updated 12th Feb 2009
16mm
NOTES on 16mm event.
working name ideas
Threshold
'Experimental Cinema'
Screen 16
Still 16
King Of Cine
Cinema16
Frameworks: 16mm now
Reel Time: 16mm now
World of 16....
Regular programme. 1 every 3 months?
Basic
Film screening event aiming to explore the cinematic use of 16mm.
An attempt to locate the practice of film making using a specific technology
within the context of a cinema environment as 'Experimental Cinema'.
Detail
I see this event as part of the 'work' of an artists run cinema.
In that 16mm constitutes a medium of expression and cinema apparatus
that comes with its own unique set of concerns both artistically and
more broadly culturally and socially. We can see in the history and
development of 16mm a running parrallel commentary with all major
movements in modernism and thinkning. (claim)
Something has to be said about the screening facility and
multi-projector works which place specific demands on it.
The Fumeo Xenon projector and sound reproduction system are tools
which are creatively employed and are viewed in the context of 'a cinema'
which has a public programme and archive of historic events.
ie, working title Sprocket 16 could run single evening programmes
or it could run a small programme infront of regular 35mm features.
Aims
Explore the unique cinematic medium of 16mm with screenings from
professional, amateur, artists film, the avant garde, archives, collections, etc.
With emphasis on 'Artists' use of 16mm rather than the format for the sake of it.
ie no prints from 35mm are to be shown, no shorts or features from filmbank etc.
As yet no overriding programme structure is in place because finances havent been worked out.
An ambition is to not make this a purely retrospective activity. Therefore we must go about
identifying modern and contemporary works for exhibition.
(Festivals.
Festival Programmes. See Rotterdam or Leeds, etc Loads of works in 16mm.
Rotterdam had whole section on 16mm (2007)(still16) see link below.
participants/partners/collaborators.
Nowhere. James. Camerless workshop? (mailed)
Ben at Lux. Terms for films. (ben says theres a vibrant 16mm scene, they
are always making new prints, etc)
Ian Helliwell. Artist In Residence? (more 8mm though)
Other Cinema (SF, USA) Found footage. Exchanges and links for new ventures.
Nova and euro network.
Work from Star/Shadow.
(see studycollection page, masses of info).
Amateur Film Makers?? Ten Best competition. (movie maker magazine)(research)
Key partners, associates.
Ali Jones, Cube Cinema, artist, writer.
Jack Stevenson, Denmark. Film collector, writer, programmer (likes the idea
of a history of the world according to 16mm).
Gareth Evans, Vertigo, independent curator, writer.
Lux/LFMC. Ben Cook. Prints, Artists.
Picture This. Jo Lanyon. Artists. ?
Spike Island. Lucy Byatt. Artists. ?
Bristol Uni. Jon Dovey. (more video)who teaches film there) ?
Arnolfini. Michael Prior. Artists. ?
Approach;
David Curtis. Advice, mentor curator, contacts.
Malcolm Le Grice. as above. links with music.
links
http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/eng/programme/programme_sections_2007/still_16.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16mm
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/16mm/index.jhtml
http://www.thestickingplace.com/film/vogel.html
http://www.movinghistory.ac.uk/archives/sw/films/sw7skating.html
http://www.bftv.ac.uk/newslet2/sum04p5.htm
http://www.icfar.co.uk/pdf/artists/curtisdavid.pdf
http://www.studycollection.co.uk/
http://www.luxonline.org.uk/work/index.html (exerpt from major artists work)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/artistsfilm/
http://www.lfmc.org/
http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk/
http://www.canyoncinema.com/K/Kren.html (http://www.index-dvd.at/en/program/002/index.html)
notes/extras/scribbles
Pat O'Neill
http://switch.sjsu.edu/web/v5n2/runaways.html
books/reviews:
wees on O'Pray.
http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol8-2004/n32wees
Book collection.
Experimental Cinema David Curtis 1971
Film Is Stephen Dwoskin 1975
Abstract Film and Beyond Malcolm Le Grice 1977
Structural Film Anthology Peter Gidal 1978
The Struggle For The film Hans Richter 1976/86
The Cinematic Apparatus T De Lauretis/S.Heath 1985
Contructivism In Film Vlada Petric 1987
Materialist Film Peter Gidal 1989
Das Experimentalfilm Handbuch Ingo Petzke 1989 (german)
Audio-Vision Michel Chion 1990
Early Cinema & Avant Garde Bart Testa 1992
A Critical Cinema 2 S.MacDonald 1992
Avant Garde Film Motion Studies S.MacDonald 1993
A History Of Ex' Film/Video A.L.Rees 1999
Silent Cinema Paolo Cherchi Usai 2000
Experimental Cinema -
In The Digital Age Malcolm Le Grice 2001
Electronic And Experimental -
Music (some overlapping) Thom Holmes 2002
Film Art Phonomena Nicky Hamlyn 2003
Avant Garde Film Michael O Pray 2003
Lines Of Resistance
Dziga Vertov And The Twenties Yuri Tsivian 2004
A History Of Artists Film And
Video In Britain David Curtis 2007
NB. Book collection nicely bookended by David Curtis whose new book (see above)
is perhaps the best work in its field and is providing much inspiration to the
idea of a 16mm screening event.
notes on 16mm.
Why should a medium be singled out from others and given its own stage.
The examination of this is the work of an artist run cinema because we find
ourselves in posession of 16mm projection equipment and therefore ask
'Where is the cinema for this technical stage of moving image production?'.
We show films using 35mm because mainstream, commercial films use this medium.
But we dont need to examine this format because this is supposed to be the
essential cultural expedition of 'cinema'. However, as commercial cinema does
not choose to interrogate the medium itself but rather entertain and tell
stories within an exact literary/narrative context if we were to look
more critically at this medium we would expect to go to 'artists' working
specifically with 35mm.
Its almost arbitrary that 16mm came to a standard as it did, when it did to
allow a creative and political economy at a certain point in history in
certain countries to combine individual and collective interests with this
standard.
from wiki:
16 mm film was introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1923 as an inexpensive amateur alternative to
the conventional 35 mm film format. During the 1920s the format was often referred to as
sub-standard film by the professional industry. Initially directed toward the amateur market,
Kodak hired Willard Beech Cook from his 28 mm Pathescope of America company to create the new
16 mm Kodascope Library. In addition to making home movies, one could buy or rent films from
the library, one of the key selling aspects of the format. As it was intended for amateur use,
16 mm film was one of the first formats to use acetate safety film as a film base, and Kodak
never manufactured nitrate film for the format due to the high flammability of the nitrate
base. 35 mm nitrate was discontinued in 1952.