Official Selection

Japan 2016
Duration: 04:00
Directed by: Kenta Nomura
Animation: Kenta Nomura
Technique: Single-Frame Shooting, Compositing in After Effects
Music: None

Now physical frames of films have disappeared and frames have been virtualized due to digitization of production of moving images. The work is the first experiment to make us experience virtual frames. Frames have already disappeared from the world, but what about moving image expression? Don’t we still understand digital moving images in the traditional way of the analog age? I tried making it recognized that physical frames no longer exist in modern moving image production, paradoxically by constructing a virtual film strip in a digital space, which might appear to be aimless. I shot frames of 8mm films one by one with a digital single-lens reflex camera utilizing a macro-cine copy. (It is a classical kind of lens to blow up 8mm films to 35mm films and used to be actively used in families whose fathers are devoted to 8mm films.) After digitizing the frames, I arranged them lengthways one by one in Adobe After Effects. Now it was possible to see the virtual long strip consisted of more than 100 frames through a virtual camera from any distance, closely or far off. I started from the farthest distance where the each frame can be recognized and gradually dived into the film strip. By doing so, the work features that it is the most essential element of film that intermittent movement generate dynamism. The title of this film is a parody of a famous Japanese feature film. I’d like to suggest that disappearance of physical frames is not a niche problem that matters only when producing experimental films, but a problem that all kinds of moving image expression have in common. For the virtual film, I chose frames that seemed to include some major stories from films I shot from Dec. 16th, 2015 to Aug. 9th, 2016.

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