This collaborative film project, created by Davorin Marc, Jurij Meden, and Tara Najd Ahmadi, was shot on 35mm film and has a duration of one minute. The following excerpts are taken from 1440 Frames: Focus Puller, written by Jurij Meden.
On a sunny, early Spring day in 2017, Davorin Marc was driving his car from Lower Carniola (Dolenjska) to his seaside home in Izola while simultaneously shooting his next experimental film. He used one hand to control the wheel and shift gears, and the other hand (alternately left and right) to capture images of passing landscapes through the car’s (alternatively left and right) side windows, using his mobile phone as a recording device. When this particular creative process finally threatened to steer the car into a ditch or a tree, DM stopped shooting and placed both of his hands back on the wheel. Four shots were made.
In 2017 Davorin Marc worked on a resumed used digital tools to further rotate each individual frame, further tinker with grain/noise, re-frame the original 16:9 into 4:3 aspect ratio, and add transparency. Nine versions/sequences of the same edit, each with different degrees of manipulation, were then layered on top of each other, thus creating a new abstract work titled Dobrodošlica (Welcome), a whirlwind of barely recognizable shapes and colors that could pass for a veritable cinematographic equivalent of pointillism.
DM continued working on this project, abandoning the confines of experimental/abstract film-making and taking his work to a wholly new and original level. He cut a minute-long sequence out of the Dobrodošlica (Welcome), exactly 1440 frames altogether. He then exported each individual frame as a semi-transparent image, resized the images, arranged them into 16 mosaics, and then printed these mosaics on 16 large, transparent, adhesive foils. He then used a sharp knife and a ruler to cut a grid, separating each image into a single semi-transparent sticker by the size of 16 x 22 mm, a perfect Academy ratio/size of a single image on a 35 mm film. He then carefully
wrapped this »paper movie« – along with illustrated assembly instructions – into a present and sent it to Jurij Meden and Tara Najd Ahmadi.
JM and TNA were encouraged to manually stick each of the 1440 semi-transparent frames/stickers on both sides of a strip of transparent 35 mm film, thus creating a 30 second (if projected at 24 fps) experimental film with two thick layers of “emulsion.” JM and TNA were moved again, and impressed with the utterly original conceptual nature of this film, which not only represented a completely original approach to the idea of a collective work, and a completely original, handmade approach to the idea of a blow-up(from digital to 35 mm), but also totally transcended the idea of a finished, complete artwork. To be specific: the end result – which DM has titled 1440 Fotogramov: Ostrilec (1440 Frames: Focus Puller) – can only exist as an infinite multitude, because each film projectionist will project the film differently, not only having the choice to focus either on the upper or the lower side of the “emulsion”, but being encouraged to constantly shift focus from one layer of pasted images to the other during the projection, thus always assuming a vital role of a creator in each projection/re-birth of 1440
Fotogramov: Ostrilec (1440 Frames: Focus Puller)
JM and TNA traveled back overseas, and in August started the arduous process of assembling their present (after a local experimental filmmaker GN kindly sold them a strip of transparent 35mm leader). Each semi-transparent image/frame/sticker had to be pasted onto a film strip manually and with surgical precision: carefully overlapping with the image on the other side of the film strip, carefully maintaining consistency in frame spacing, and leaving even space at the side for handpainted soundtrack. The work was concluded in October, and a successful test run performed by projection specialist SC at the George Eastman Museum.
