 Hello, I'm Bob Rozinski, your host and creator of Behind the Lens. I love cameras and lenses, old, new, film, digital, stills and motion picture. I like learning about the equipment photographers and filmmakers use to create their work, no matter how modest or ambitious. Though ultimately hardware and software are merely tools, they simply enable creators to create. Behind the Lens is a show about the creative process and the practitioners of visual storytelling. On occasion, Behind the Lens will feature segments highlighting technical aspects of photography and filmmaking. I will do my best to ensure that the delivery is entertaining and informative. Today I'm excited to introduce Allison Rendomsky, a brilliant filmmaker whose work is noted for its rich visual imagery, novel storytelling and energy. And with that, let's begin. Hello Allison. Hello Bob. I'm really happy you could appear on the show today. I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Well, you're quite welcome. So Allison Rendomsky, tell me a little bit about yourself. Sure. So I am an independent filmmaker, photographer and videographer. I write and direct only short films so far, some narrative and some more experimental in nature, which sort of cast off the burdens of narrative requirements. Yeah, and I lived in Atlanta for several years and I just recently moved to the Longmont area. And yeah, my filmmaking, I think it's extra fun because I like to work with 16 millimeter and Super 8 film. And so a lot of my, I'm sorry, like I'm doing a bad job. No, no, no, it's just fine. Just go with it. I don't care about jump cuts. Well, yeah. And I like to use a Super 8 and 16 millimeter film just because I love the way it handles light and color. And I also love to distort film to using different kind of analog distortion methods. And that's me, that's what I do. Well, we'll be looking at some of your films. And what immediately caught my eye was your willingness to experiment. Yeah, yeah. Actually just yesterday I was watching a documentary about Orson Welles and he was talking about and I can't remember the phrase he was, but divine accidents, how much filmmaking as a divine accident. And I like to be open to the things that happen and the kind of contributions other people make that you won't be able to predict necessarily. Sure. Yeah, I like to embrace that. Well, I like the way that your Super 8 films have a lot of texture and a lot of abstraction and a lot of drips and scratches, very textural. Yeah, yeah. So the one you're referring to, how to behave at a party, that was some footage that I made when actually just hanging out with some friends having a small gathering. And then I took the Super 8 film cartridges after we shot and I soaked them in different substances, including like, I think I know that I definitely had beer and wine. Beer and wine. There was also, I got some Epsom salts and some of those like the gel silica packets and emptied them in there. And you just kind of put it in a Tupperware, shake it around and let it soak for like weeks. So do you do this in a dark room? No, you don't have to necessarily because with Super 8 film it's in its own little plastic cartridge. Sure. So you just put it in the cartridge and you drop the cartridge into whatever... Yes. Some kind of vessel. ...mixer. Mm-hmm, yep, whatever mixture you want. And then that will lead to all kinds of cool scratches and textures and that's what I think is really fun. So do you let the film dry before you take it to the lab? Yeah, so actually there are a lot of things in there. I do let it dry, especially in sunlight because heat will continue to do things to the chemical distortions that you're trying to create. But also when you're doing that type of film distortion you really do have to process the film yourself because labs don't want you to like sully their chemicals that they're using for other people's work. Well, that's a good point. So you're developing your film. Mm-hmm, yep. Get out of here. Yeah, I'm developing my film. Wow, the color film too? Yeah, yeah. Not 16 millimeter, but for Super 8, and if you're an especially... Well, I'm going to have to reevaluate my opinion. So you won't do 16, but you'll do Super 8. Well, it's only because I don't have a big enough tank for 16. I'm just giving you a hard time. That's impressive. Yeah, it's fun. We have a roll of 8 millimeter film, which you want to grab there and just show people what this... I believe that this is 25 feet of Super 8 film, but what I do is I go and then I do go into a dark room, take the film out of its canister and then jam it in kind of a smaller like Patterson tank that you can buy for still photography processing. And because it's all jammed in there and there's too much film to fit, the chemicals are not going to hit evenly and that's going to lead to even more fun distortion in there. So I'd imagine you're pretty excited to get the film back from the lab and to screen it. Are you pleasantly surprised or moderately surprised or sometimes disappointed? Yeah, I think it's a mix. You never know. That's the thing that you have to take into account when you're doing experimental work with film. Sometimes you will do an experiment and be like, oh, this is way too dark or this isn't quite right. So sometimes there are disappointments, but that's all part of the process and that's what makes it fun. Let me just show people out there. This is actually 8 millimeter film. It was the precursor of Super 8. And my first filmmaking class, I had to learn how to edit this stuff by hand. Spaghetti. Yeah. So you're not editing this? No, no. No, I'm not editing. Although I think it would be really fun too. You can get, after you process your film, you send it to a lab and they digitize it and put the MP4 on a hard drive and then you can bring it into something like Premiere Pro. And do editing on your computer or slot. Great. Yeah. Great. So you've been told that your filmmaking has a sense of hazard to it. Yeah. Well, let's dig into that a bit. Yeah. So this is a friend of mine who does sound work on the Twin Cities who made that comment after watching some of my work. But I think a lot of that comes from the fact that I choose to work with a smaller crew, like usually like six people total. So because of that, you're never really going to have quite as polished of a look as if you had more to it. Sure. And a lot of, we often shoot on locations where you don't have permits. And so that's found lighting and so that's going to be. So the hazard of not having a permit. The hazard of just sort of, let's go out there, run and gun, but you do have a story concept. Yeah. Well, but also too, I often, I think I make stories about characters who are themselves kind of on the brink of falling apart. So you have this kind of chaotic movie and a chaotic person who's kind of disintegrating in their own way. