Script for a round table discussion
Chair: Marcus Lumen (ML)
So the first two parts of Apostrophe S - Green on the Horizon and Hangway Turning were shot on Super 8 and then edited on video. Why didn’t you just shoot directly on film or video?
Professor Ham (PH)
As both works were funded by small grants from South East Arts it would have been financially possible – just, to shoot on 16 mm and equally we could have used a video camera and kept everything digital...
Professor Cheese (PC)
…well electronic rather than digital, but yes we used the Film Co-op’s slightly dodgy Nizo 801 Super 8 camera and then transferred all the footage onto Umatic at this little place in Barnes…
PH
…Glentham studios…
Yes that’s right Glentham studios, we transferred everything to Umatic and then took the time coded dubs down to Brighton. Free off line editing was a perk of the South East Arts award and then from that we compiled an Edit Decision List. The final three-machine edit took place at the Fantasy Factory back in London. So it was quite a long-winded process.
ML
So why go to such lengths?
PC
Well long winded as it was it was still considerably easier than trying to edit the tiny Super 8 frames and it gave us a lot more flexibility than working on 16 mm.
PH
With 16 mm if you want to repeat a section or change the speed or anything like that you can of course use an optical printer but it is far easier to manipulate the footage once you’ve transferred it on to video. On video you can really begin to play with the film.
ML
So it was a practical and aesthetic decision?
PC
Very much so. There were of course a few other people using the same Super 8 onto video technique as well. The so called new romantic Super 8 crowd and of course Jarman and…
PH
..and Cordelia Swann – but making a film on video was still not accepted it was an awkward position
ML
Awkward?
PH
Awkward in that it in terms of distribution it positioned the work somewhere between the Filmmakers Co-op (LFMC) who pretty much distributed works on film and, London Video Arts (LVA) who distributed video art.
ML
Those two organisations were quite separate at the time weren’t they?
PC
The LFMC and LVA had developed distinct and complex: histories, aesthetics, working practices and identities and they defended their particular territories.
ML
So a video that had been shot on film did not sit that comfortably at either address?
PH
Fortunately Jez Welsh at the Film & Video Umbrella decided to include Green on the Horizon in the Electric Eyes touring package and so we sidestepped all of the “is it a film or is it a video” issues but with part two Hangway Turning, the Co-op took the tape but did nothing with it and LVA refused it on the grounds that it was a film so I had to send it off to festivals myself.
ML
And did they have a problem with the film/video thing?
PH
On the whole no, not at all it was quite, er popular.
PC
In a way though you can understand LVA turning it down as using Super 8 inevitably gave the works a filmic quality and the nature of the camera work and pace of the editing owe much to cinema and little to video art.
ML
Didn’t Jeremy Welsh’s in the Electric Eyes booklet describe Green on the Horizon as being like Mission Impossible or a TV programme of that nature.
PC
Well he said that it had something of that flavour of a Mission Impossible and that is definitely one element in the mix, but only one…
PH
…There was definitely a small screen influence but this is combined with
frequent nods to experimental film practice.
PC
Hangway Turning also makes allusions to TV but more to documentary with its accounts of ghost sightings and other paranormal activity around Blue Bell Hill in Kent.
PH
As we were saying before using film and then editing on video made it easy to repeat sections of footage and sound – for it to be looped, treated and replayed. A kind of post-materialist approach.
PC
Well I’m not sure about post – materialist, but the experimental element in both works is certainly self-conscious or perhaps knowing (makes gesture).
PH
I’ve always felt that Structural Materialism with its preoccupation with the anti-illusory follows the same trajectory as Greenbergian thinking.
ML
You mean in terms of self-reflexivity?
PH
Yes that and the medium specificity though in this case we are talking film rather than canvas but, if you put some of the Greenberg and Gidal writings side by side they read almost identically.
PC
…But there is a fine line between self-reflexivity and knowing. The first is seen as good modernist practice the second as possibly kitsch. Particularly when you start mixing in other elements like easy listening music and TV references.
ML
So Apostrophe S commits the sin of being a touch paordic in both its experimentalism and TV pretensions?
PC
(Laughing)… Yes parodic is a good way of putting it rather than kitsch indeed had they been more kitsch and worn a boho art school bravura then possibly they would have found a home in the new romantic film…
PH
…camp…
PC
…Quite. But seriously both pieces (Green on the Horizon and Hangway Turning) frustrate expectations in terms of conventional narrative construction and experimental practice never allowing the viewer to sit comfortably.
ML
So this is the awkward thing again.
PH
Well I struggle to sit through either (laughing) but sure in their own ways both pieces make promises and then fail to deliver - but that is part of the intention. With both mainstream narrative and experimental practice you get a sense of closure – even if with the latter it is a kind of dystopian alienated closure.
PC
In the case of Apostrophe S you are left hanging.
ML
Well on that note perhaps we should move to watching an extract….
To be continued.
