Notes on Process
Photochemical Process:
Photochemical filmmaking and photography for industrial production is no longer viable as a mode of sustainable production. As an artist medium, however, it has been exploited with new and continued interest from artists who are exploring and pushing its abilities. I see this renewed interest in a younger generation of artists and in the students I teach, all of whom are romantically seduced by the materiality and tactile nature of the photochemical process. My approach to the medium, however, is more utilitarian. When I work through a project with film I do so because it offers the ideal form for expression. Part of this has to do with it's closeness to the thing it represents - how an object's light energy is directly absorbed by the film's emulsion. When the closeness of the object is important to me, the choice to work with film is a very deliberate one. Furthermore, time is more closely aligned as a physical object in film, I can hold a piece of film in my hands and describe its approximate length in seconds or frames. The process of photochemical filmmaking makes one more aware of time; the time it takes to mentally absorb what you are shooting, the time it takes to handprocess film, and the time it takes to edit film - the labour creation of time is a special attribute of handcrafted filmmaking. Many of my film-based projects are handprocessed and edited on film for these reasons.
Digital Process:
Digital video-making and photography has overcome photochemical filmmaking and photography as the medium of choice for industrial modes of production. It is also a wonderful medium for self expression and truly independent modes of production. Moving image production has become extremely accessible for almost anyone who has the desire to make a video. Unfortunately, this has enabled a lot of unsophisticated work to over-saturate platforms. Digital image making has made reproduction, representation, and the synthesis of ideas an effortless consumer activity. To gain control of something by capturing and reorganizing images of it, or to reign into focus a concept by inventing it with camera or software is a liberating and extremely useful attribute of digital image making. When I choose to work through a project or set of ideas digitally, I subscribe to the possibility of bending it into the shape I devise for it, and edit it exhaustively. I can change the emotive tone of the image simply be changing a colour or by harmonizing it with the surrounding images. Digital image making is the great liberator. I can tell it what I want, conceive of something from reality, or purely from imagination.
Synthesized Process (added in January 2021):
Synthesizing both photochemical image making and digital image making has become more common. This was especially true throughout the global pandemic when it was impossible to screen a projected film work from a print. Coupled with the rise of more affordable high-quality image scanning, many artists works are being shot on film then scanned and finished digitally. In this form, the dissemination of work is much easier to scale to a variety of modern, digital platforms. While I strongly feel that the unique image forming qualities of photochemical filmmaking are construed as a representational form with this multi-medium approach, there are considerable benefits to this process. Going back a good number of years now, in the work that I produced for my MFA degree, I described that the differences that exist between the photochemical medium and the digital medium are far outweighed by their similarities - they are after all, both lens-based mediums (or can be purposed as such). They can both function representationally as a moving image form and a still form. Essentially, digital image making is a continuation in the growing historical lineage of lens-based image creation. To most viewers and artists there is absolutely no contention in synthesizing mediums, and in fact, the inherent qualities of the photochemical image can now be preserved and displayed with extreme fidelity and clarity. Furthermore, full aperture scans allow for the area beyond the picture frame to be visible, sprocket holes and all...a common b-roll trope meant to invoke nostalgia...and to declare that, 'this is film!'. Artists who shoot 'analogue' for romantic turns should give considerably more thought towards the choice to use film as an acquisition medium and how it synthesizes with the digital medium. My creative choice to synthesize mediums boils down to the representational forms both mediums offer - the apparent closeness or feeling of the subject matter recorded photochemically and the pliability of the digital image that can be applied throughout the editing process. I can reap the benefits of working with either medium - whether I use the digital medium as an intermediate to then conform a film cut, or to finish a project scanned from film and completed digitally, a natural continuation occurs and each medium informs the other. I find that if I shoot and process a project on film and finish it digitally I treat the images as if I were editing on film, the difference being, of course, that I can edit the project infinitely until satisfied. The other main difference I'm considering through a synthesized process is the perception of time based on the scale of the image. Projected film is almost always presented larger than than life-size where the perception of time is more deeply felt, while digital works are predominately presented smaller than life-size and where the perception of time is shorter and less deeply felt. Some thoughts...
