Scratch Junkies

Judging on my initial written response to Thad Povey's "To the Beat", my very first physical manipulation of film during class afterwards was definitely more of an eye-opener than expected. I mean I had a vague idea of how much time was spent and how much attention had to be paid to minuscule details in order to transmit simple scratching and painting into meaning, but now understand the exasperations of all those experimental filmmakers I've heard during talks.

Honestly I think the colors and patterns really did a good job bringing this film to life, almost as Windows Media Player visualizations enhance your music. I didn't really dig the found footage manipulation too much, although it did give the short a bit of variety. Overall the film definitely lived up to its name quite well during certain sequences when the scratch patterns and paint really did jump to the beat.

After thinking about it, experimental films like these create both excitement and doubt in my mind. Excitement because I'm eager to learn new methods of 'Cameraless Filmmaking', but doubt because I'm not sure my creative half is up to the task of making something worth watching. Oh well. Lets do this.