TECHNICAL SPECS: 35mm Kodak film stock (5203, 5207, 5213, 5219). Aspect ratio: 1.37. Lenses: Kinoptik 28mm, 35mm, and 100mm; Heinz Kilfitt Munchen Tele-Kilar 300mm; Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm. Laboratories: Fotokem, Hiventy Paris

CAMERA

I first learned about the Eclair Cameflex while working on another project — my producing partner introduced me to it through the works of Claude Lelouch and filmmakers from the New Hollywood era — and I quickly grew to appreciate its surprisingly intuitive design. The Cameflex was relatively lightweight and portable enough for me to shoot Flash Frame handheld except for a few shots, for which I either used a tripod or sandbags to stabilize the camera. I am indebted to Cameflex experts including Jim Meade, Les Bosher, and the late Bernie O’Doherty; and for the generosity of both Carroll Ballard and American Zoetrope.

The Cameflex is a revolutionary camera created in the late 1940s by the French company Eclair. It was designed to be a lightweight and mobile 35mm camera (with some versions adjusted to be dual format 16mm/35mm) and was popular with news crews, combat photographers, and documentarians, and has a sleek three-lens turret for easy switching between different focal lengths. It was used on Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1964 film Soy Cuba, and was embraced by the French New Wave for narrative films, particularly by Claude Lelouch, Agnès Varda, and Jean-Luc Godard. Because it’s extremely loud, the Eclair almost always requires audio dubbing, unless the camera is equipped with a heavy blimp. American filmmakers Haskell Wexler, Francis Ford Coppola, Orson Welles, and Carroll Ballard, among many others, relied on it while making some of my favorite films including Medium Cool, The Conversation, The Other Side of the Wind, and The Black Stallion. It is not commonly used today, but continues to be a reliable, functional, and beautiful option for anyone shooting on film. I was lucky enough to be able to rent and service some of American Zoetrope and The Directors Bureau’s cameras, and each one felt like it contained a part of history. I also own several Cameflexes, one of which was converted to PL mount, so I can use a huge variety of lenses on it.

ABOUT THE FILM

This film is an experiment in storytelling as much as it is a technical experiment. I wanted to present the narrative through visual and audio cues, emotion, and fragmented moments, rather than plot and dialogue. As with all impressionist films, plot can emerge in the viewer’s imagination as the images and music wash over them, and voiceover provides an additional layer of context. (My second film using this camera, Out of Order, was less experimental in its approach, but I still utilized similar filming techniques.)

Art is my inspiration, and because the camera is French, I felt particularly drawn to paintings and music from France, including works by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Édouard Manet. Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro and J.M.W. Turner’s romantic landscapes and marine paintings also suggested visual approaches.

As a pianist, I have always loved Ravel, and the two selections from Miroir’s dreamlike soundscape and perpetual melodic motion were natural choices for this dreamlike film that is set near the ocean. Many moments are so evocative that it didn’t feel necessary to include dialogue, and instead let the images and music carry the narrative. However, the overarching voiceover provides some context to the protagonist’s internal questions without revealing too much.

I also turned to impressionist films like Dimitri Kirsanoff’s 1928 “Brumes d'automne" for inspiration, as well as expressionist and noir films from the early 20th century. Two other favorite films, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge and Le Samourai, inspired several of the night shots in Flash Frame. To emphasize the surreality of the environment, I made the lighting more theatrical and flat, like a spotlight.

PROCESS

For this film, I loaded, shot, and handled post-production solo, but I’m always looking for new collaborators who are interested in working in an unconventional way.  I did not use a formal script, but rather shot scenarios that were visually interesting to me and then pieced them together in the editing room. The actors and models I’ve worked with have been receptive to working this way; Nicole and Matthew, the two actors featured in this segment, were flexible and able to convey mood without ever speaking.

I used very basic artificial lighting for the night shots (flashlights) and natural lighting for the day shots. Generally speaking, and in homage to the French New Wave that I so admire, I want to capture images as close to reality as possible, which also means minimal correction for color in the editing room. The shots are stylized, but I wanted to avoid interfering with the actors’ interactions with the natural landscape. 

ABOUT THE TITLE

An interesting artifact I noticed while watching dailies were “flash frames,” which are essentially those bright, sudden bursts of light that appear in between normally-exposed frames. They tend to occur when the motor slows down or when the magazine has been temporarily removed from the camera body. (The term “flash frame” is also used in video editing for very short shots, usually about one frame long, that appear in a sequence of images.)

I became fascinated by the concept of a sudden flash of an image, or an unexpected change in exposure, and thought it an interesting metaphor for how we go about seeking truth through memory or imagination. Our thoughts can be disjointed, ambiguous, or corrupted, especially when perception is shaped by what we consume culturally and artistically. The order in which we perceive images or events also influences how we understand them. When you see a flash frame that seemingly doesn’t make sense within a sequence, your mind tries to fill in the gaps.

I also came to value the artifacts of technical errors that occurred when the magazine jammed once, which I preserved in some of the shots. For example, you can see ghostly sprocket holes move across the screen where the film lost its loop and the magazine jammed. These happy accidents remind me of the physicality of film, so apparent when you feel the film moving at 24 frames per second inside the magazine, but lost in the digital age. Fortunately I’ve avoided other jams through certain techniques when loading the magazine, but they’re always something you have to keep in mind when you’re shooting on film.

This whole experience has been richly rewarding. I look forward to shooting on film for future projects, pushing the Cameflex and my film stock to their limits. I plan to make a 35mm print, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this digitized version of Flash Frame as much as I enjoyed making it.