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Courtney Hoskins

Writer/Director

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The Galilean Satellites: Europa

This is the first in a four-part series of films dedicated to legendary filmmaker and friend, Stan Brakhage. It is also dedicated to a group of filmmakers with whom I shared orbit around the massive scope of Brakhage's work.

This has been the "audience favorite" of my works so far- at least, it has traveled around the world to all sorts of festivals and gotten great feedback (though the New York Times called it both one of the "most ambitious" films in its program as well as "relentlessly abstract." I'm not quite sure how to take the latter, but every artist knows that "ambitious" feels like a blow-off. I digress...)

As such, I am a bit reluctant to post it online, where it will be seen at 1/100th of its intended size, with resampled sound and dropped frames. Still, I'm reaching out into the volgosphere! It will be traveling around the country soon, so perhaps it might inspire a few souls to go see it when it comes to town (more details as they become available).

It is a 16mm sound film that imagines the icy hatched-marked world of Jupiter's moon, Europa. The soundtrack consists of recordings from several probes that visited the moon (specifically, the "sounds" are coming from the atmosphere of Jupiter), as well as whale songs- an imagining of the possible life beneath the icy surface. The imagery combines hand-painted liquid crystals and Super-8mm footage from a local aquarium (hooray for (now extinct) Kodachrome).

tags: astronomy, callisto, courtney hoskins, experimental film, galilean satellites, independent film, jupiter, liquid crystal, new york film festival, short film
categories: animation
Wednesday 12.12.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
Comments: 2
 

Snow Flukes

Next up: "Snow Flukes" I'm going a little bit out of sequence, but this was the next video that I felt like publishing. This is "Snow Flukes." I happened upon this 16mm silhouette footage several years ago. I was told that the artist who drew the cartoons was Otto Messmer (Felix the Cat) and that the skater is Dorothy Hamill, but I'm not sure. All of my searching has turned up very little on this little film.

I'm glad I have breathed some new life into it (and I always credit Otto and have never made a cent off of it- I'm really not sure if this footage ever fell into the public domain). The "psychedelic" background is shrink wrap and the skater is made of the same liquid crystal paint that went into "The Light Touch Dust Nebula" (ah, that's probably why I felt like following it with this video). I really love the fact that a paint activated by heat can be made to look like snow (note: this film is also silent):

tags: animation, cartoon, cat, experimental film, found footage, liquid crystal, short film
categories: animation
Monday 12.10.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
 

The Counter Girl Trilogy at The New York Film Festival

I'm proud to announce that my short film series "The Counter Girl Trilogy" is being included in this year's official selection at the New York Film Festival. This is its U.S. debut (it's world debut was in London a little over a year ago). It will be included in the "Views from the Avant-Garde" series in a program called "Bits and Pieces (Make up to Break Up)." The screening is at 6:15 pm on Sunday, October 7th at the Lincoln Center (Walter Reade Theatre) and I couldn't be happier with the company in which it will be shown! Some links are below:

The Bits and Pieces Program

The Entire Views from the Avant-Garde Series

The New York Film Festival Home Page

I've had the honor of seeing my films on this enormous screen before, so I'm really looking forward to being there. Also, due to the fact that Kodachrome has been discontinued, this might be one of my last Kodachrome prints!

tags: counter girl trilogy, courtney hoskins, experimental film, independent film, new york film festival, short film, views from the avant garde
categories: Uncategorized
Friday 09.21.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
Comments: 1
 

Polymer

Polymer was a sort of chain mail/penpal film. Carl Fuermann and I began sending a high-resolution image back and forth, each one modifying it before returning it to the other. We then used each image as a frame of film and recorded it out to 16mm film. It's only 30 seconds long, so make sure you are paying attention! When it played at the New York Film Festival, the lights hadn't even dimmed fully before the film was over

tags: carl fuermann, courtney hoskins, experimental film, independent film, polymer, short film
categories: Uncategorized
Thursday 04.26.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
 

Sweet Intuition - Part 2

This second part consists of about 7200 16mm frames of the film "Amelie" (a more "professional" romantic fairytale view of Paris, but a parallel one). Each frame was cut out, stacked in order, placed in bundles of 24, labeled and then individually re-pasted (in order) on strips of 35mm film that had been flashed with colored lights and scratched. These strips hung in my lab for two days while the glue dried, then they were spliced together to form the complete five minute film below.

