In The Wake of the Beatles 9/9/08

The first film we screened today in class was In the Wake by A. Curtis. This film consisted of found footage with animated text scratched into the emulsion of the film. Because this is a scratch film, it leaned on the short side, but for the tone and feel of the piece it was ideal. The words appeared as if they were scratched and then written over with some sort of marker or paint. It is unclear what specifically he used to achieve this effect. The words, originally written by James Joyce, supplimented the images upon which they were scratched. As far as scratch films go, this was not my favorite... it was somewhat like the hiaku of scratchfilmland; short, poingnant free, and over almost as soon as it starts.

Next we screened a series of films by Harry Smith. These consisted of animated geometric design and collage, depending on the film. Because all of the films have a Beatles song as it's soundtrack, all of them had the same feel for me. It seems as if he used a variety of techniques, from handpainting to live action shapes moving, to computer assisted image generation. Very entertaining, but little higher meaning or substance. Im sure all of these were very time consuming to complete.