ti a Phonon of the Opes eneaarages an intellectual rather sl eesponse by asking audiences to reflec critically on their more immedi Mectve reactions. tthe same time that identification with dhe Other i forecosed Ta Eyes ecg dof ct cere A DIY Come-On: A History of Toc ae acca iota bs eerie Optical Printing in Avant-Garde se ed og Okara ec staatcom erf Cinema sersg end via ect ery "oo : —— os tint te fovea: Tis rice pes 3 hoy of et al nig in vente Cinema. Drawing on arial ressarch ace Is pat frm ts navation in doe yoursel ‘mater filmmaking cles to ts fusion in making cooperatives and universities, That optcal printing cepresents an instance of @ semiprofessonal amateurs, nobbyists, and artists repurposing, @ commecial technol for ther om ends. In addon to shifting the avant garé's investment in -ceptal Yensiormaton fom in-camera elect o posthoc manipulation of eta, Eis printing became a cultural resource that avant garde fimmakers Teimagine ther relationship wih their materia ad motiizen relation other practoe. wing the 1970s and 1980s, awantgarde filmmakers mastered a device traditionally sed 7 Hollywood special effects work the opie printer. A unease ttl foe dpc the optical printer contributed ta 8. shift in emphasis from the camers bound spontaneity of shooting tothe analytical revisionism of postproduction, as Flmnakers transformed their images with unprecedented levels of control. Some tse the printer faneonaly to achieve very specific elects, while others became \iztuosos whose fms depended on a thorough wndersanding of che deve’ passes Soon, the optical printer became a mainstay of MFA programs and filmmakers cooperatives, a fundamental to avant-garde practice as Rolex cameras and reversal film stocks. Surveying the previous decade, P Adams Sitney concluded Jat a rapid eliting with insaiblespie marks bad, for many fomakers, become 2 mark of aesthetic authory in the eal sites, optical printing represented technical mastery in the seven.” Despite the optical printer’ importance for multiple generations of filmmakers we lack a historiographical account ofits role withia avanc-garde cinema* In recent yeas the work of scholars suchas Seott MacDonald, Michael Zryd and 4 tern Fol re, 2015, 7 : ie Fie nt Mala sks Pgs Ws Uni aie no mt goes ann Oxi od Mer Fi oral an thay nA 70 vomcritiorg | No are nsika Baliom has signaled an “instintonal tum” in avantgarde fi scholarship, laminating neglected topics like distribution, exon, and the relationship betwee the avantgande and academia? This article contrbntes to such development by arguing that flmmaking technologies were an essential locus forthe materia, cultura and discursive selédefnition of the avant-garde. Additionally, Gregory Zinman and Julie A. Turnock have examined the avant-garde’ influence on commercial special effects, charting the ways in which experimental lmmakers have shaped blockbuster ‘esthetics through handinade processes and composite mis-ensctne.* Tock ofers the moet extensive treatment of optical printing in the want garde, s0 the ferences between our approaches deserve comment. Turnock’ interes jn 4 particular subset of West Coast experimental makers and their contributions to the blockbuster aesthetics of the 1970s, She notes that CalArts served as a taining ground for cuting-edge optical printing technique, arguing persuasively that are like Pat O'Neil, John and James Whitney, and Betzy Bromberg taught lmmakers lke George Lucas and Steven Spelherg “strategies for onganing and mobilizing the {laborately designed composite miscen-wine."® though Turnock’ account is defn itv it focuses on a geographically specie minority of avantgarde filmmakers who, though influential, were not especialy representative of avantgarde optical printing ‘overall Furthermore, Turnock’s gal wo explain the inuence of the avant-garde on blockbuster filmmaking, not to examine the rle of optical printing within the avant. sare ise, which was more varied than the composite miseen-scene tha dominated ‘he West Goast milieu. In this article, I take the oppesite approach, locating avant garde optical printing within advanced amateur, seniprofesional, and experimental Film 9 tice wan End ae 9 nore iw bad doe eure cadena ‘Utimatey I argue chat paca printing provides a reaskable example of ats, mae chinists, and hobbyists asimilatng a commercial technology and repurposing as & cultural esoure for their own aesthetic nd political ends. 2 Set Set Mastin, Cama 1: Dama Hy te Fin Sct ein ee se Sac ta in han Pn 8 Attn vy ean 2019) esas yt Bae en oy ‘sone tna pS cr al nil inn ta 2013 224240 on ble Tack Par ty Sc ecg a De Pa sai ose 15 tot er ‘ett amar dale aren n The technological history of the avantgurde i dificult to document. Becaus ecinology is & more difise phenomenon than a dssibution c tion venue, sources are dispered, and crucial information i often recollected in using by fizamakers in interviews or oral histories, Furthermore, most low-budget fim technologies were not specific tothe avant-garde but were developed forthe com mercial, industrial, and amateur mavkets These mavkets were les coordinated than the Hollywood studio system, where technological innovation tended ta he syste aszed for efficiency. Therefore, the regulatory mechanisms that provide coherence to histories of studio technology (as wells key concepts such as product diferent tion aad standards of quality) are ether nonexistent or more nebulous when applied to the avant-garde’ As Charles Tepperman observes, amatenr fn technology is “a ory of nonstandardaation,” which makes it incumbent spon the hisarian to be ‘specially sensitive to ts nonfineaity and the varie of cultural, ideological, and ae thetic determinants that inform its development Moreover, avant-garde fmmakers swe inventing new technologies, epurpasing or reconfiguring existing technologies, fd using commercial technologie against their intended uses, sometimes al at ‘Reeping this complex set of negotiations