This film celebrated an anniversary of sorts this last Saturday. I participated, in my way, in my friend's annual all-night meditation. I stayed up until 5:00 AM cutting my 16mm frames in my own quasi-meditation.

tags: amelie, collage, courtney hoskins, experimental film, found footage, independent film, meditation, montage, short film, sweet intuition
categories: Uncategorized
Thursday 04.12.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
 

Sweet Intuition- Part I

This was a labor of love. I say that for many reasons- romantic, obsessive, blind, sentimental- but I will leave out the personal reasons and focus on the technical for now! I split this film into two parts and I'm sharing them one at a time. It would be too long, otherwise. Part One (below) consists of Super-8mm footage I shot in Paris. Part Two will eventually be above this one. I'm not fond of this method of blogging organization, by the way. It gets quite annoying when one wants to continue a thought at a later time and can't do so fluidly without directing readers to the post just below it. It's almost like starting a book with the last chapter and asking the reader to skip to the end and read from the back. I digress.

The film is a reflection on romance. The setting is Paris (bien sûr). This first part is a fairytale daydream view of the City of Lights- complete with Eifel Tower and carousel! The second will come tomorrow...

tags: amelie, collage, courtney hoskins, experimental film, found footage, independent film, meditation, montage, short film, sweet intuition
categories: film and television
Wednesday 04.11.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
 

The Galilean Satellites- Callisto!

Finally! I feel so neglectful of poor little Callisto. I got my firewire cable in the mail on Monday and re-rendered Callisto last night. Callisto is the final film in The Galilean Satellites series. She is silent. This film was complete magic toward the end. I had not quite expected the results that I got, but I was awed by them.

Callisto is also one of the most heavily cratered bodies in the solar system. Jupiter's gravity attracts comets, meteoroids, and other objects and Callisto, being far away and tectonically inactive, bears thousands of years worth of battle scars. She also has the lowest density of the Galilean Satellites and it is thought that there might be an ocean beneath her rocky crust.

The imagery consists of liquid crystal paints and rubbing alcohol (like I said, magic). Enjoy:

tags: astronomy, callisto, courtney hoskins, experimental film, galilean satellites, independent film, jupiter, liquid crystal, new york film festival, short film
categories: animation
Wednesday 03.21.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
Comments: 2
 

The Galilean Satellites- Ganymede

If Europa could be considered the "audience favorite" of my films, Ganymede would have to be her cute little brother. This is the third film in The Galilean Satellites series. It is quite a bit shorter than the previous two, but was easily the hardest of the series to make (easily the hardest- bad English, I know, but funny enough for me to leave it there).

The imagery is both digital and film in origin. The opening sequence of photographs consists of digital images taken by the Galileo probe that visited Jupiter recently. The film imagery is clear 16mm film leader that has been scratched, pitted, twisted and bent to refract the polarized light.

The soundtrack consists of radio signals received from the moon's ionosphere. Unlike the previous two films, however, I have not manipulated this sound in any way. In fact, you can hear Ganymede's voice on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's page.

This film tries to capture the essence of Ganymede, who, like his sisters, is pulled and pushed by the tidal forces of Jupiter and the other moons (sibling rivalry...even the planets and Greek deities suffer from it).

tags: astronomy, courtney hoskins, experimental film, galilean satellites, ganymede, independent film, jupiter, liquid crystal, new york film festival, short film
categories: animation
Tuesday 02.13.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
 

The Galilean Satellites- Io

This is the second film in The Galilean Satellites series. It is an artistic study of the wrenching and twisting of Jupiter's volcanic moon, Io. This film is quite a bit longer than the others. It is also what I feel to be the "scariest" film I've ever made. The soundtrack consists of stretched and manipulated radio emissions from Io's ionosphere, while the image consists of various objects that I'm twisting and pulling in polarized light.

Io is constantly pulled and pushed upon by her sister moons and the immense gravity of Jupiter. This film probes into the beauty of turmoil. Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system, and is actually the hottest body in the solar system, outside of the sun (which reminds me of that Groucho Marx quote: "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read").

