As a film-maker, I feel the medium you choose to present your subject matter should still serve the purpose or artistic intention of the film. In this case, I knew from the observation of these animals that I wanted to use a medium that would allow me the opportunity to really get tactile and aggressive with. These animals display such dominant and violent behaviors towards one another that I felt was so very powerful that I had to choose a medium that could allow ME (the artists) to feel involved in the tearing, slashing, and aggression, so that in some way my film-making is informed by the behaviors I am depicted. Scratch-On-Film seemed like a perfect medium to do this with.
Of Course, with as any good animator should do, I researched a little on those who came before me. I have attached some links below of some famous artists and their films, which are super awesome in their own ways. Here are some Scratch-On-Film legends:
( a still from Two Sisters by Caroline Leaf......75mm....wowza)Caroline Leaf (Check out: Two Sisters (75mm scratch-on-film)
Norm McLaren (Check out: Blinkity Blink)
Oskar Fischinger (Check out any of his studies)
Len Lye (Check out Free Radicals)
The next issue was to figure out what to work on, 16mm or 35mm. As you can see by the sheer size difference in drawing/scratching on a piece of 35mm in comparison to the 16mm, the 35mm was a "no brainer"! (Can you imagine working on 75mm life Caroline Leaf? awesome!) See Below:
After choosing to go with 35mm, I thought to myself "I want to achieve the colored look that Caroline Leaf got in her film Two Sisters. With some research and guidance, i found that scratching on black leader was not the only solution. I could use already fully exposed color film to achieve the coloration i was looking for. In film, the actual film is built up with layers of different colored emulsion. In my case Green and yellows were prominent. If you used a Tungsten film, you most likely would be scratching away at a blueish looking emulsion. If you scratched away at negative, you would have a red or orange coloration. There is a great diagram on the different colorings of film emulsion and some processing techniques in Maureen Furniss's book The Animation Bible: A Practical Guide to the Art of Animating from Flipbooks to Flash. There are some good summaries and tidbits of Scratch-on-Film artists and processes in there as well if you want to read more.So we got the subject: Elephant Seals. We got the medium: Scratch-On-Film, 35mm Exposed Color Film, Now its time to make a film.......off to pre-viz and storyboards!
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