I have always wanted to take part in the Cherry Kino super 8 workshops during the Leeds International Film Festival, however either due to not enough time or money I haven't been able to do it. So I was really happy to find out the Fine Art Media Strand booked a two day workshop with Cherry Kino to shoot, develop, experiment in making our own films.
My first month in Leeds I was introduced to the work of Cherry Kino through her
vimeo and
blog which I have been a fan of ever since seeing this experimental films. Below is a few examples of her videos...
Silva Shade is a film shot in a Finnish forest and processed in hand with coffee developer to a black and white negative. This process of developing is the one we are going to be doing, it's both quite cheap and eco friendly way of developing black and white film.
Nail Art is a super 8 animation created using nail polish and stickers. This way of colouring and decorating is an example of another process we can add to our films after they have been developed.
First day
In groups of three or four we were given super 8 cameras and a black and white Kodak Tri-X Reversal Film 7266. This would be processed as a negative in the coffee solution then reversed to a positive when digitised. The basic set up for the camera was basically each dial turned to the red dot on the camera, on auto for the light meter, 18 frames per second shooting, unless we wanted to speed up or slow down the film, so for a show motion shot we would shoot in a higher frame rate, so when played back at 18 fps it would slow down the shot. And vice versa for speeding up the film.
The zoom and focus had to me manually done, each shot had to be set up by zooming right into the shot you wanted to focus on, its easier to focus on a straight line as when you then turn the focus you do so until the line is connected in the centre focus ring.
Our group went out and filmed various things such as fireworks, setting up fish heads, eggs and sweets to explode with the fireworks. Also various shots of the body and people. Getting the focus right was a little tricky and it takes a little getting used to. But with the limit of 3 minutes of film and manual set up you consider your shots more carefully, it gives you a better understanding of points of view and using the lens to tell a story.
Second day
The next step was to develop the film in the coffee solution, much like the way you process a photograph in a serious of developer and fixer. Then once finished it was its hung up to dry.
Then once the film has been developed, fixed and dried we had to opportunity to colour in the film using nail polish, letraset pens and acrylic inks. The thing to remember with this is that because the film is a negative at the moment, what ever colour we place on the film it will be seen as its opposite as on the colour wheel.
Once this was complete we got a chance to watch our films through the projector, which was weird to think in two days this film was shot, developed, edited and now ready to be viewed. We get our films back in a digital form very soon so we can edit these further in Premier Pro.
This workshop was an amazing experience and gave me a lot to think about. I want to experiment a lot more with film and super 8, maybe exploring using text and words within them also. I will give this more thought and hopefully start making more films from what I learnt today.