Again, imagine this quite a bit bigger than it actually is. Much of my work is meant to be seen on a very large scale. I have wanted to project this particular film around an entire room as an installation.

It was originally shot on 16mm film and is a sound piece:

tags: astronomy, courtney hoskins, experimental film, galilean satellites, independent film, io, jupiter, liquid crystal, new york film festival, short film
categories: animation
Wednesday 02.07.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
 

Ether Twist

Back on track! Now, for the next film in my one-woman show: "Ether Twist." This film has sound! It's strange and quiet, but it's there...

Sounds from very low frequency (VLF) radio emissions make up the soundtrack to this film. These sounds include aurorae, solar flares, lightning and other electromagnetic phenomena that affect the Earth's ionosphere. The imagery is composed of various pieces of transparent plastics (try to guess what some of them are- you might be surprised) whose colors are revealed through polarized light. Neither the sound nor the image would be detectable if it weren't for careful manipulation of electromagnetic waves.

Many thanks to Stephen P. McGreevy for recording the incredible VLF sounds and allowing me to use them. This is a rather large file- the film is about 10 minutes long.

Footnotes: Ether (or Aether) was once considered to be quintessence, or the "fifth element." It was thought the be the medium through which light waves (indeed, all energy) traveled. It has since been dropped from the world of scientific thought and is considered to be, well, more...ethereal (not sure if that can qualify as a pun, but it was intended). It is considered to be the unifying energy for all living spirits in Wicca and some other religions.

The film title owes its existence to lyrics in the Tori Amos song, "Suede:"

i'm sure that you've been briefed my absorption lines they are frayed and i fear my fear is greater than my faith but i walk the missionary way you always felt like suede there are days i am your twin peekaboo hiding underneath your skin jets are revving yes revving from an ether twist call me 'evil' call me 'tide is on your side' anything you want

I connected with these lyrics instantly, but really keyed in on the phrase "ether twist." The liquid crystal materials I use do a sort of "ether twist." By twisting (refracting) the direction of the light waves at different wavelengths (colors), the bland, transparent plastics become vibrant, colored light sources.

tags: astronomy, courtney hoskins, ether twist, experimental film, independent film, liquid crystal, radio waves, short film, tori amos, vlf
categories: animation
Tuesday 01.30.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
Comments: 3
 

Munkphilm

"Munphilm" came to me through a dream: I had a great job working with the orcas at a monastery (yes, a monastery with killer whales- what?) I swam with them at night, which was quite frightening. I couldn't see them approaching me and suddenly, my body would lurch through the water. I would find myself tumbling through the air and plunging down to the bottom of the pool... luckily, we can do things like this in a dream and not drown!

One morning, a monk approached me. He handed me a toothbrush and told me to clean the orca pool, brush stroke by brush stroke. I took this duty and found that just as I had made a complete circle around the entirety of the pool, algae began appearing at my starting point. My day became an endless circle of the minutiae of whale care!

The monk in the dream was my friend Phil (hence the title). In this film, I try to explore yin and yang- depth, mystery and darkness interrupted by cuts of smooth, metallic vibrancy (note: you guessed it, this film is also silent - there will be sound in later films, but aren't you glad you don't have to turn the volume down at work?)

tags: courtney hoskins, dream, experimental film, independent film, liquid crystal, meditation, monk, phil rowe, short film, whale
categories: ufos
Friday 01.19.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
 

The Light Touch Dust Nebula

As you can tell, I have been playing with the look of my blog. Please don't hesitate to leave comments if you find that it doesn't perform well for you. My second film, made as Gossamer Conglomerate's twin, is "The Light Touch Dust Nebula." Click on the image below to watch (note- this film is silent):

This film was made by applying thermotropic (changing with heat) paints to decayed film leader and filming the result before the heat of the projector lamp. The color of the paints changes from red to blue with heat. These are the same paints found in mood rings. For more information about this film, please click on the link in the title of this post.

tags: courtney hoskins, experimental film, hand painted film, liquid crystal, short film, thermotropic, tlc paint
categories: ufos
Wednesday 01.17.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
 

