Cameraless animation film strips

Over the past few weeks I have been working directly onto 16mm film strips to create a number of loops to be fed into the 16mm projector and projected as cameraless animations.



It is an incredibly time consuming process, but I really enjoy the hands on nature of this type of work, and am looking forward to seeing the outcome.

I find it very exciting to see the resulting projections as there are always unexpected elements.

Yesterday I went to Hands on Film Lab in Carliol House at The NewBridge Project to finish off the film loops and have a go at viewing them on the 16mm projector.



Lots of the film strips that I have been working with have been cut into and other layers of colour added. I have secured these using clear tape. The result is that many of the sprocket holes (the little square holes which run along the top and bottom of a 16mm film) have been covered. The sprocket holes are needed so that the teeth on the projector hook into the film. I use the splicing machine to punch the holes back into the film. The machine is set up to correspond with the spacing of the sprockets and so I align the tape along the machine to correspond to where the sprockets should be, and then press down on the handle to punch holes back into the film strip.



I then use the splicer to connect the two ends of the tape to form a loop that can be threaded into the projector.