ENG 4146: Cameraless Filmmaking
While every film and video production course I teach focuses narrowly on experimental film and video, this one goes way beyond those. We're headed for the farthest reaches of experimental practice. We'll cover lots of advanced (and primitive) techniques for making moving images, mostly on celluloid. We'll make thaumatropes and praxinoscope strips and learn how to build our own zoetropes. We'll learn how to hand process hi-contrast film in tupperware, build our own contact printers using sync blocks, flashlights, and toilet paper tubes, make Rayographs, and use an optical printer. We'll curate a show of found oddities from the cast offs of the public library system and make a bunch of flickering oddities of our own (from flipbooks to films). And then we'll have a giant show at the end with all of the stuff we've done that'll be something more than just a bunch of people sitting in the dark and looking at your work.
This is a variation on the "Experimental Experiments" class that I taught a couple of years ago. I thought it was the best class I've ever offered. Hopefully I'll have the same impression this time around. Come prepared to work hard--VERY hard--but also to have an incredibly rewarding experience (and hopefully some fun too).