Gossamer Conglomerate

Now that I have my technical wires uncrossed, I plan to post one of my 16mm films here every day for the next few weeks. Although the compression looks much better than I thought it would, I do have to take a moment to say that this is not the preferred format for my films. They are best seen in their original 16mm format in a darkened theatre. Well, not all of us live near an experimental film venue, nor do we have finances at our disposal to rent film prints from places like Canyon Cinema, The Film-maker's Coop, CFMDC (Canadian films) Light Cone, or Le Collectif Jeune Cinéma (though you can click on any of these if you do- they have many great films in their collections). I decided to make my films available online, too. You can also subscribe to my podcast (you'll need iTunes) or check out my blip.tv channel.

Okay, enough. Here is my first film, "Gossamer Conglomerate" (click the image to play- note: this film is silent):

tags: animation, courtney hoskins, experimental film, gossamer conglomerate, independent film, liquid crystal, refraction, short film, splicing tape
categories: ufos
Tuesday 01.16.07
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
Comments: 6
 

Mailing List Crossover- Sound in Film

These are some ideas that I posted to a mailing list (edited): A few weeks ago Robert Breer was at the First Person Cinema program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. This is a program that brings film artists from around the world to the University to present their films and answer questions about their work. It's a great chance to see some unique works of art and talk to the artists.

I'd seen all of the films shown, most of which remind me of a sort of comic book of the unconscious mind (this is NOT, to me, an insult, by the way). While I'm watching his films, I feel like I get to see the world through an animator's eye. This is particularly true in his film "Fuji" in which he sometimes cuts the "raw" footage of his train in with his rotoscope animation, subtly reminding the viewer that the (sometimes) abstract shapes are based on "photographed" images (technically, they're all photographed, since they ended up on the film print...) This is kind of what my mind does as I'm staring out the window of a plane, car, train, etc. I can sometimes see the world as a web of interacting patterns, motions, shapes, colors...

In the Q&A portion of the program, one of the film-goers asked him about the significance of the sound in his films. He responded by saying that he felt sound was a natural consequence of motion. I'd never really though about this, but it does seem odd (to a hearing person, at least) to see an object move and not hear it make a sound. It's creepy somehow. I wonder if this could be at least one of the reasons why most people tend to get antsy while watching a silent film. You do have to kind of learn how accept the silence. Of course, and he did go into this, the sound doesn't have to be "synched," so to speak, and often works great (or even better) if it isn't. He mentioned watching a boy with a basketball coming up his street and how the sound of the ball hitting the ground was not synched with the image. As the boy got closer, the two phenomena became more synched (speed of sound vs speed of light- I've often said that of all the things that stick in my mind the most after watching the Trade Center towers fall from my Brooklyn home was the fact that I saw them fall and then the Roar of the Earth came several seconds later- it suspended time somehow).

As a filmmaker who often makes silent films, it gave me quite a bit to think about...

tags: experimental film, films, movies, robert breer, silent film, silent movies
categories: ufos
Wednesday 12.07.05
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
 

Stan Brakhage's "Scenes From Under Childhood"

I just had the privilege of seeing the first two films in this four-part series by filmmaker Stan Brakhage, an amazing filmmaker and much-missed friend. I'd seen them before, though I'd never seen the first film with sound. The last time I saw it, I'm sure Stan projected it silent (or my aural memory has failed me). It is always difficult to "describe" a film like this. For those people reading this blog who might not have a clue who this "Stan" guy is (he is, in fact, the namesake of the South Park character, for those who watch the show) or what his films are about, I refer you to the above link and offer you this quote from his book "Metaphors on Vision:"

"Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'? How many rainbows can light create for the untutored eye? How aware of variations in heat waves can that eye be? Imagine a world alive with incomprehensible objects and shimmering with an endless variety of movement and innumerable gradations of color. Imagine a world before the 'beginning was the word.'"

Much of this series is a chronicle of such an "adventure of perception." Though, Stan himself cautions that "One can never go back, even in imagination," so this is an interpretation through an adult's eyes. I guess the best way to describe these films to someone who has never seen a film quite like this would be to call it a non-narrative documentary of sorts. It pushes the limits of this boundary- this just gives you an idea of what these films are "like."

