[Frameworks] prints and copies: (was Lookout Mountain films (Pat O'Neill))

[Chuck Kleinhans]

On Oct 6, 2010, at 7:20 AM, Tom Whiteside wrote:

> Before DVD and before home videotape, film artists sold 8mm prints  
> for home use, the radical notion being that one could not simply   
> <OWN> but repeatedly view a film by Brakhage, Conners, etc. I’m not  
> sure how many people sold 8mm prints (but it was done, right?)  or  
> how much (if any) money they made – but it seems to me that  
> marketing of this Pat O’Neill DVD is very much in the same spirit,  
> and it is to be commended.
>

As I remember this was a pretty limited "experiment" in marketing:  
only a few filmmakers did it and with only a few of their films.  Of  
course some filmmakers actually made 8mm and S8mm films, and sold  
prints, as they did with 16mm films.  But even some of these were  
later blown up to 16mm for more practical distribution/exhibition.   
(Fred Camper can say something better and more accurate about  
Brakhage's practice here.)

The "market" was less for enthusiasts than collectors.  Someone once  
pointed out in Canyon Cinemanews that if filmmakers wanted to command  
the same kind of high returns on their work as painters, they had to  
make unique works. Of course the collector then owns the unique work  
and it can only be seen when the collector decides to screen it and  
to whatever audience appears. (As with easel painting.)  An  
alternative is to make a limited number of copies (as printmakers  
commonly do) and thus be able to sell them as worth a certain  
(somewhat) predictable amount: necessary to work effectively in the  
collector market.

Another strategy for the collector market is to sell the original (as  
some photographers do with their negatives) as a unique item.  Of  
course as with any reproducible art, this creates market quandaries  
and confusions. (Is an Ansel Adam print that was overseen by the  
photographer more valuable than one made after his death when the two  
actually seem to be identical?)

It is interesting to contrast the actual current practice of  
experimental video artists (or perhaps more accurately, artists who  
produce some video for gallery and museum exhibition).  Matthew  
Barney's videos sell for phenomenal amounts precisely because they  
are so restricted/rare.  The situation is similar for other artists,  
some of whom actually shoot on film but who exhibit as video  
projection (much simpler in gallery/museum sites).  Sharon Lockhart's  
LUNCH BREAK is an example: the installed exhibition includes two  
projected films (which require black boxes within the gallery) and a  
series of her photographs, all taken at a Maine shipworks.

Clearly, these video artists by and large are using a very different  
business model than the traditional or typical experimental  
filmmaker.  The video folks often receive large commissions in  
advance to produce their work for museums.  Most of them are  
represented by galleries who seek to maximize the price of a copy  
(since the gallery gets about half).

Chuck Kleinhans



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