My inner 8 year old...

When I signed up for this class, I was hoping for a venue in which I could let my creativity and inner 8 year old run wild. So far, it has not disappointed. I always find it odd that after middle school, the opportunities to sit down with raw materials such as ink, tape, or glitter for that matter and create something out of them decline rapidly. I frequently find myself sitting with my 6 year old niece, helping her figure out an art set or coloring and creating simple things. Every time I do this, I always wish I did it more often, albeit with more grown up materials.
This is where 6x1 has really impressed me. There is definitely thought that goes into many experimental films and I’m sure some of them have a method or meaning that lies behind the scratches, paint, and light. However, up to this point in the class, it has been fun to let the tendency to over-think things too much go and just enjoy the opportunity to use my creative engines and explore new ways of manipulating film besides actually filming with it. As we progress through the semester, and I become more comfortable with the various methods and devices, I am sure that I will begin using them to better create a physical representation of the mental ideas I hope to convey. For now, I’m happy to just have a little fun.
As for the techniques that we have learned so far, I believe that I enjoy animation and painting the most. Each technique has its very own allure, yet these two seem to give me the most control over what will actually be seen on the screen when the film is projected. Scratching allows some control as well, however it can be a bit difficult to create intricate designs by way of scratching. The precision of drawing animation or painting with oils is very attractive to me because it makes it easier to see my creativity manifested into images on screen.
Magazine transfers were very intriguing and fun to do, but for the work that it took to get a fraction of a second projected, it didn’t seem quite worth it. I couldn’t help but think, though, that one day I would love to help my kids make magazine transfers for some free time activity as an alternative to video games or some other unimaginative game. I did feel that I had a bit more control over what would be projected than I initially thought I would, but it was still very difficult to try and predict what certain designs would look like when they were projected. It was interesting to try and find things in the magazines that were already the size necessary to fit onto the film without chopping off parts of the image. I think that with more exploration, this technique is one that I could really begin to enjoy a lot more.
I hope to try and embrace the unpredictable nature of magazine transfers and rayograms more as the semester progresses. Perhaps this will help me give up that annoying desire to control every aspect of what is on screen and give in to the “experimental”, or unpredictable virtues that film manipulation offers.