Film #1

Filming through objects and materials that distort the image, under/over-exposing the image, interweaving sections of shifting colors, and filming much footage at child's-eye level, Stan Brakhage does convey the sense of "feeling" things with the eyes for the very first time. It is often difficult for the viewer to think "that's a chair, that's a hand..." etc. Many shapes had no recognizable "name" to me. Eventually, I found that my mind kind of shut down in the verbal sense, much in the same way it would during meditation. Unlike meditation, however, my mind was still otherwise quite stimulated and active. A rare "nameable" scene in which a young girl is feeding a baby with a spoon sums up my general feelings for the film: someone is offering me this new visual treat and I am reaching out with all I have to taste it! It's very difficult to put words to the experience. Often, I was reminded of just "being" as a child- waking up in the morning with my pajamas on, crawling under the furniture and staring at the patterns in the woodwork, touching things, watching things, etc.

Much of this film was somewhat dark and had a reddish hue to it, which I found to be very comforting, much in the same way a child might find a dish of macaroni and cheese to be comforting. The film is far from bland in the "dull" sense (and so is a good dish of mac and cheese), my point is that it's a gentle, soothing color. It's one we often see with eyes shut (I say "one," falling in to the name trap mentioned in the "baby unaware 'Green'" passage above- we see many shades of red (the dominant color, but there are other colors) as the light penetrates our closed eyelids, it passes through the various blood vessels, capillaries, etc. and casts a general reddish hue onto our mind's eye). I would (tentatively) imagine that this might be true for a baby, as well, but who knows? I certainly don't remember!

Film #2

This film was much more "nameable," much more "describable." It seemed to be a continuation of the perception adventure. The images were fairly bright and clear containing a fairly broad spectrum of colors. Rather than crawling and moving about in constant wonder, most of the children seemed to have a direction to their play. They begin playing with dolls (dressing and moving the little humans and gaining an understanding for how people are supposed to move, look, etc.) and toys. Organized games begin to materialize. The children play on playground equipment, and one really nice sequence showed one of the children making "mountains of snow" out of sheets on a bed and then tramping around on the bed with snow boots- what a great early step (literally) into Art!

There was a scene in this film that really started me thinking: One of the children is falling asleep in the back of the car. He keeps falling over, catching himself and distorting himself into uncomfortable positions. His sisters keep trying to move him into a more comfortable position, but the sleepy child insists on staying uncomfortable.

I've noticed that adults don't tend to do this very often. Usually (unless we've had too much to drink), we can nod off, wake up, and recognize that we are not in a position conducive to sleep. We then adjust our position and go back to sleep. I can think of a few exceptions that I have experienced recently. One involved the buzzing alarm clock. I always press the snooze button. One morning, I was dreaming. The alarm went off and I pushed the snooze button. I fell back into a dream. The alarm went off ten minutes later. In my dream, I recall wondering when the snooze period would end and I would wake up and stop this incessant noise! I thought that the alarm was IN my dream. I woke up very disoriented and confused. It took me a moment to "snap out of it."

Now I wonder (for that child who is violently nodding off and pushing away the sisters who are trying to help) if we have difficulty distinguishing between the dream world and the "real" world as children. I also wonder if babies need to sleep as much as they do because they are tired or because their bodies are so "new" or if they are simply making the transition from a purely dream-like reality (in the womb or beyond...who knows) to this one, the "real world." Just a thought...

tags: cinema, experimental film, movies, scene from under childhood, stan brakhage
categories: ufos
Wednesday 11.23.05
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
 

Still

A still from my film, "The Counter Girl Trilogy," which played at the New York Film Festival.

The Counter Girl Trilogy by Courtney Hoskins

The Counter Girl Trilogy by Courtney Hoskins

tags: animation, cosmetics, experimental film, film, new york film festival
categories: ufos
Tuesday 10.04.05
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
 

A Still From "Polymer"

Today is one of those days where it's better not to write...

03.jpg
tags: experimental film, new york film festival, polymer, short film
categories: art, film and television
Thursday 09.29.05
Posted by Courtney Hoskins
 

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