Experimental Shorts 1

July 1, 2015 · THE PILOT LIGHT · 7:30 p.m.

G is the Dial

By Andrew Lampert
2013 · USA · 6 minutes · Video

Laughter can be heard off-screen as two British women sip beers and struggle to load a 16mm projector. G is the Dial is both a celebration of film projection — we share the pleasure of the women’s accomplishment — and media anthropology. Lampert reminds viewers, in the most direct way possible, just how mechanical analogue projection really is.

El Adios Largos

By Andrew Lampert
2013 · USA · 13 minutes · 35mm-on-16mm-on-digital

Lampert, a film archivist and performance artist by trade, recently discovered a print of Robert Altman’s long lost masterpiece, The Long Goodbye. The 16mm print was cropped, black-and-white, and dubbed in Spanish, but using the latest digital technology, Lampert has begun the painstaking process of restoring this cinematic gem to its original splendor.

Photooxidation

By Pablo Mazzolo
2013 · Argentina · 13 minutes · 16mm (will be projected in HD)

Surely the most intense 13 minutes of the program, Photooxidation is a curious study of the sensations and mechanics of sight. It opens with a loud, low-frequency hum and a small burst of round, red light, a primordial image akin to pressing your eyes tightly shut when you first step into daylight. Mazzolo then leads us through a chaotic and increasingly aggressive cityscape before finding a kind of resolution. Simply an unforgettable viewing experience.

Many a Swan

By Blake Williams
2012 · USA · 6 minutes · Video (anaglyph 3D)

Inspired in part by the “grandmaster of origami,” Akira Yoshizawa, Many a Swan treats images like so many sheets of paper, folding and bending them into new shapes and configurations. Like Williams’s other experiments with anaglyph 3D, Many a Swan is built from footage that he scavenged online.

Baby Blue

By Blake Williams
2013 · USA · 10 minutes · Video (anaglyph 3D)

In Baby Blue, Williams experiments — in the true sense of the word — with parallax, exploring the 3D effects that result when objects move horizontally through the frame at various speeds and at various depths of field.

Red Capriccio

By Blake Williams
2014 · USA · 7 minutes · Video (anaglyph 3D)

Red Capriccio continues Williams’s inquiries into the fundamental components of anaglyph 3D by focusing on blue-red separation. The opening footage of a police car with its lights flashing is the most didactic section, but it’s the enigmatic middle and final sequences that make Red Capriccio such an uncanny and remarkable viewing experience.