Brakhage

This weeks assignment is to read a portion from the book a moving picture a giving and taking book by the great experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage.  Stan Brakhage is an amazing filmmaker.  I remember discussing his influence with Professor Palmer and especially Shannon last year.  She told me that Martin Scorsese has a watercolor picture done by Stan Brakhage that hangs behind his desk on his wall in his office.  By the way I finally got the movie Badlands so tell her I said it was well worth the wait.  Anyways I decided to do a little research on the man that will be telling me about scratching and dying celluloid.  So just little bit of what I learned is that Brakhage was a strictly non-narrative filmmaker.  His interest of mythology and symbolism comes out in his experimental work.  One of the similarities between Andre and Shannon and less known Brakhage, all three filmmakers preacher production no matter what.  Even if it is shit you are creating and that is the most important thing.  Making things that will be around even after we are not.  Watching Badlands, I wanted to find some of the techniques discussed in class and in the book but I found none.  I was watching a little short clip of Tim Burton stuff and found a lot of stop motion which is interesting.  David Fincher uses a lot of the scratching technique in the opening sequence in the movie Seven.  I find it amazing when mainstream directors can use experimental techniques in their major motion picture and have millions of people across the world see stop motion, in camera editing, or scratching on film. Brakhage was a singer which doesn't surprise me.  In his writing, his personality jumps off the paper or in this case the screen.  He is intelligent as hell.  He went to Dartmouth College on scholarship but then decided to drop out and pursue filmmaking which is quite bold, especially the direction of filmmaking he wandered into.  Brakhage discusses the importance of loading film into the projector and gives plenty of basics in the screen on film. Before screwing around with film in Andre's class, I had no idea how easily the stuff can break.  Apparently I don't know my own strength because I tore the film strip in half.  Brakhage explains that sound speed moves at 24 frames per second through the projector.  Much like Andre and Shannon, Brakhage discusses the difficulties and potential down falls in production, but he never wants the student to not try something.  You cannot learn until you have failed.  It is a terrible example but I believe you can't learn from watching, you have to do.  Like I've ridden to Philadelphia probably 50 times in my life, but I never really knew exactly how to get their until I started driving, taking wrong turns, finding different ways around Pennsylvania until I was conformable with the area.  Brakhage discusses the use of lighting, both natural and artificial.  He talks about daylight lights and other colored lights which we are learning about in Tools and Techniques which thank you again Shannon I ended up getting into the class and it is helping me tremendously.  Brakhage discusses the techniques of places the film into the projector and lighting your film.  He says to throw you light meter out which I found to be amazing.  Glen Pack would shit his pants if he heard someone say that in front of him.  Brahkage discusses the basics of film machines to produce honest art.  What I got out of this article is that anyone can use a camera and projector and know how to use lighting effectively if you take the time.  The machine are just technology, never let the technology create your art use the technology to create your own worlds.  Keep on Rocking in the Free World.

Sundance Kid