Chris Garratt
2021Romantic Italy
Chris Garratt
Made from old travelogue footage including leader numbers, opening titles with swelling overtures, dissolving into panoramas of historic Florence. Four copies of this 50 foot sequence were cut and interwoven as follows: A B C D A B C D A B C D A B C D A B C D etc… – – – 1 – – 1 2 – 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 2 3 4 5 3 4 5 6 4 5 6 7 The resulting interplay between traditional editing devices like fades, dissolves, pans, swelling crescendos, and the imposed editing structure sets up partial repetitions, stretched out sound and picture images, and whole new meanings in the relentless commentary. – C.G.
Romantic Italy
Versailles I & II
Chris Garratt
For this film I made a contact printing box,with a printing area 16mm x 185mm which enabled the printing of 24 frames of picture plus optical sound area at one time. The first part is a composition using 7 x 1-second shots of the statues of Versailles, Palace of 1000 Beauties, with accompanying soundtrack, woven according to a pre-determined sequence. Because sound and picture were printed simultaneously, the minute inconsistencies in exposure times resulted in rhythmic fluctuations of picture density and levels of sound. Two of these shots comprise the second part of the film which is framed by abstract imagery printed across the entire width of the film surface: the visible image is also the sound image.
Versailles I