Many metres of film by laboratorium


view | download the resulting work [119Mb]


Addressed mainly to families, this open workshop was held within the context of our festival at La Casa Encendida [Madrid] on the 1rst and 2nd of September 2007.

It proposed the realisation of various collective micro·films emulating the technique "direct·on·film animation" that was popularised in the mid·fifties by artists like Norman Mclaren, Len Lye or Stan Brakhage.



This technique requires 16 or 35mm film·strips which, once manipulated, can be edited and screened in situ. Due to the high costs of 35mm film and its projection technicalities, we used instead S·8mm film and paper·strips.

The workshop was focused on moving, expanding and transforming dot·lines and their expressive possibilities, and was held during two consecutive days in four·hour sessions.

1. In the first session we worked directly on a super8mm film·strip, scraping or painting its surface. This quick and ituitive process generated a series of abstract films that helped us understand the basic principles of form and movement. We also gained a better knowledge of the possibilities and resources of diverse animation techniques on paper·rolls.

2. In the second session we made a collective animation drawing on many metres of film and on 80mm·wide register machine's paper [3 or 4 metres of film by person or group, bearing in mind that 3 metres of paper are equivalent to 45 photograms, that is to say, 45 drawings]. Working on an 8cm·wide surface allowed us to create mobile forms with higher precission than when dealing with 8mm·wide film·strips; therefore we could also work on a concept as the transformations took place on the paper·strips.


: working material

Markers, acrylic paint, anilines, thin pencils, colour ink, rulers, striker pins, magnifying glass, super8mm film, super8mm projector, animation table, 8cm·wide paper·rolls, paint rollers, foam balls, erasers, porex, sponges [to be used as rubber stamps].




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If you want to find out more about our workshops or receive guidelines on illustration and animation techniques for moving dot·lines on the plane, do not hesitate to contact us at info@mad-actions.com.