What Design Can Do For Music: Painting with Film
Workshop Leader
Animation workshop for What Design Can Do Conference 2016
Commissioned by VBAT Amsterdam
‘This will sound cheesy, but for me this truly was a magical moment’.
Lilian Vos, VBAT
With the help of VBAT and creative director Graham Sturt, I set up a workshop, teaching 30 participants to create animations directly on strips of 16mm cine film, using ink, paint, pens, scratching tools and bleach. The aim was to create an improvised music video for pianist Joep Boeving in the space of an hour. We started by watching some short films by Len Lye and Norman McLaren, who used this technique to create films in the 1930’s.
VBAT MeetMarket 2016 @ What Design Can Do, featuring Marcus Lyall and Joep Beving. Long Version from VBAT on Vimeo.
I made some example animations by drawing on film, looping and projecting them. Joep Boeving introduced himself and began to play piano. Participants then got to work, creating their own short animations on pieces of clear film leader and over 16mm ‘found footage’ bought at Clapton’s legendary Umit Film Shop. As they worked, their film strips were spliced into film loops and projected, so people could immediately see the effects of their marks.
We experimented with layering images, using two projectors to superimpose different film loops, and also by sandwiching two film loops in the projector at once. Once or twice, the film melted and caught alight, adding to the fun.
Joep Boeving played piano as we screened the resulting films. Everything we projected was filmed off the projection screen and quickly edited. The finale of the What Design Can Do conference, was Joep Boeving playing live piano on the conference stage as I created a live visual accompaniment from the films we made.