Flicker #12

Welcome to Flicker #12 Nov. 14, 1996

Shown at Flicker #12 in approximately this order:

1. Lucasz Lysakowski "computer lab"
3 min. Super 8

2. Karen Collins & Sean Kennedy "Native Survivors"
4 min. Super 8

3. Johnny Knight "Eye Candy"
11 min. 16mm

4. Brent Stewart "Sticky Whiskey"
8 min. Super 8

5. Sean Uyehara "Dada on the Afternoon"
7 min. 16mm

6. Jeffrey Bown & Matthijs Schoots "Clean Cut Willy"
1 min. 16mm

7. Rob Koegler "Desert Film"
4 min. Super 8

8. Lucasz Lysakowski "Stages"
1 min. 16mm

9. Britta Sjogren "a small Domain"
18 min. 16mm

10. Will Dearborn "Fair Footage"
5 min. Super 8

11. Norwood Cheek "Dissolve to Paris"
7 min. Super 8

12. Peter Brinson "der Traumer"
8 min. 16mm

Flicker #12

Tonight is our first big night in the Cat's Cradle, thanks so much to Frank Heath for giving us the space and such nice folding chairs. The first eleven Flicker Festivals were held at the Local 506, in Chapel Hill. A wonderful crowd showed up for our first show - September 3, 1994. Since then we've taken Flicker to Paris and Bruxelles in May, and had a show at the Knitting Factory in New York City this past July. The Local 506 had become like a little Cinema Paradiso to me, but it really seemed like Flicker wanted and needed to grow - mainly so that more than a lucky few actually got to sit in chairs. Many thanks to the folks at Local 506 for being so supportive of our film community.

Several films tonight are from students and faculty of UNC. It is especially exciting to have Britta Sjogren's film "a small Domain", winner of the short film Juror's award at last year's Sundance Film Festival, making it's Flicker debut. Coming in from Nashville is Brent Stewart with his Super 8 film "Sticky Whiskey". The Flicker Web Page designed by Mary from catalog.com guided Brent over the Appalachians. At Flicker #13, I'm hoping to have Super 8 films from Belgium and Australia, all thanks to an amazing connection abbreviated www.

At Flicker #11, the third $100 Flicker Film Grant was given to Rob Koegler. Shortly there-after, Rob skipped town. I finally tracked him down last week, he was hiding out in Vegas, but just when I figured he'd gambled the film grant money away, he handed me a small box. Inside was a roll of Super 8 film, all was not lost. I pulled up a chair and joined Rob at the Roulette wheel, come on black. Tonight the fourth Flicker Film Grant will be 5awarded. If you would like to be considered for the next grant, send a treatment for a short film to: 810 S. Columbia St. Chapel Hill NC 27514.

Super 8 Horizon

Kodak has whittled down its manufacturing of Super 8 film to three choice stocks: Tri-X, Plus X, and the wonderful color film Kodachrome 40. The sound and Ektachrome stocks, which have been discontinued, will be available for another year or so, depending on how fast or slow it sells. If you have a great sound Super 8 camera, I would start stocking up. Little by little, buy a few cartridges every week or two, and store the film in your Freezer. Kodak reports that storage of raw stock at -18 to -23 degrees Celsius, greatly reduces sensitometric deterioration. Especially with color film, freezing will preserve the layers of dyes giving your film a better chance of producing non-distorted colors. When taking the film out of cold storage, give it at least an hour warm-up time before opening the package. This will prevent damage from moisture condensation.

DEPTH OF FIELD
by Sean Uyehara

You've gotten everyone together, and been shooting for two days, and everyone was acting crazy (that way people act only when they know that one day all of their crazy actor actions will be seen on a screen by others), and all the locations have been acting right too, with the right light and the right clouds and the right rain, and then you got back the footage you sent off in a nicely padded bag, and you're sitting down to finally watch it, and...and...it looks a lot different than you thought it would, because those beautiful trees framing a perfect background in the forest are all out of focus, and that stupid sign at the gas station that said, "Pump it Up!" still says it, only more loudly now, in your film, even though it seemed to be a half-mile away from the action at the time. Now all of those "fun times" that you had with all your actor friends acting crazy for what they thought would be the finished product doesn't seem as funny, and you wonder what they are going to say when you ask, "Do you want to go back to the forest and the gas station and act crazy again next weekend?"

What you wanted sharp was hazy, and what you wanted hazy is sharp. You try to remember who was responsible, and it was you -- the cameraperson, the cinematographer. You need to find out how to stop this, and might start with something called depth of field. The first thing you might do is read the American Cinematographer's Manual. You come to depth of field, and get a bunch of charts that illustrate the depth of field for a given lens on the format camera you are using with a certain acceptable circle of confusion. "Circle of confusion" begins to read too perfectly for the endeavor. What's depth of field compared to depth of focus? How do you measure a lens that says its focal length is one inch when most everything is in milimeters? And what the hell is focal length any way? You don't want to be a professional cinematographer (or maybe you do, but not today). You just need a crash course, to go back, and shoot again tomorrow. Here it is:

Depth of Field is the area of sharpness or focus apparent in an image. It is measured from the distance closest to the camera to appear in focus to the distance farthest away from the camera to appear in focus. A general rule of thumb is that depth of field is twice as large behind an object focussed on than the area of sharpness in front of that object. There are calculations that can be made in order to obtain the specific size of a certain depth of field given conditions of lens use, lighting, distance from an object of focus, and acceptable circle of confusion. These equations can be found in most manuals that deal with cinematography. But, we're not looking to be quite so specific, yet.

Here is a more simple general way to measure relative depth of field. Depth of field will be higher given each of these conditions: further distance from primary objects photographed, closing of the iris diaphram on the lens, or using a wider angle (i.e., shorter focal length) lens. Conversely, relative depth of field will decrease when moving closer to an object, opening the iris, or using a narrower (longer focal length) lens.

A Zoom lens offers a series different focal lengths within the same lens. "Zooming in" will highten the focal length, decreasing relative depth of field. Widening or "zooming out" will increase the depth. Adding light or subtracting light from a scene, also affects the depth of field for a given lens, because proper exposure will call for a diffenrence in f-stops (opening oir closing the iris). But as always in filmmaking (and most everywhere else), the general rules have exceptions. Some lenses, cameras, lighting schemes, projectors, etc., will behave differently. So Experiment! Shoot Film! Luckily, the mishap at the beginning didn't happen to you. It happened to me. I have since moved on to greater catastrophes. Have fun!

Internet Entry

small movies is a super comprehensive web site. http://www.city-net.com/~fodder/

From their links section, you can access the Flicker web page and most every other Super 8 film web site out there.