extended nature

1999
super 8 film
1 minute (loop)
silent
images: tracings of eucalyptus leaf

extended nature was one of a pair of films that were created while watching an existing film, here are my notes from 1999:

“the images drawn for the film were created in the melnitz theater at ucla, while watching the 1948 film: louisiana story – a film about the relationship between a family living on the louisiana bayou, and some oil workers. the film was known for its extended nature sequences, and the music of virgil thompson, which was the first film score to ever win a pulitzer prize for music. as we were walking into the theatre, i picked up a eucalyptus leaf from the ground outside the theater; and once the film began, i traced the eucalyptus leaf onto a small piece of paper for the length of time that a scene included no sound other than thompson’s music. as these scenes arrived, i frenetically traced the leaf’s form as many times as i could until the music stopped, or actual sounds appeared. of course, in the dark – staring at the film screen and not the paper, the resulting drawings were sometimes messy, awkward and included mistakes (such as when the hand veered off the paper). the drawings were then filmed in sequence to create a very archaic version of stop motion ‘animation’.”