Film Love presents:

Projectionist Please Read!
Projection Instructions as Film Literature
 

Part of art|DBF at the AJC Decatur Book Festival

A film is a strip of still images wound on a reel. The film projector animates these images into motion, and normally this is all that’s required to "complete" the film. But there are films which the projectionist must modify, in order to properly present them. Such films come with "projection instructions" included in the film canisters and cases. These instructions – which often include detailed diagrams and drawings along with text – are usually not meant to be seen by audiences. But in their inventiveness, detail and originality they form an underexplored alternative genre of film literature – one that converts the act of projection into a kind of performance.

Film Love presents a selection of these projection instructions as printed materials, on exhibit at the Decatur Book Festival, the nation's largest independent book festival, on Saturday, August 30 and Sunday, August 31, 2014. On Saturday, we will also present a screening of rare "projection instruction" films as part of art|DBF. (Please see below for locations of the exhibit and the screening.) The exhibit features archival and print materials by artists Maïa Cybelle Carpenter, Tony Conrad, Ken Jacobs, Lynn Marie Kirby, Malcolm Le Grice, Guy Sherwin, and more.

These instructions require projectionists to mix live radios into the soundtrack, create an atmosphere of "psychic tumult," blow bubbles in the light beam, fill the room with fog, double and triple project, move the projectors while screening, or turn them on their sides. Many of these techniques were created expressly for a single unique film. Often taped directly to the film can, or even handwritten on the film reels by the artists themselves, these instructions become part of the film and a part of film literature – one that reflects the materiality of the film medium itself.

Putting instructions into action, our screening (3:00 on Saturday, August 30) features two exemplary "projection performance" works. Morgan Fisher’s self-explanatory Projection Instructions has become a classic of the genre. Hollis Frampton's A Lecture – as its title suggests – is as much a work of literature as film, a pre-recorded spoken work with projection, that is a poignant and profound meditation on the rectangle of the screen and the projected light on which all films depend.

Print materials exhibited courtesy the artists, the Film-Makers' Cooperative, and Canyon Cinema. Thanks to M.M. Serra, Josh Guilford, Antonella Bonfanti, and Mark Toscano. Hollis Frampton's A Lecture is performed courtesy Harvard Film Archive.

SCREENING VENUE:
Performing Arts Center Theatre
Decatur High School
310 N. McDonough Street, Decatur, GA 30030

EXHIBITION VENUE:
Booth #312 at art|DBF, part of the AJC Decatur Book Festival
Near the Square in downtown Decatur
(101 E Court Square 30030 in Google Maps)
Film Love’s exhibit is in booth #312, alongside Eyedrum

Directions to the festival

 

PROJECTIONIST PLEASE READ! is supported by a grant from artDBF, part of the AJC Decatur Book Festival

PROJECTIONIST PLEASE READ! is a Film Love event, programmed and hosted by Andy Ditzler for Frequent Small Meals. Through public screenings and events, Film Love provides access to rarely seen films, preserves the communal viewing experience, provides space for the discussion of film as art, and explores alternative forms of moving image projection and viewing. Film Love was voted Best Film Series in Atlanta by the critics of Creative Loafing in 2006, and was featured in Atlanta Magazine's Best of Atlanta 2009.