Les Profs Film
Anahí Keoshia
"Vol. 3. Illegal Art," a short film by two faculty members in the WMU School of Communication, was shown Saturday and Sunday, June 9-10, at the four-day festival in Saugatuck, Mich., in the Michigan Film Lodge, which features Michigan filmmakers. Now in its ninth year celebrating independent film and filmmakers, the Waterfront Film Festival is one of the leading destination film festivals in the Midwest, regularly hosting Midwest premieres of Academy Award-winning and nominated documentaries.
Drs. Rebekah Farrugia and Jennifer Machiorlatti, WMU assistant professor and associate professor of communication, respectively, produced "Illegal Art" as part of the "Copyright, Culture (remixed)" series. The series is a volume set of short films that explore the impact that increasingly restrictive copyright laws have on fair use and the creation of culture. They underline the ways in which creativity is, and will continue to be, hindered if current, excessive intellectual property policy continues.
"We were especially proud of being selected to be part of the Michigan Film Lodge, because it allows Michigan filmmakers to gather and exchange ideas about our productions, the state of the film industry in Michigan and recent efforts to attract more film production from out of state to boost the economy," Machiorlatti says.
Machiorlatti has screened films at the Dallas Video Festival, the International Women's Festival and the Big Muddy Film Festival. She researches women in film and video and is in production on a feature documentary on indigenous women in film and video.
The film tells the story of a married dairy farmer who travels to a gay campground in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania to find his long-lost love. A blend of narrative film and documentary, the film features interviews and performances by non-actors and residents of the Hillside Campground in New Milford, Pa.
By this point, I was starting to consider what I was going to study in college, and eventually what I was going to do for my career. Growing up in LA, going into the film industry just seemed to be the natural choice. I did my undergraduate work in film at Cal State Los Angeles, and my graduate work at USC. After I graduated, I finally got the opportunity to work on special effects and models on a few films, including Carnosaur, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie and Ed Wood.
If you have unused old film, best to overexpose it to help get above the fog. Then I might go for decreased development time. For an existing roll, I would use the normal time, but you never know until you try it. I usually consider 50 years for Panatomic-X, 30 years for Verichrome Pan, and 20 years for Tri-X to be about where I would expect it to work fine.
Since you are within the 20 years, I suspect it will be just fine. But you never know about the heat or humidity that it might have experienced. You might look at benzotriazole, also known as Kodak Anti-fog #1, which helps reduce fogging on old film, but that probably isn't needed.
Sandy, here is the other side of the film you can't see the previous image. I also just read in another manual ( ) that the Tri-X Pan Professional has been replaced by the Tri-X 320. I'm guessing it may not make too much more of a difference whatever box speed I choose to develop it as long as I probably do that 80% developing time as Alan suggested.
For 120 film, there is at least an inch (2.5cm) on the end that isn't exposed. You could cut some off in the dark and develop that, which would give you a fog level. Or, cut it off in the dark, and put it inside a 35mm camera. (That doesn't have a window in the back.) Then expose one frame and develop. That will give an even better idea. (There is some loss of latent image with time, but small enough that it should be close.)
Sandy, no worries at all! I'm so grateful for all the input I'm getting here! I was going to jump in and do this yesterday evening when I found out the center column for my Paterson tank is MIA--so I have a couple more days before the replacement arrives and decide what development time I should do. The owner of the film says he had kept it in a drawer all those years in controlled temperature (and I'm assuming humidity as well).
But developing already exposed film, there isn't much to do about the exposure. Loss of latent image might be a reason to increase development, though I haven't notice that in films that I have developed. More likely, once with a low contrast image were underexposed in the first place.
Thank you all very much for your contribution here. I ended up processing with HC-110 Dilution B at 6 minutes. I thought about Dilution H but didn't think it would make too much of a difference. Initially, I was told this was a 20-year-old film, but come to find out he took these on he and his wife's honeymoon 35 years ago in Yellowstone! There was quite a bit of light leak on the one side, but otherwise, I think they turned out pretty well!