in mind, my account is baeed on 3 survey of periodicals, newsletters and technical advice columns that crclated among the srantgarde flmmaking community, most notably Famke Neuter and Canyon CGimancs. This research is supplemented with documents from various archives, including the James Stanley Brakhage Collection, a well ay personal incerviws with flmmakers and technicians Institutional hisories of the avant-garde emphasize its autonomy from, and cad rate. Adams i ‘commercial cinema “operate in diferent reals with next to no significant nflence ‘on each othe” alludes tothe fe thatthe avant-garde was often forced to bull its own infasrutute for disebusion, exhibition, and critic. In what flows, T argue that ‘nantgande filmmaking technology was imbricated in a semipofessional network of Advanced amateurs, tnkerers, hobbyists, and technology enthusiasts who capitalized fon the inf of 16min fin equipment that flourished afer World War TL" As a product of this networked afaton, low-budget opial printers represent instances ao sty a Bates oe at To, cone aed rene 2of filmmakers and technicians reimagining the adver as technical and cular hat could be al onsequenthy Trace the path ofthe flmmaking technologie embraced, laboratedon, challenge, or rejected «ptcal printer fom its innovation in do-eyoursel (DIY) amateur fzamaking cies tots clifsion in filmmaking cooperative and universities, where it beeame a standard ‘component ofthe avantgarde flmmsking curriculum in the 1970s and 1980 AdionalyT claim chat the widespread adoption of the optical printer influenced filmmaking esthetics asthe avant-garde’ long-standing investment in percept tran formation sited fom in-camera effec o past hoc manipulation of footage, Embold ed bythe Bolex H16 camer, the fst generation postwar avantgatereled heavily on in-camera techniques such as superimposion, slow and fast motion, and piston, exemplified by fms such as The Cg (Sidney Peterson, 1947) and Ga! Cal Gt Maric Menken, 1962-1964) For Iter generations, the opitl printer reigured the proces of shooting as gathering raw material to be revised later Images became suseepable to shythmic aeration, repetion and muhipicaton, ad being slot ito grid, com Paste wih other images, o used in conjunction with techniques ike hand procesing snd backlighting (ae Figure 1), Furthermore, avant-garde optical printing i more de verse than usually assumed, asthe device proved equally wef for poetic transfor tion, Structural film sree, #9 cune.ootage deconstruction, al and other frmal operations These tendencies persisted in dhe digital era, when the visual vocabulary of optical Ito nonlines eitng systems and visual eee soate The relationship between technology, aesthetic, and lscursve seldefntion in svantgarde raises subs stanéal questions about de sie Fe 1. opal pets she Sina Butr Harmer he ace of influence in posting causal determinants for flmmaking practic. The most common explanatory fares for experimental flmmaking acthetie are typically conceptual paradigms borrowed fiom adjacent ars, such s abstract expressionism, pop art serial musi, or collage In this aril, Tague dat technology isa proximate an influence, and that understand ing the history of optical printing contributes toa more nance sense of visual tle ina wide varity of avant-garde fils as well sthe cultural contexts that informed the development of the postwar experimental lm as an established mode of fm pte. That sai, its imperative for scholars to avoid technologically deterministic account and maintain sensitivity to alternate inputs, especially when coniromted with the heterogencty of avant-garde fleamaking practic, where itis impossible to sepa ‘ate aesthetics and technology from interme, discursive, a cultural opographies Within the avant-garde, technology often sets limitations and possibilities for formal ” TT persons, but these ae in mur shaped by oer artic and cultural imperatives Th imperatives. This aril nlates one parame arguing forthe importance of techology ee eee ing sensitive tothe complex interplay of factors that shape fm aes JRshaps the mest act conceptuel dynamic inthe adonthip between technclogy imation hat the ait srg herd vo owecone se ee commer culare, Unoubiedy some ofthe pega of eo ingenious we and tase of technology, want garde cinema isthe ms dpa an imaginative st of formal rates for expliting the technology's builtin iieaons Aste arble se, fo demonstrate, however, apical printing was more * 85 more accurately a productive means of opening up the flmmaking proces exploring the poles of deing ne an image and thorrng a coneptual elton to technology da cold nage cinema's potential Early Experiments, nopicl printers x device on which lm is ephonogphed gue fame atime A oppoted io contc printing, whereby fim scoped by king ‘wo sips of film tober, th dening character uf opel prota fro Son. At ts mos bai, an optical printer consists of four principal con pence Camert with an atached lens sytem, a projector, and alight some. The jonor tnd camera face: ach other: Prevouly exposed fms acvanecs hugh the pee fit, where it iluminated by the light source and rephotographed bythe eons Athough commonly refered toa “pjetos” the orginal fim sat projected inte cndinary sense itis mare accurate to think ofthe projector asa light bon over shies Sim advances at requ interva. The chief advantage ofthe system shat t perms 2. variety of manipulation ofthe orginal image ring the rephotogranty eas Images can be sped up, slowed down * reffamed, alternately ‘composited with other images in complex ways, lit and colored, or conjunction with techniques like Brinig: dyeing or bleaching the fm, the printer becomes eapable of quaeedecy transforming the image! Although is fortunes waxed and waned, optical printing was avilable othe Hol. !ywood sudios as easly asthe 1920s wen new fine-grain, lowccontvane fn atc ‘Were introduced, allowing for duplication without dramatic image degradacnn 15