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that it fits well with the types of narratives and the types of emotions that I gravitate toward. So it makes sense that you would like John Cassavetti's films, because he, but he does that in a very long time. Yeah. John Cassavetti's shot so much film for his movies would spend, I think he took a lot of joy in the editing process and creating like almost different versions of movies that he made. Uh-huh. But he worked with a small group and that's, I understand where that impulse comes from. Yeah. Well, uh, another thing that has intrigued me about your work is the idea of micro-short storytelling. Yeah. Uh-huh. Tell me about that. Let's see. I think I first started dabbling in the, well, first of all, micro-short would be a short film that's like under one minute, under two minutes, such like extremely, extremely short for those who might not be familiar with that term. And I participated in Atlanta, Kodak sponsors a 100 feet of film contest where you can get a 100 feet of film and you have to make something with it and then everyone, we have screening and everyone's gets shown. Um, it really made me think more about what you can do with just a very small amount of footage and how you have to really be so careful with the images that you choose and trying to pick ones that convey as much as possible, evoke as much as possible. How do you, uh, generate a lot of feeling with not a lot of footage? Uh-huh. And I think that's a fun challenge. Uh-huh. It's fun to see what happens when you take disparate images that you wouldn't think could go together and then they suddenly make something when they are put together. So would that be like mixing vinegar with baking soda and then soaking a cartridge in there? Yeah. Have you tried that? I actually, I have not tried that. I've tried other kind of sizzly elements. Like when you use gel silica and you mix it with like beer that kind of has like a crackle to it, but nothing quite as, I don't know. So do you like ale, lager, pilsner? I think I've just used Miller Highlife. Oh, okay. That's a sweet beer. That's just in the fridge. Okay. Well, that's a champagne of bottled beer. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Uh, well, I'd like to look at some of your films with you. Sure. And, uh, let me see. The first one I'd like to look at would be how to behave at a party. Sure. We can do that. How should I stand? What should I do with my hands? Am I doing this right? Do I look like a weirdo? That's okay. Just watch the normal people and just do what they do. Oh, shit. Have a drink. Have a drink. It's really not that hard to be part of a group. You can sit. You can speak. The texture in this is just incredible. Yeah. It's so fun. And the funky colors. Some of the color stuff does come from like post-production, too. Like I definitely did work to make the colors a little more saturated. And because some of this film turned out really dark because it just didn't get enough chemicals when it was in this little tiny tank. So you have to do work to bring out the images a little bit more. So not all of the distortions are purely analog. Certainly all the cracks in that texture. Well, it's nice that you've found a hybrid workflow. Yeah. I think that's fun. So you get the best of analog and digital. Exactly. The ease of digital. You have a lot of cuts in this piece particularly. Yeah. I think with this, I didn't really have a plan for the footage when I shot it. It was more that I got it back from the lab in these scans. And I was like, oh, I have to do something with this because I think it's just fun. And I think I wanted to get all of my favorite shots in there. And that's why there's a lot of cuttings. Can we look at the big oak tree? Sure. Yeah. We'll look at a clip from that. This is my first foray into music videos, which I'm so excited to be doing. And this, I believe this music video will be completed and released in mid-January. Okay. Are you using acrylics? Like alcohol-based inks, India ink, and then I'm using Sharpie. And then it's fun if you put kind of, you got like a clear glue, kind of like a glitter glue. Oh, but of course. And then, but they'll like, when you like drip the paint on it, it'll like move around to get around the paint. Yeah. So it'll have these kind of weird swirly effects. So you've, of course, for this music video, I used that painted leader. And then some video footage that I shot with an old camcorder. And then I used other people's home movies that are available for free through the Prelinger archive, which is this great collection of other people's like. Bellinger? Prelinger. Prelinger. Yeah. So it's, if you go to, oh my gosh, it's archive.org. Okay, sure. And Rick Prelinger, who is a filmmaker and archivist and a professor, I think since the 80s has been painted this collection of, I think it's a lot of home movies, and then there are some kind of educational films from the 50s that are in it. But it's free to access, and you can use it if you like. Oh, cool. Elements to bring together. So the paint colors come from painted leader. So you just like clear 16 millimeter that you can color on the Sharpies or use India ink or whatever. So to clarify a leader for people that aren't film savvy. Okay, this is a leader. It's white. Oftentimes it's clear. Yeah, white or clear. So you'll paint or draw on either or. I've only used clear so far. Really interesting hearing all of, I don't like that one. It's been great hearing about your process, getting a little bit of a sense of what's going on behind the eyes. You know, what is the great matter telling the artists to do? And I think it's just great that you're able to pick up film and treat it as a canvas almost. And this is kind of cliche, but seriously, you're applying pigment, you're applying texture, you're applying line. It's very cool. And I look forward to seeing the two films that will be released later. And I'm sure people watching this is intrigued with the short clips that we've watched as I am. So thank you, Allison. I really appreciate you are coming in to talk with me. Thank you for having me Bob. Well, you're quite welcome. So long. I hope you enjoyed this first episode of Behind the Wins. Please keep an eye out for the next episode. And until then, so long.