ATTENTION FILM PHOTOGRAPHERS:
I am seeking submissions for stop motion animation music video as a supplement to my thesis project and I need one roll of film shot by you!
Come again, you say?
I have been doing a year long research project about the material and experiential value of film photography. This project was not about film vs. digital, but about the value and importance of analog photography as an artistic medium that you can touch, handle, experience, and know.
Along with comprehensive research and lots of personal chemical photography/developing, I will be taking negatives and slowly deteriorating them, scanning them in at each step to create a stop motion effect and linking them together for the video. I will be burning, soaking, coloring, and whatever else I can think of.
Please see THIS example I did today:
Also reference a previous music video I did with a similar stop motion process of material manipulation of image: HERE.
I am seeking submissions from anyone, but mostly friends, family, and fellow artists who want to contribute to the overall sense of unique memories converging. If you would like to contribute, and I hope you do, please follow these steps:
1. Take one roll/disposable camera of 35mm film, any type, any expiration (preferably color), and expose it. Any slide film will be processed C-41.
2. E-mail me at animatednegatives@gmail.com to let me know that you are about to…
3. Mail the canister to the below address.
David Jones
attn: Noël Wells
6002 Dunbury
Austin, TX 78723
United States
or if you’re in Austin you can drop it off at the Digital Media Labs at the University of Texas.
4. Include all relevant contact information, including any special notes about your roll of film.
I will pay for developing and will upload OR send you back a CD of scans, whichever you prefer, from your un-distressed photos.
5. Please put film in the mail by MARCH 15th! PLEASE! The sooner, the better.
PLEASE NOTE:
-Limit yourself to one roll of film. I am not a photolab, so don’t take advantage of the free picture development/CDs.
-You will not get your negatives back, so don’t take pictures of your daughter’s wedding.
-By sending in your film, you have agreed to let me use your images for this project and agree to no monetary compensation.
-This is a University of Texas at Austin thesis project for Plan II Liberal Arts supervised under the Radio-TV-Film department.
-Every photographer, whether your images are used or not, will receive credit at the end of the animation or it wil be available in the info section.
-This animation will be sent to a variety of film festivals and will be put online.
What should you take pictures of? Anything really…things you’ve taken pictures of a thousand times! I want EXPERIENCES, MOODS, and MEMORIES. PORTRAITS, of kids, you, your dog, cat, your pretty girlfriend. LANDSCAPES. Your house. The beautiful ditch across the street. PARTIES. SXSW. anything that may be happening within the next few weeks and don’t mind foreiting the actual negs for.
STOP MOTION sequences of 8-12 frames. You running. Doing a pirouette. Something specifically for this!
REMEMBER, PLEASE MAIL BY MARCH 15th.
If you have any questions, e-mail me: animatednegatives@gmail.com or at my flickr address.
Thanks!
Noël
PS: The song is Urgent Serpent Merchant by Watch out for Rockets and you can listen to it at

