16 mm Film Manipulation

16 mm Film Manipulation Response

This project was quite the experience. First off, trying to create any sort of image by hand on 16 mm film is difficult. The square of space you have to work with is tiny, and I am not very good at drawing, so it made it even more challenging. Because of my lack in drawing abilities, I stuck to more abstract techniques to represent fire, earth, water, and air. I enjoyed painting the most. Fading the colors from red to blue, for fire and water, was fun to do, and it actually looked decent. There was also a touch of blue glitter. When I put it on the clear leader, I could not see it very well, but when it projected, it showed up subtly. This actually made it look cooler than if it were too thickly applied. I also liked how the scratching looked on-screen. My original plan was to scratch suns into the medical film stock, but it was more challenging than I thought. Instead, I scratched simple stars. They turned out looking unique while it played. I also used a sharpie to black out part of the clear leader. After doing this, I used scissors to scratch out tiny stars and planets to make it look like outer space. This part was not large and went by quickly, but it looked good on the clear leader itself. 

Although I am not good at drawing, as mentioned above, the simple animations and sketches I drew worked well on-screen. The ones that stood out most were the moving clouds. While I was drawing this using sharpie onto the 16 mm film, I was not sure it was going to look right. I did not know if I was drawing on enough of the film stock or if I was spacing each image enough for them to animate correctly. It turned out better than I thought while watching it. Animating is tedious and time consuming. I commend anyone that creates animations, especially by hand.