My friend Réka Bucsi is a fantastically talented and imaginative animator, and so I was thrilled that she agreed to make an image for me on the subject of film preservation. She loves Los Angeles, and is coming to spend some more time here soon, so I thought I’d add her amazing “little film archiving monster/god” alongside my latest post, which is very much about Los Angeles.
As mentioned in my initial FIFTEEN YEARS post, I’ve asked a number of artist friends to send me an image that relates to the notion of “film restoration” somehow. I’ve already gotten a bunch of a great ones from various people, but what better way to follow a post about a visionary animator than a drawing sent to me by another visionary animator, Martha Colburn! This RIDICULOUSLY made my week when I got it:
Huge thanks to Martha Colburn for the incredible drawing – I didn’t expect this amazing portrait and can only wish that my job were as wild as this!
As I mentioned in my post on 6/25/18, I’ve asked a number of artist friends to send me images responding to the theme of “film restoration” or perhaps “experimental film restoration”. I’ll be posting the results here and there over the next few weeks (and beyond).
Given my post from yesterday about Robert Nelson and the restoration of his film Limitations, I thought I’d begin this recurring feature with an art object from Robert Nelson himself.
Bob was also a painter, photographer, and sculptor, and he drew and collaged and worked in other mediums as well, beyond being a filmmaker. In his last 15 years or so, one form of sculpture he got into was making poured resin objects, with painted embellishments, with the basis of the forms usually being tightly wound rolls of film!
These rolls were usually bad prints, outtakes, and possibly even the original A/B rolls for a few of his films which he decided to destroy (or “transform” might be a better word). I’ve previously described these objects here but wanted to post images of the one that he actually made for me. I don’t remember when he sent me this, but it was around 2008-10, I think, a big heavy box out of nowhere. He referred to it as “a gift for an archivist”, and I thought it was a perfect introduction to this idea of “film restoration art”.
PRESERVATION INSANITY 