[Frameworks] Film/Video & Brakhage [Was: Letter to other Filmmaker Artists]

[Fred Camper]

I agree with Pip's comments to Matt, and would like to make two  
additional points.

First, even if the definition of a video transfer and the video  
display had resolutions as high as film, video light is just not the  
same as film light, no matter what kind of display you use.

Second, writing that "Brakhage could have made a film like 'Black Ice'  
on Video" is rather beside the point. Because of the way Brakhage  
worked, I think that he just would *not* have made "a film like 'Black  
Ice'" on video. Like many of the greatest filmmakers, it's not the  
case that Brakhage simply had images in his head that he then tried to  
"realize" on film. He worked out of a deep engagement with his  
materials, and the materials he used had a huge influence on his  
working process and on the final result. "Mothlight" is a great, if  
rather obvious, early example. This is a version of the older "truth  
to materials" approach of the Bauhaus, actually, but with Brakhage's  
particular poetics added. So even if he "could" have made a film like  
"Black Ice" on video, he would not have.

Similarly, most of my favorite works of video art would never have  
been made on film. They are made out of a deep engagement with the  
particular qualities of video.

There seems to me an unstated undercurrent to many of these film/video  
posts, a hidden "film is better" or "video is better" agenda,  
depending on the poster's views. I don't agree with either of these  
positions. Each is a unique medium with its own qualities, and then,  
even within them, there are differences: super-8 is quite a bit  
different from 35mm, and low-definition video viewed on a CRT screen  
quite a bit different from high-def on a DLP projector.

Fred Camper
Chicago