you read that right folks. scratching up film. it's funny, i've always thought of film stock as a precious commodity, and have always handled it as if it were some rare mineral from the bowels of brazil. then andre, smiling like a fourthgrader at the gamestop, grabs a reel of some medical film (1960's maybe) and starts lopping off three feet strips, passing them out. and the quote of the day: andre says "this class is like arts and crafts." WOW! what did I get myself into?!?!
scratching film feels sacrilegious. i took the sharp point of a push pin and starting gouging up my film strip. the footage is of some scientist in a lab, wearing a white lab coat, then pushing a button on some antiquated machine. i started scratching off his hair. seriously. i removed streaks of emulsion to create a white-ish mop on the top of this guy's head. then i took a gold sharpie and highlighted a beaker filled with some fluid. fun times. it occurs to me that i am very literal. some of my classmates were punching holes writing text laterally across their filmstrips. me, i was simply altering the literal image exposed. at one point i tracked down the crafty hole punhces, and to my dismay each of the shapes (leaf, star, etc.) was "too big" for what i wanted to use them for. it dawned on me. what's "too big"? we're talking about experimenting. so the definite challenge for me will be to let go of my anal-ish perfectionistic type-A schizophrenia, and chillax. it might help me to think of these classes as brainstorming... for movies. my hope is that i'll be inspired with new story ideas, or at least moments / flares of originality to augment the stories i'm currently working on. which reminds me....
the name of my blog address comes from a feature film i'm working on called Attic Juice. it's a wizard of oz / alice in wonderland / scary kids action thriller idea i had several years ago while living in an old Michigan farm house. my bedroom was on the second floor and the chimney rose up through it on into the attic. occasionally this brown goo (called creyosote) would bubble out and drip down the side of the chimney. it was freaky! that's the spark for a feature film. so..... atticjuice.blogspot.com is where i'll be free associating about these 6x1 classes, or free-assing, as i like to say.
have fun. be good. wear your seat belt.
