Oddball Films curator
Stephen Parr presents the 50th installment of our monthly series Strange Sinema. This very
special interactive program Strange Sinema 50: How it’s Made!
features an evening of how-to film making including How to Make a Movie
Without a Camera (1972) takes a
cue from Len Lye and Stan Brakhage and shows kids how to be avant-garde film
stars; History
of the Cinema (1958) a British animated history of the cinema, Begone
Dull Care, a cameraless film by internationally renowned National Film
Board of Canada animator Norman McLaren, with jazz score by Oscar Peterson, Camera Magic (1943) street photographer Weegee’s film about trick
filmmaking; John Halas’s an undeniable classic of animation The History
of the Cinema (1957), Frame
by Frame, shows us how to make
eye-popping films, Mandatory Edits is a rare tv film editors’ compilation of censored clips of sex and
violence and Frank Film
(1973) is Frank Mouris’s stop-motion free-associative collage of 11,592 media images
collected from magazines; and Daffy Duck remixes Hollywood films in Daffy
Duck in Hollywood (1938). Plus! Try your hand at filmmaking! Before the program starts all attendees will work together
to splice, select, mutate and create a “camera less” film from Oddball’s 16mm
stock images. This Exquisite Corpse film will be screened at the shows’
finale!
Date: Saturday, March 31st, 2012 at 8:00PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 - Limited Seating RSVP to programming@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117
Featuring:
How to Make a Movie Without a Camera (Color,
1972)
Taking a cue from Stan Brakhage, Len Lye, and other avant-garde film
makers, Michael and Mimi Warshaw encourage kids to make beautiful movies by
scratching and drawing directly on film. Using just these simple techniques and
a catchy soundtrack, the Warshaws show that it doesn’t take a big studio budget
or an all-star cast to craft a movie that makes more sense than Inception.
History
of the Cinema (Color, 1957)
The History of the Cinema is an undeniable classic of animation, very
British in its humor and very tied in with its period. With an irrepressibly
optimistic narrator and great wit it takes us from the cavemen daubing on the rock,
the pinhole camera, through the early silent movie era, and eventually to the
rise of television. John Halas' 1957 movie also manages to convey facts in an
amusing way. Thus we learn why Hollywood was so good for film-making (sun,
dependable sun) and the vital role the censor paid in movie history -
essentially he snipped away all the good bits of film and left the audience
with the rest - and even the fads designed to withstand the impact of the
little box in the home.
Camera Magic (B+W, 1943)
This rare curio by notorious
oddball photographer Arthur “Weegee” Felig demonstrates a variety of camera
techniques used to produce special effects with an ordinary 16mm motion picture
camera without employing special equipment. A man moves to embrace a woman and
we watch her vanish. On the beach a woman smiles while her decapitated head
lies next to her. More offbeat
scenes demonstrate tips and tricks for the amateur and professional alike.
Wacky, weird and nothing like it in the entire Castle film collection this came
from!
Frame by Frame (Color, 1973)
At this point in time it’s rare that imagemakers touch their
media. But film (16mm or 8mm) is inherently a hands-on, tactile process. In
that lies the simplicity and beauty of the filmmaking process. Frame by Frame
provides a detailed an informative look at film animation techniques including flicker,
time lapse and single frame techniques. Other techniques such as cut-outs and
drawing on tracing paper. The film emphasizes a free-form approach to
filmmaking with eye-popping pop art and psychedelic clips.
Frank Film (Color, 1973)
An autobiography of Frank Mouris and a stop-motion free-associative
collage of 11,592 media images collected from magazines, which shift and mutate
across the screen as Mouris reads a list of words starting with the letter
"f". The words bounce off the images and trigger memories, which
Mouris recounts on a second track, interwoven with the recitation. Mouris
received an Academy Award and the film was selected in 1996 for inclusion in
the National Film Registry. Frank Film, because of its innovative and energetic
use of collage, has exerted an influence on succeeding generations of
animators.
Mandatory Edits (Color+B+W, c.1950-1965)
This wacko reel of censored film clips will be presented as
found. Marked “Mandatory Edits”
and compiled presumably by the editor at the big Los Angeles TV station where
this reel originated, these feature film clips were apparently deemed too violent,
sexual, suggestive or shocking to be shown on TV. Jarring edits take you from the Civil War to WWII to the old
West, to Ancient times and back, and from color to B &W. See flaming arrows in the chest,
suggestive undergarments, bloody stumps, heaving breasts, and so much
more! See Gary Cooper, Buddy
Greco, Burt Lancaster, Charo, and a cast of thousands together in the boldest
film that never was!
Daffy Duck in Hollywood (1938)
Watch Daffy
Duck wreak havoc on a movie set by cutting and splicing together various clips
into finished product of a movie contains nothing but newsreel titles and clips
surrealist style. An unintentionally avant garde masterpiece!