Monday, January 25, 2010

Scratch Film Junkies

I was absolutley engrossed duroing our class's viewing of the Scratch Film Junkie's film, To the Beat. Its use of wild and pulsating imagery synchronized to sporadic free-jazz percussion sucked me into this new realm similar to Ken Kesey's San Francisco Acid Tests of the 60s and never let go. At certain points, the scratches and painted stock would frame people in unorthodox ways; sometimes the scratches added texture to people or their clothing; but mostly the scratches functioned as their own unique abstractions/patterns. These patterns were often layered over other images. I really enjoyed when they began to use still grames (of the scratched/painted) to create a jerky/staccato like nature that corresponded with the music during the second half of the film.