Goh Harada Blau Film Japan, 1999-2000, 10 mins, 16mm

Ian Helliwell Chromaburst UK, 2001, 5 mins, video

Stan Brakhage The Dante Quartet USA, 1987, 8 mins, 16mm

All the films in this list were created by artists painting or scratching directly onto film frames – most of them, as a result, being made without a camera.

See also:
ABSTRACTION
ANIMATION

STAN BRAKHAGE
THREE HAND PAINTED FILMS
NIGHTMUSIC
1986, silent, colour, 30 sec
This little film (originally painted on IMAX) attempts to capture the beauty of sadness, as the eyes have it when closed in meditation or sorrow. A work of hand-painted 'moving visual thinking', colours and forms coursing, flowing. bursting, as if of fire and water - of the earth, of the body, of the mind. - S.B.

RAGE NET
1988, silent, colour, 30 sec
Much of what has been said about the above film could be repeated here, except than Rage Net arises from meditation upon, rather than being trapped psychologically by, rage. - S.B.

GLAZE OF CATHEXIS
1990, silent, colour, 3 mins, 16mm
This hand painted work is easily the most minutely detailed ever given to me to do, for it traces (as best I'm able) the hypnogogic after-effect of psychological cathexis as designated by Freud in his first (and unfinished) book on the subject - 'Toward a Scientific Psychology.' - S.B.

STAN BRAKHAGE
THE DANTE QUARTET
USA, 1987, 8 mins, 16mm
'This hand-painted work, six years in the making (37 in the study of The Divine Comedy) demonstrates the earthly conditions of 'Hell', 'Purgatory' (or 'Transition'), and 'Heaven' (or 'existence is song', which is the closest I'd presume heaven to be from my experience). The film is in four parts which are inspired by the closed-eye or hypnogogic vision created by these emotional states. Originally painted on IMAX and Cinemascope 70mm and 35mm, these paint-laden rolls have been carefully rephotographed and translated to 35mm and 16mm compilations by Dan Yanofsky of Western Cine.' - S.B.

STAN BRAKHAGE & PHIL SOLOMON
ELEMENTARY PHRASES
USA, 1994, 38 min, 16mm, col/sil
This is a hand-painted and elaborately step-printed collaboration between the film makers Stan Brakhage and Phil Solomon. After many months of working together, step-printing the painted strips of film by Brakhage, Phil Solomon discovered the following passage which helped to clarify the process and inspired the film's editing:

'The profound nature of this concept will be better understood, and the positive study of it more successful, if we think of such an organisation, in its temporal aspect and scope, as corresponding exactly to what is called in music the phrasing; distinguished both from the melody (which is based on the differences of pitch) and from the rhythm (based on the repetition of an arsis-thesis system). Like rhythm it is based on facts of intensity (nuances) even while its form is extended over a dimension analogous to that of melody.

Whoever distinctly grasps these ideas will feel the importance of what we must call the phrasing of a picture; and, for example, the stylistic importance of the differences observable between the slow, full, majestic phrasing of a Veronese (that of Tintoretto is more suave with equal plenitude), the rugged phrasing of Caravaggio, powerful in its boldness, brutal, even a bit melodramatic; the essentially polyphonic and architectonic phrasing of N. Poussin; or again, the pathetic and tormented phrasing of Delacroix. It is entirely reasonable to note a likeness with these characteristics in the music of Palestrina, Monteverdi, Bach, or Berlioz.' - Susan K. Langer (ed.), Reflections on Art; Etienne Souriau, Time in the Plastic Arts.

MIKE DUNFORD
PART-TIME VIRGIN
UK, 1972, sound mag stripe, B&W and colour, 35 mins, 16mm
The film falls into two sections. A section in which direct working on the filmstrip as a form of non-figurative animation, an assemblage of material glued to the film, bleached, scratched, and printed on the Co-op printer, eventually fades to black, followed by a section consisting of short episodes of en-capsulated film history as examples of the use of film as illusion.

