The Magic of the Amazing Kiss of the In-Between

This is a very important post. It reveals a fundamental factor in how Halfland must look as a film style that, while always on my periphery, has only now come into sharp mental clarity.

Husband Paul brayering acrylic paints onto a gelatine plate before pressing a sheet of paper to it, pressing it down with the heel of his hand to transfer the paint to the paper. This is gelli-plate monoprinting. Next to it is one of his prints made into a lampshade. The thinner orange pattern glows through when the light is turned on.

An artist I follow for her art techniques, in speaking about monoprinting, referred to the absolute magic that takes place (with any kind of printing) versus painting or drawing directly onto the paper. She said that something special happens in the "kiss between paint and paper".

While art can be made directly onto surfaces, something else happens when there is an uncontrollable intermediary aspect introduced as part of the process.

I know exactly what she means. There's something extraordinary in the art process when an original mark is taken somewhere else by the step of layering, distorting, pressing, lifting it as part of engraving, etching, monoprinting, etc.

My favorite image from my favorite book of all time, Lona, by Dare Wright shows how her images were not photographs as the camera captured what was in front of it, but rather shot from a curved mirror that reflected her subjects to the camera. She used these mirrors as an "in-between." Between our reality that a camera would interpret as reality, straight, clean, focused edge to edge, she created a dream reality, where everything is softened and elongated, heightened. I have no question in my mind that Dare's most brilliant work was only possible from her capable alchemy. Her need to render what doesn't exist with the means of this world.

In 2015, I found the effect I was looking for by shooting through a large jar of water. This gave my puppets and set the haze, blur, and distortion of a dream. Having it in-between the camera and my crude puppets elevate them into the realm I aspire to have them reach. So whether it's using my Fresnel lens, shooting into a carnival mirror, or through a jar of water, I am now certain of how to film Halfland.

Likewise, for viewing Halfland ultimately, I also realize that projecting the video off the screen and onto a reflective surface will take the final form for the film into an otherworldly reality experience rather than seeing it directly as we do these days. My Eureka moment for that happened as I propped my phone up on the sink faucet to wash my hands and the video was showing up on the painted semi-gloss surface of the wall. That showed me enough to say that the film viewed by reflection onto a higher reflective material would do what I'm after. Something without full fidelity, but not as dim as paint, should arrive at the kiss of yet another in-between.