16 mm Film Manipulation

I thought that it was a really awesome to have the opportunity to take some 16 mm random footage and totally turn it into something else. I have not really had the opportunity to use film, especially recently, so this was very exciting for me. It was so nice to have something so tactile that you could manipulate right there with your hands. Half of the time I felt like I was just ripping the film apart just to see what I could make in the most experimental way. The other half of the time I employed extreme precision so that I could get exactly the kind of effect that I wanted. This was really fun because I was able to try so many different approaches to making an experimental film all in one, which had my creativity going wild. I definitely wanted to try my hand at every technique just to see what would happen. I think I learned through this assignment that I am much more interested in more chaotic methods like oil painting and scratching and bleaching, just to see what it would turn  out like. Drawing the animations was very tedious and felt a bit boring to me at times and I just wanted to do something more unusual. I would really like to explore film manipulation more in the future, just because there are so many options to what you could make and I just think there is something so unique about film that cannot really be replicated digitally. I also have to say that I felt like a very cool artist while doing all of the hands-on (sometimes messy) work that this project required, which was a lot of fun.