First Thought, Best Thought: A Compendium of Camera Roll Films

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Using a single hundred-foot roll of 16mm film to create an unedited camera-roll film -- fresh from the lab and onto the screen -- has a certain appeal to me. Partly it’s the practical aspect of DIY efficacy that comes with circumventing the costly steps of post-production. With editing there is something diluted from this raw power of the pure, unadulterated footage, no matter how masterfully the material is pruned and refashioned. Perhaps the phrase of Allen Ginsberg, Chogyam Trungpa, and others, “First thought, best thought” expresses this energy present in the camera-roll film?

From the perspective of a filmmaker there is exciting about this methodology of making a film -- a sense of challenging oneself to try to accomplish a work “perfect for what it is” lacking any of the cosmetics of the cutting room. How the brushwork of a sumi ink painting differs from a work in oils where one can rub out and repaint one’s mistakes. A filmic high wire act, without the editorial net. Everything is on display in the camera-roll film just as the emulsion saw it -- including the light flares on the ends of the roll.

The works in this program range from diaristic documentary pieces of Brian Frye, to studied single-take tableaux Bruce Baillie, Rose Lowder, and Guy Sherwin, to Josh Guilford's nature-study of movement and form.

Programmed by Joel Schlemowitz

Programme:
- Josh Guilford “Rock Roll” 3 min
- Bruce Baillie “Still Life” 3 min
- Rose Lowder “Les Tournesols” 3 min
- Kerry Laitala “Retrospectroscope” 3 min
- Guy Sherwin “Short Film Series” 35 min
- Brian Frye “Encomium” 2 min
- Brian Frye “Francois Boue Services the Fragrance Machine at Bloomingdale's” 3 min
- Marie Menken “Eye Music in Red Major” 5.5 min

Venue: 

Filmmakers Co-op - New York, United States

Dates: 

Friday, December 4, 2015 - 19:00 to Saturday, December 5, 2015 - 18:55

Category: 

Dates: 

Friday, December 4, 2015 - 19:00 to Saturday, December 5, 2015 - 18:55
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