Optical Sound
Another activity I did during this period is a short (1 week) residency at WORM in Rotterdam. Wormfilmwerkplatz is a section of WORM that has loads of analogue film equipment like cameras, lomo tanks, steenbecks, printers, etc but more importantly incredible artists/artisans (shout out to Esther Urlus!!) who run the place and share their knowledge and skills.
My interest was in the optical sound track printing machine, the Klangfilm Eurocord.
I pulled along with me to Rotterdam a small (ish) vi rig and set it up in the same room as the Klangfilm. I then made a few tracks and recorded them live to 16mm mono VA optical sound, in full NR mode.
I then developed the films in the dark room. I did a few times then realised that I could rewind the film and shoot some image! The output would be picture AND sound, no sync but that wasnt important.
Heres loads of images and graphics below including a video of one piece I made.
The negs are still awaiting printing to positive film.
These images are frame scans I made on a printer of one of the films I made. Remember that 24 of these frames would flash past in a second. I recently learnt (at the new WORM during IFFR2020 when Esther showed me the new Lab) that the eurocord machine is set to run at 25 FPS!! Thats why those films sound ever so slightly sped up!!!!
This residency was done in 2010. After that my attention began to switch back over to images and the visual. At that time I acquired a Oxberry printer and started to realise that the forced march to digital in Cinema would more than likely throw up some priceless bits of gear. To me, entirely entrenched and stuck in the analogue world this could prove to be a golden age of re-purposing of tools. Luckily I have been proved right.
Analogue rules! (ok, with some clever bits of digital magic as well)!