Film in which there appear edge lettering, dirt particles, sprocket holes, etc.

Duration: 5

Year Published: 1966

Creator: G. Landow

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Sound: silent

Description: A structural film in which the visual image is reduced to a cipher, a necessary adjunct to the real area of concern, which is the physical materiality of the film celluloid. With typical Landow wit, the image picked to represent this zero level of content is loaded: a bizarre, full-color winking lady - the star of Kodak's leader which projectionists use to check focus and color balance. This purportedly empty image becomes a vehicle for the transfer of attention away from the image on film and towards the workings of the projection situation, which transfer allowed the audience to see previously hermetic materials- the dirt that had always been wiped away from them, the sprocket holes hidden away in the projection gate, the edge lettering crucial only to the filmmaker.

Complete Record: A structural film in which the visual image is reduced to a cipher, a necessary adjunct to the real area of concern, which is the physical materiality of the film celluloid. With typical Landow wit, the image picked to represent this zero level of content is loaded: a bizarre, full-color winking lady - the star of Kodak's leader which projectionists use to check focus and color balance. This purportedly empty image becomes a vehicle for the transfer of attention away from the image on film and towards the workings of the projection situation, which transfer allowed the audience to see previously hermetic materials- the dirt that had always been wiped away from them, the sprocket holes hidden away in the projection gate, the edge lettering crucial only to the filmmaker.