Film Categories: cameraless

  • Double

    A two-screen projection exploring the alternate and simultaneous interplay of light and dark, silence and sound. Composed by optically manipulating abstract hand-painted film. Complimented by a haunting soundtrack by David McKenzie in which the human voice was digitally processed to reflect the movements of light on the film surface.

  • Snip

    Shards of film fly off the screen while the music of Fats Waller plays on! In this short abstract film, coloured ink and small pieces of film stock are heaped directly on the film’s surface. “This film was made in the weeks preceding the birth of my first child. It was my intention to create a fast-moving, colourful style that a very young child could respond to. I’ll see in the years that follow if I was right or not,” Steven Woloshen.

  • following the line of the web

    Creating an intricate visual map, photograms provide an opportunity to travel through the space of a spider’s web.

  • sea-ing

    This film playfully engages with the act of seeing and with every other sense that the phrase might prompt. “sea-ing” takes the viewer through the world of representations (magazine articles, texts and photographs on the topic of aquatic beings, the “sea”) to the world of presentations, where the actual beings (the starfish) light up our eyes and thus present themselves to our senses in their immediacy. The visual rhythms echo the experience of submerging under water: the initial shock to the sensory system, the rush of bodily reactions to the new environment, and then the subsequent calmness and engagement with…

  • Fear of Blushing

    Bleached, painted and optically printed, “Fear of Blushing” combines alternating textures, irrepressible colour and corroded figures with menacing sound bites, effects and rhythm. Fleeting visions and voices emerge in unusual juxtapositions, suggesting a psycho-cinematic free-association. As individual frames are never projected for more than 1/8 of a second, this film discourages reflection and is best experienced in the immediate present. Only after the onslaught can you wonder what horrible thing was buried there.

  • mary/me

    “mary/me” is a handmade cameraless film which uses collage techniques to sculpt the images and sound. The visual composition was made by meticulously cutting, shaping and collaging pages from “Cosmopolitan” magazine onto the film strip, combined with handpainting on the film. The sound treatment is created by pasting the words of an article from “Cosmo” titled “Why Men Marry Some Women and Not Others” directly onto the film’s optical soundtrack, with the letters themselves forming the audio as their graphic shape is translated into sound. “‘mary/me’ is a stunning experimental collage film that explores the prevalence of the virgin-whore dichotomy…

  • Curse of the Voodoo Child, The

    Sex, birth, fire and fingerprints. A passion play and the events of conception that result in mayhem. A rock’n’roll theme, in Cinemascope! Nominated for Best Animation at the 2006 Jutra Awards.

  • Element of Light

    Inspired by the elements of nature on a journey through light and sound. Painted directly onto the film and accompanied by scratched optical sounds. A stream-of-consciousness motion painting. “A work of pure delight. A master of scratch animation, Reeves extends the tradition of visual music first explored in Canada by Norman McLaren. This is sublime work of cinematic dexterity.” – Philip Hoffman (Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film, 2005)

  • distance between here and there, the

    Traveling through an invented landscape… the space between here and there. “Battle grounds her travel films not so much in place as in time. ‘the distance between here and there’ is one of her most abstract, rigorous and beautiful engagements with duration… In Battle’s film, it is between here and there, the interval between two points, that marks the experience of travel. The film is able to powerfully evoke that indefinite liminal nowhere, the feeling of being dislocated and in movement.” – Janine Marchessault “An abstract film made by applying colour tape directly onto emulsion and exposing it to light.…

  • Made By Hand: Experimental Works for Educational Environments

    Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. In response to an increasingly technological world, there has been an explosion in the number of “handmade” films – those created by working directly with the material of the film. This compilation showcases recent works that use a range of handmade and artisanal techniques, including photograms, hand-processing, cameraless animation and collage. “Well-crafted and entertaining, this collection is an excellent presentation of short abstract films. Repeated imagery, animation, home movies, playful use of color, photograms, dance, and different light effects provide both fanciful and introspective moments of sheer film appreciation. These films would…