Kickstarter

What is फिलम फलम / fillum fallam?

फिलम फलम / fillum fallam is a film short-to-be, stemming from my interests in film and food. The short shall be shot on 16mm. Each frame of the short will be printed by hand as a laptopogram and glued back in digitally.

The script is also known as f(i||a)ll(u||a)m in certain circles.

What is a laptopogram?

Laptopograms, or, 'Emulsion Transfers from Luminous Screens', are images made by placing photosensitive paper on top of a laptop screen in the dark and exposing it to an image from within. The paper is then developed, stopped, fixed, and washed.

Any digital image may be thus exposed. More examples on laptopogram include exposures of video, GUI, the Linux terminal, YouTube, Vimeo, YouPorn, glass negatives, poppy petals and film placed atop the monitor amongst others.

Here is an example: a print made by placing a glass negative from 1918 on top of my laptop screen while running dmesg within a Linux terminal:

Test Shorts

Here are some shorts I made to test my process:

Test Short 1

Melvin Van Peebles running from the police in Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.

Test Short 2

Norma Bengell running after Hugo Carvana in Ruy Guerra's Os Cafajestes.

Test Short 3

An homage to Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, aka Nadar.

Test Short 4 & Test Short 5

Eadweard Muybridge's galloping animals.

Test Short 6

A scene from Peter Kubelka's Unsere Afrikareise. Compare it with the original.

A Synopsis of the Script

Film and food seem intimately related. Either they are cousins, in coitus, married, brothers, or ancestors. Possibly all of the above.

The name फिलम फलम / fillum fallam works best if written in Devanāgarī.

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The protagonist of फिलम फलम / fillum fallam is a man who thinks of rolls of film as esoteric fruit.

He buys them 'wholesale', haggles with the shopkeeper, asks if the film is 'fresh' and checks expiry dates. He carries his film in a jhola (an old tattered bag) and stores them in the fridge.

He rips through the packaging as one might with an orange, and bites the caps off in the darkroom like you might do with a walnut. He washes them like you might wash a totapuri (an Indian mango). He drapes the developed film around his forearms and poses for pictures as a hunter might.

§§§

The complete script continues with similar themes of film and food.

How will I make this?

फिलम फलम / fillum fallam will be made on open-source software using photographic techniques in the public domain or of my creation. Prints will be made with an IBM R51 Thinkpad running Maverick Meerkat.

The film will contain some frames made out of edible materials as well. This includes anthotypes, casein prints, and individual frames developed in caffenol (coffee and vitamin C). Here are some examples:

The following is an image printed as a laptopogram from a negative developed in coffee:

And here is a print developed in coffee and salt-&-vinegar chips:

And here is a casein print, i.e., a photograph printed on curd-coated paper:

The film shall also contain laptopokinematograms: photographic prints made by exposing paper to moving images. Here is an example: eight seconds of Peggy Cummins and John Dall in Joseph H. Lewis's' Gun Crazy:

The technical quality of the tests above are dictated by the chemicals and equipment I have at my disposal. They are intentionally short in length; I reckon the final ~3 minute version of फिलम फलम / fillum fallam shall involve printing ~5000 frames by hand. The final version shall contain sound as well.

फिलम फलम / fillum fallam shall be shot and produced at independent locations and with equipment lent to me by my friends. Kickstarter pledges will be used to buy film, chemicals, photosensitive paper, for editing, and sound.

What else have I made?

Ciscaucasus Xabarnama : List of Works

Aditya Mandayam

cixa.org