STEVE FARRER
TEN DRAWINGS
UK 1976, sound, B&W, 20 mins, 16mm
This is a collection of ten short films.
For each film, 50 x 18" strips of clear film were laid side by side to make a rectangle 18' x 36'. A geometric shape was drawn on each rectangle, and the strips of celluloid were joined to make a film. The sound is created by the image carried over into the optical sound track. Reproductions of the drawings are available on request.

JOHN GRUENBERGER
RHYTHM: COUTDOWN
USA, 1970, colour, 4 mins, 16mm
Rhythm is an abstract painting in motion. The images were painted directly onto the film stock utilising a variety of acetate inks and paints resulting in a wildly coloured and pulsating motion-painting.

GOH HARADA
BLAU FILM
Japan, 1999-2000, silent, colour, 10 mins, 16mm
This film was made without camera direct by hand with materials 16mm blank film (100m), transparent silicon, and blue pigment (prussian-paris blue). There are continuous 14,000 blue pictures in this film without cuts. The reality of this film is the continuity from emotion and feeling in the blue colour, which represents many images.

IAN HELLIWELL
CHROMABURST
UK, 2001, 5 mins, video
Neon lights bleached and hand-painted.

RICCARDO IACONO
SKZCP
UK, 1997, sound, colour, 3 mins, 16mm and video
An abstract kinetic light sculpture / visual music composition, with synchronised drum ‘n’ bass soundtrack by FlyFace. Composed of colours, textures and shapes painted directly onto 16mm film and manipulated using  an optical printer. Free flowing, organic and visceral. Intricately edited and syncopated by the movement of reflected and refracted light on the film surface.
AN ANIMATE! FILM

DAVID LEISTER
A MAGIC ACT
UK, 1985, sound mag stripe, B&W, 18 fps, 10 mins, 16mm
A product of David Leister's alchemy, where everything but the film stock has been hand-made, with an emphasis on water marks and scratches. The film is accompanied by an accordion score that hesitates as much as the reluctantly projected image. Developed in vinaigrette dressing and printed with the light from a letter box, the results are truly an act of magic.
With music by Frances Knight.

LEN LYE
TAL FARLOW
New Zealand, 1980, sound, B&W, 1 min, 16mm
Before his death, Len Lye completed the drawings for Tal Farlow, his last scratch film. Just before he died, he gave approval for his assistant, Steven Jones (an experimental film-maker) to complete the film. Jones edited it into its present shape, which also received the approval of Ann Lye, widow of the film-maker.

For one and a half minutes, white lines "dance" and "sway" to a jazz guitar solo by Tal Farlow.

KAYLA PARKER
SUNSET STRIP
UK, 1996, 4 mins, 35mm & video
A dazzling expression of the visual music revealed by 365 setting suns, observed across southern Britain from Norfolk in the East to Land's End in the far South West. Over 4500 time-lapse drawings were painted directly onto a continuous strip of 35mm film leader using a variety of materials such as nail varnish, hair, bleach, net stocking and magnolia petals.
An animate! film

KAYLA PARKER
PROJECT
UK, 1997, 1 min, video
In Project, Kayla Parker continues her fascination with working directly onto the surface of film, using both naturally occurring and constructed pinhole cameras to extraordinarily beautiful effect.

BRIAN SHARPE
CAPITALISM SCHMAPITALISM
UK, 1983, silent, B&W, 3 mins, 16mm
I made this film by working directly on to the film stock, applying masking tape, paint and making scratches to form the images. I spent a week on my knees working on the strip of film that wound back and forth across my bedroom floor.
A rather anachronistic piece, a little reminiscent of my work by the pioneers of abstract animation Ruttman, Fischer and Eggeling. However, the use of alternating sections of total darkness and an all-over white screen and the exploration of the film frame contribute to a more contemporary feel. - B.S.