My recent essay here raised one of the difficulties of working in the “found footage” genre: how much of the artistic impact in the finished film is due to the artistic skills of the filmmakers who created the source footage, and how much of it is due to the found footage artist who made the film? Filmmaker Masha Godovannaya wrote a guest post in response to my essay here.
Does this matter to you as a viewer? Do you have examples of specific films you’ve seen, where this issue came up in your mind? If you are a filmmaker who works with found footage, is this issue a concern for you, and, if so, how have you dealt with it?
Let me hear from you! As with any online discussion, please listen carefully and reply thoughtfully. Thanks.
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For me, these films feature the skills and talent of the film editor, collage artist, constructivist, which are ideally foregrounded. There are so many interesting examples. from Arthur Lipsett's Very Nice, Very Nice [https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/experimental-film] to Abigail Child's Mirror World. An interesting spectrum exists between films created from documentary footage and those from fiction, with different constaints and effects. Making a found footage film from such unfinished, unreleased footage as Eisenstein's Mexican Project seems at least a public service. Can anyone provide links to the films of Masha G?
On the subject of found footage I’ve no theoretical axe to grind, but last year an idea (which I won’t pretend was a clever idea) formed in my mind to make a short film using footage from some of the movie serials common in the pre-TV era. Not the kind of thing I’ve done before, but I thought it was worth a shot. A second idea seemed to follow naturally: I’d make it not as a single film, but as a serial. The result was The NEXT THRILLING CHAPTER, a suite of seventeen short films plus one trailer, only recently finished. If my observations aren’t startling, at least they’re fresh.
My relation to the footage I used began more than half a century ago. I never forgot the eerie and shocking first chapter of The FIGHTING DEVIL DOGS. I’d endured the small trauma of being forced to leave the hero of MYSTERIOUS DOCTOR SATAN to face a clanking robot when my parents took me on vacation. And occasionally, through the years, I was haunted by dim recollection of two images (accompanied by a feeling of drab hopelessness and alienation) that belonged to a serial about which I otherwise remembered nothing, not even the title. In the course of research last year I recognized these images in The LOST PLANET.
I suppose one might choose to work with pre-existing footage for a variety of reasons, but for me it was personal. In my childish way, I’d once taken these adventures very seriously, and wondered now whether I might take them seriously again. I wanted their simple-minded heroes to stand up and fight against some of my current political anxieties.
The project was predicated on availability of the serials as inexpensive dvds. In all, I watched thirty-four, most of which I hadn’t seen before. The number wasn’t predetermined; there’s nothing significant about it. It was as many as I could stand. There were compensatory delights, but much of this preliminary research—the search for images—might be characterized as drudgery.
To paraphrase a question you raise, David, might I have better realized my idea by shooting new images? For better or worse, the answer in this case is definitively no. Use of old serial footage wasn’t a choice that came afterward. It was the foundational premise. It wasn’t an idea complete in itself, but the start of a process in which even script and soundtrack were excavated, in part, from pre-existing material.
The exercise was a success. The serial’s complete. Yet I find now that the nature of the footage presents a problem. I wasn’t relying on viewers to share my relation to the footage I used, yet I’m a little surprised to find some indifferent to what I’ve done because they have no interest in movie serials. Is it too soon to be concerned that a more sophisticated audience might discover I’ve failed to maintain an adequate ironic or formal distance from this relentlessly lowbrow material?
If I can wriggle out of that one, I may have one or two further observations to offer...
For me, these films feature the skills and talent of the film editor, collage artist, constructivist, which are ideally foregrounded. There are so many interesting examples. from Arthur Lipsett's Very Nice, Very Nice [https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/experimental-film] to Abigail Child's Mirror World. An interesting spectrum exists between films created from documentary footage and those from fiction, with different constaints and effects. Making a found footage film from such unfinished, unreleased footage as Eisenstein's Mexican Project seems at least a public service. Can anyone provide links to the films of Masha G?
On the subject of found footage I’ve no theoretical axe to grind, but last year an idea (which I won’t pretend was a clever idea) formed in my mind to make a short film using footage from some of the movie serials common in the pre-TV era. Not the kind of thing I’ve done before, but I thought it was worth a shot. A second idea seemed to follow naturally: I’d make it not as a single film, but as a serial. The result was The NEXT THRILLING CHAPTER, a suite of seventeen short films plus one trailer, only recently finished. If my observations aren’t startling, at least they’re fresh.
My relation to the footage I used began more than half a century ago. I never forgot the eerie and shocking first chapter of The FIGHTING DEVIL DOGS. I’d endured the small trauma of being forced to leave the hero of MYSTERIOUS DOCTOR SATAN to face a clanking robot when my parents took me on vacation. And occasionally, through the years, I was haunted by dim recollection of two images (accompanied by a feeling of drab hopelessness and alienation) that belonged to a serial about which I otherwise remembered nothing, not even the title. In the course of research last year I recognized these images in The LOST PLANET.
I suppose one might choose to work with pre-existing footage for a variety of reasons, but for me it was personal. In my childish way, I’d once taken these adventures very seriously, and wondered now whether I might take them seriously again. I wanted their simple-minded heroes to stand up and fight against some of my current political anxieties.
The project was predicated on availability of the serials as inexpensive dvds. In all, I watched thirty-four, most of which I hadn’t seen before. The number wasn’t predetermined; there’s nothing significant about it. It was as many as I could stand. There were compensatory delights, but much of this preliminary research—the search for images—might be characterized as drudgery.
To paraphrase a question you raise, David, might I have better realized my idea by shooting new images? For better or worse, the answer in this case is definitively no. Use of old serial footage wasn’t a choice that came afterward. It was the foundational premise. It wasn’t an idea complete in itself, but the start of a process in which even script and soundtrack were excavated, in part, from pre-existing material.
The exercise was a success. The serial’s complete. Yet I find now that the nature of the footage presents a problem. I wasn’t relying on viewers to share my relation to the footage I used, yet I’m a little surprised to find some indifferent to what I’ve done because they have no interest in movie serials. Is it too soon to be concerned that a more sophisticated audience might discover I’ve failed to maintain an adequate ironic or formal distance from this relentlessly lowbrow material?
If I can wriggle out of that one, I may have one or two further observations to offer...