Thursday, January 22, 2009

Breaking into Brakhage's Brain in "A Moving Picture Giving and Taking Book"

I think my brain just overdosed on the imagery and information that I just read from Brakhage. The last two pages especially took me for a spin because they read like poetry, evoking images of swirling paint’ evoking images of his films. It reflects what he presumes us as moving picture makers to be on the first page: poets. How poetic. I kind of like that.
Although this was a tough and long read, it at least refreshed my memory on things that I already knew and enlightened me on things that I didn’t know. His writing style was conversational for a lack of a better word and his tone was light-hearted and sincere which was reiterated every time he said “bless you, or him, or it.” He must have had fun writing this article. Anyway, the parts of a projector where a review for me, but it was interesting to see how terms can be changed or modified from book to book or filmmaker to filmmaker. He uses the word “shutter opening” instead of aperture or Iris, and he says “sprocket-wheels” when I just say sprockets, but he has a point. He also says “viewing gate” when I thought it was the film gate. Tomato, tomato, right? Anyway, I really enjoy is conversational style, but sometimes I thought it was a little too informal or he just didn’t explain things well because he confused me especially when he was discussing splicing. Base-to-base, emulsion-to-base? Why can’t it just be base-to-base, or emulsion-to-emulsion? Splice-bars? Cement?? They must have used that in the old days because if you used transparent splicing tape then there should be no problem. I think I read that section a little too fast. I did learn an interesting fact that the glue of splicing tape crystallizes into certain recurring patterns when heated with a iron J. Nevertheless, I love is “quit-reading” approach every now and then. This showed me that he really wants me to learn, take risks, experiment, and be a poet. As he wrote in the letter (which I didn’t completely grasp because of the jargon), “Follow you’re a muse meants” (the amount of puns in this article is ridiculous).
The section that probably enlightened me the most was the section on lighting. I am assuming what was discussed in this article is what we were going to do in class today. In fact, after reading the whole idea about manipulating the exposure in a dark room, I am even more thrilled about our rayogram class project. I will be on the hunt later for tiny objects that I can use for this. Hasta la vista.

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