Notes on the Image Forum Festival 1999

[Joseph C. Schaub]

> In Ota Yo's 'Incorrect Continuity' (1999, 16mm, color, 
9mins), he films
> passing cars and clouds at a variety of speeds as part of his "research on
> the difference between real time and the time and movement created by a
> film."  On a couple of occasions he managed something I was unable to work
> out.  In one shot, the camera stands above a two lane highway, filming cars
> going both ways from top to bottom of the screen.  At certain times, the
> speeds of the cars are altered with one side going very fast as the other
> side continues at the 'correct' speed.  How he was able to speed up images
> on one side of the frame and not the other, I don't know.  Is this possible
> in the printing?  He did it again when filming an overhead bypass.  The
> cars on the bridge above were clearly speeded up while the cars on the
> ground were travelling at normal speed.  Interesting stuff.

Joss, from your description it sounds like Ota used a matte 
box vertically covering half of the lens w/ a matte card, 
then filming at one speed and leaving the other half of the 
film unexposed. He then transferred the matte to the other 
side of the lens (w/out moving the camera), rewound the 
film, and shot cars going by on the other side of the hiway 
at a different film speed.  The overhead bypass was 
probably done the same way, but with the matte positioned 
horizontally.  Just a guess, but I'm fairly certain that 
would work.

> 1999 was the festival's 13th year and included a special
programme, "Shall
> We Forget [the] 20th Century?", which "included several works which explore
> the sensation of video games from within digital film."  

Could you perhaps provide a little more information about 
the works which expore this topic?

Thanks,

Joe

----------------------
Joseph C. Schaub
js326 at umail.umd.edu