OILYFILMS

My Bolex died. In the middle of a shoot. This is the last thing it recorded. I’m calling it “Swansong.”

My friend Gerald Saul, who has been making a film-a-week this year as well (and, unlike me, is keeping up with it) did a series of films called “How to be an Experimental Filmmaker”

I like the idea, so I made a list that accompanies this week’s film

• How to be an Experimental Filmmaker
• Step #1 - Use old, antiquated equipment
• Step #2  - Get professionals to be your on-screen talent. Make sure they have flown in from another country
• Step #3 - Forget to close the gate on the camera. Blame the old equipment. (see Step #1)
• Step #4  Have the camera completely break down half-way through the shoot (see Step #1)
• Step #5 - Tint and tone the blurry footage and release it on the internet
• Step #6 - Pretend that the film ended up exactly as you had planned.

 

 Swansong - an experimental film by Scott Amos [2:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The ghostly image is Carly Berrett, an incredible modern dancer from Utah. We met during MediaNet’s Dance for the Camera Workshop a couple weeks ago. Lots of fun. Embarrassing that half of the footage didn’t work out.  

Fortunately, most of the other footage worked out and will be made into a different film, the film I had initially intended to do (without some of the parts.) Still a lot of post production to do on that, so in the meantime, here is the final film that ran through my Bolex. I find it mesmerizing.

Mike Wolske made the soundtrack, but I played around with it a bit.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 1:55 am and is filed under 16mm, 2008 film-a-week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.