How to Animate Without a Camera

You’re an aspiring animator and you don’t have a lot of money to spend on animation equipment and materials. What do you do? Back in the 1940’s and 1950’s, several young animators, including America’s Stan Brakhage, New Zealand’s Len Lye, and Canada’s Norman McLaren and Caroline Leaf, were faced with a similar dilemma. Their solution was to find reels of used or exposed film, wash off all the emulsion, and draw directly on the strips of film. You can create experimental animation on the cheap, too.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• A film projector
• Film stock
• Paintbrush
• Translucent paint
• Solvent
• Light box
• Movie screen

1. Acquire used film. It could be 16 millimeter, 35 mm, 70 mm, or IMAX film. It all depends on the film format best suited for your projector. The masters like Brakhage and McLaren used 16 mm.
   
   Immerse the film stock in solvent to remove the emulsion and all previously filmed images. Use water to wash off the solvent.
2. Place a length of your film on a light box and tape it down. Keep in mind that 24 frames of film equal one second of screen time.
3. Draw directly onto the film preferably with pen and waterproof Indian ink. You can also apply paint, but be careful of the amount.
   
   You can also apply thin semi-transparent materials with glue, but you must be cautious with this medium as well.
4. Once the ink and/or paint are dry, thread your reel into a projector. Set up a screen and view your results. If you want to play it safe, take your reel to a film lab and have them convert your artwork into a Kodachrome print.

Tips & Warnings

• If you can find safety film or film stock with a long clear leader, you can animate directly on the leader without soaking the film in solvent.
• Some artists prefer to cut film into manageable strips and then splice it all together when the artwork is completed.
• You may want to keep a magnifying glass on hand. Painting on film frames can strain the eyes.
• Some artists recommend translucent paint to allow more light in the film frames during the projection process.
• Some artists draw directly onto the film’s soundtrack margin to experiment with sound as well as image.
• If you take your film to a lab to make a print, make sure that the lab has had prior experience working with experimental film.
• A more expensive preservation alternative would be to have a lab do a digital film scan.
• Note that painting directly on film is not recommended by film manufacturers.
• If the paint is too thick, it could make projecting the film impossible. Even worse, the film could break or burn.
• Hand-painted films may not have a long shelf-life.
• If you have a lab convert your film to a print, the conversion could change the nature of the applied colors.