unique that it cannot be compared with anything at all. Except, perhaps, with the dissolution of space gravity.
This film is part of the short film program Kurzfilmprogramm 2.
I met Philipp after the screening and asked him how he made the film (a diorama with two 16mm films inside one facing out towards a wooded area, one facing inwards with friends on the inside of the diorama).
The resulting film in projection is an amazing re-spatialisation (the film is projected as normal ie without turning the project on its side so the image is at a 90 degree angle, rotated to the right) of the wood with people stood inside the diorama which assumes a 3d quality to it.
My first test today, of my super 8mm pinhole, development later!
