Handmade Film
I’ve always found myself fascinated with mini-documentaries that follow people as they showcase their passion with talents that stand out as being unique and not what we call “normal”. The fact “Handmade Film” does just this made me invested and fascinated with the person they were documenting.
Meet Lindsay McIntyre, a woman who makes actual film and experiments with footage to make experimental movies. The whole short documentary itself is a voice over of Lindsay explaining how she came across hand-making film and what it means for her. Meanwhile, the B-roll footage beautifully showcases how the process is done and creates a wonderful montage that allows us, as viewers, to take a look inside of how its done.
My favorite thing about this short documentary was that aspect itself. As a fellow lover of film (both digital and filmstock), I find it fascinating how people can still utilize the old school tradition of making AND filming on actual filmstock. The process itself is meticulous and extremely time consuming as you have to make sure you don’t over-expose your image, you store it correctly so it doesn’t tamper with the negative, and you handle it with care at all times.
I’ve never shot on actual film (unless you count VHS as being as such?), but I do love the look of it. In the filmmaking world, there are filmmakers who are rather opinionated on the matter of digital and film alone creating a whole argument of digital vs filmstock; and then there are others who can appreciate both. What this short film does is show the perspective of somebody who has a passion and talent for the old school way and in a way, makes it much more appealing than one would think. That being said, this short film doesn’t add to the whole argument (because it’s a rather pointless one at it). It’s intention isn’t to say which side is best or reasons why, but what it does do is showcase and remind every cinema-lover out there that it all originally started as a meticulous process that one can eventually fall in love with and obviously did as filmmaking has evolved from the technique alone.
My other favorite thing about this – besides being reminded why cinema is so fascinating – is how much they are able to convey in a span of under five minutes. They could easily expand on it and make it a real interesting feature length documentary, going greater into detail about the process and the thought behind the art of making film and utilizing it in an era where that technique is, slowly, becoming less and less with each new advancement of technology. They hooked me from the beginning to the end with how beautifully shot this was. It’s structured in a way that’s easy to follow and it never feels like an overload of information like one would think seeing how short it is. That’s how well done this was pieced together. Every cinema-lover out there should check this out because it’s simply fascinating and fun. I loved it and I think others will, too.