Photochemical Process:
Photochemical filmmaking and photography for industrial production is no longer viable as a mode of sustainable production. As an artist medium, however, it has been exploited with new and continued interest from artists who are exploring and pushing its abilities. I see this renewed interest in a younger generation of artists and in the students I teach, all of whom are romantically seduced by the materiality and tactile nature of the photochemical process. My approach to the medium, however, is more utilitarian. When I work through a project with film I do so because it offers the ideal form for expression. Part of this has to do with it's closeness to the thing it represents - how an object's light energy is directly absorbed by the film's emulsion. When the closeness of the object is important to me, the choice to work with film is a very deliberate one. Furthermore, time is more closely aligned as a physical object in film, I can hold a piece of film in my hands and describe its approximate length in seconds or frames. The process of photochemical filmmaking makes one more aware of time; the time it takes to mentally absorb what you are shooting, the time it takes to handprocess film, and the time it takes to edit film - the labour creation of time is a special attribute of handcrafted filmmaking. Many of my film-based projects are handprocessed and edited on film for these reasons.
Digital Process:
Digital video-making and photography has overcome photochemical filmmaking and photography as the medium of choice for industrial modes of production. It is also a wonderful medium for self expression and truly independent modes of production. Moving image production has become extremely accessible for almost anyone who has the desire to make a video. Unfortunately, this has enabled a lot of unsophisticated work to over-saturate platforms. Digital image making has made reproduction, representation, and the synthesis of ideas an effortless consumer activity. To gain control of something by capturing and reorganizing images of it, or to reign into focus a concept by inventing it with camera or software is a liberating and extremely useful attribute of digital image making. When I choose to work through a project or set of ideas digitally, I subscribe to the possibility of bending it into the shape I devise for it, and edit it exhaustively. I can change the emotive tone of the image simply be changing a colour or by harmonizing it with the surrounding images. Digital image making is the great liberator. I can tell it what I want, conceive of something from reality, or purely from imagination.
Synthesized Process (added in January 2021):
Synthesizing both photochemical image making and digital image making has become more common. This was especially true throughout the global pandemic when it was impossible to screen a projected film work from a print. Coupled with the rise of more affordable high-quality image scanning, many artists works are being shot on film then scanned and finished digitally. In this form, the dissemination of work is much easier to scale to a variety of modern, digital platforms. While I strongly feel that the unique image forming qualities of photochemical filmmaking are construed as a representational form with this multi-medium approach, there are considerable benefits to this process. Going back a good number of years now, in the work that I produced for my MFA degree, I described that the differences that exist between the photochemical medium and the digital medium are far outweighed by their similarities - they are after all, both lens-based mediums (or can be purposed as such). They can both function representationally as a moving image form and a still form. Essentially, digital image making is a continuation in the growing historical lineage of lens-based image creation. To most viewers and artists there is absolutely no contention in synthesizing mediums, and in fact, the inherent qualities of the photochemical image can now be preserved and displayed with extreme fidelity and clarity. Furthermore, full aperture scans allow for the area beyond the picture frame to be visible, sprocket holes and all...a common b-roll trope meant to invoke nostalgia...and to declare that, 'this is film!'. Artists who shoot 'analogue' for romantic turns should give considerably more thought towards the choice to use film as an acquisition medium and how it synthesizes with the digital medium. My creative choice to synthesize mediums boils down to the representational forms both mediums offer - the apparent closeness or feeling of the subject matter recorded photochemically and the pliability of the digital image that can be applied throughout the editing process. I can reap the benefits of working with either medium - whether I use the digital medium as an intermediate to then conform a film cut, or to finish a project scanned from film and completed digitally, a natural continuation occurs and each medium informs the other. I find that if I shoot and process a project on film and finish it digitally I treat the images as if I were editing on film, the difference being, of course, that I can edit the project infinitely until satisfied. The other main difference I'm considering through a synthesized process is the perception of time based on the scale of the image. Projected film is almost always presented larger than than life-size where the perception of time is more deeply felt, while digital works are predominately presented smaller than life-size and where the perception of time is shorter and less deeply felt. Some thoughts...