TX Pan Professional ISO 320 is a sheet film only (slightly different formulation from the roll film which used to be the most popular b&w film in the world). The difference in exposure index of less than 1/2 stop probably won't make that much difference; if you test your personal equipment and procedures, you might come up with an E.I. of anywhere from 200 to 600 or so; pushing beyond that will lose shadow detail unless your shutters are really off!
If the images were likely to be really priceless, then it might be worthwhile to develop by inspection, but Tri-X was a bit too fast for that, even with treatment in pinacryptol green as a desensitizer first; in any case, development by inspection (very dim dark green safelight, for a few seconds only, when the film is roughly half developed) shouldn't be attempted until you've learned to judge what you're squinting at on various negatives where you don't care if they're ruined while you're learning. Enroll the help of an expert if you're going to try it. But after only 20 years, you'll probably get some salvageable pictures from conventional techniques, unless the film was stored in hot, damp conditions for much of the time.
Much has been written about the special effects, with perhaps too much attention paid to the more classical, less CGI approach than to their actual place in the film. But the cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema (Tenet, Nope, Ad Astra, Dunkirk), along with the effects, are of one piece (albeit a mosaic), and are stunning. As a Rochesterian, I could nerd out on the use of actual film, and specifically the special Kodak film used for the beautiful black-and-white sequences. Again, Nolan is one of the few working in film, and we can only applaud a great director who continues to use film, yet pushes its limits.
The film gets a little on the nose in some of the dialogue sequences, which could have given us the information we need without being so direct. But the fact that this is obvious in a few places sets in contrast the fact that its general tendency is to show, not to tell.
Many film writers have rightly talked about how important it at least feels to be seen and represented on the screen. For me, seeing folks come to Christ and getting baptized pretty much ruins me (in the best way) whenever I see it, even as it does in my real life in my real church. So for me, there were too many moments that hit close to home for me to feel I can be artistically objective about the film. But as many writers have expressed, if you want to understand [this group of people], seeing such-and-such a film would help you understand them and would broaden your mental and emotional horizons.
My wife and I walked out of the theater and said we had to tell our children that if they wanted to understand the context of our spiritual lives, they would have to see this film. Jesus Revolution tells of a move of God with intelligence and more honesty than I was expecting, weaving several stories together in a surprisingly coherent way. In its focus, it leaves out a number of elements that could have been covered, but which I believe the film is wise to not address. But for anyone wanting to understand this time and place, or even evangelical Christians in general, this film is a must-see.
There are some strong points to the newer film, which hews very closely to the original. The changes made are a great example of the challenges of aiming a film at an audience with a different culture. Some changes are good and help to clarity characterization and motivation. Some, not so good.
I realized how much I had been missing culturally and historically by not watching Asian films and that Hollywood is certainly not the only source for high-quality cinema. Asian films have opened me up to a broader cultural experience.
Filmmakers Nick Hector and Kim Nelson, professors in the School of Creative Arts, taught science and engineering graduate and undergraduate students how to create a short film that would effectively communicate their science knowledge to a wider audience.
Hector says teaching STEM students was a fascinating experience. Film instructors must get film students, typically drawn to the field by their deep love of narrative, to step out of the story world and cast a critical eye on their work.
Sarika Sharma will start second-year studies in the School of the Environment this fall. She created a short film called Redefining Research: A Science Narrative. She says the class was a great reminder of the natural intersectionality that exists between disciplines and she would encourage fellow students to take this type of class.
Olshefski, whose filmmaking style immerses him in his subjects and their lives, is simultaneously making another film, Without Arrows, about a Native American man who, after living in Philadelphia for ten years while working as a professional dancer and performer, has returned to his Lakota reservation in South Dakota to be with his aging parents and reconnect with his tribe.
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