—How did you start to work with Stan?
I started to help from Trilogy. I was a student in New York, Binghamton. I studied with Ken Jacobs and he showed me Stan's works. I was very, very moved, very taken by those Stan's works. And I studied Stan's work in school. Then, Stan came to visit Binghamton and stayed for three or four days. Peter Kubelka was there and Tony Conrad, too. It was quite exciting. Stan lectured and I asked him a question and he yelled at me. Because he was being very defensive and he misunderstood my question.
—What was the question?
It's complicated. It has to do with the film Sincerity. He showed the film Sincerity and then he said "Don't pay attention the biography. Just watch the light." And I thought there was a lot of biography in Sincerity, so I just wanted to ask some questions. I have this on tape somewhere. It was 1973. He was a little drunk and he kind of yelled at me. I was very upset. I played this for him years later. But then, I made a movie called Rocket-Boy vs. Brakhage to get back at him. I don't distribute it but it's private. Then, I met him many times at his lectures in Boston and New York City over the years. I knew of a job at the University of Colorado when I was living in Boston. I applied for the job and I had lunch with Stan. Actually, the sutdent who dropped me off at Stan's house was Trey Parker, the creator of South Park. Anyway, the student dropped me off and when Stan greeted me, he had his arms like this. We had just an immediate love. I had applied for the job, but I didn't know if I had it. And I went home to Boston. We corresponded and we traded films. He gave me Star Garden for The Secret Garden, my film. Then, I got the job, so I came here, and we immediately became great friends. Then I started to help him.
—Which year was it?
1993. And he came to my house. I just started to help him. We didn't think about collaboration. We didn't talk about it. And as we did it, it was like two musicians playing jazz. We started to improvise. And I would do the loops and he would do the clicking and then I would do the clicking... Sometimes, we took out the gate and held the film by hand for three hours. You can see that in Elementary Phrases when it goes very abstract. That's because there's no gate at those moments. So we worked on Trilogy and I would set up the machine and then we would go watch John Woo movies. We started to play like two musicians. We came up with thousands of feet of color films. We sat at this machine and edited by deciding what was articulate and what was not. Then, he actually went and edited all of the phrases of Elementary Phrases. So we picked out the phrases where it begins and where it ends mostly on terms of rhythm. So we compiled all of the phrases and he went back and edited by himself because it would have been impossible to edit together. He decided on the classical structure, which insert 20-40-60 frames of black. Every 5 phrases, 60 frames of black, like a poem. And then, he would choose between 20, 40 and 60, but it was very exact and it has a kind of classical structure to the black. The black is very important in Elementary Phrases. I find it interesting that it has this very abstract imagery but very classical structure, almost like Greek columns. The usage of black is very ordered. That's interesting to me. That's why, I think, the film works, because of black. It could be very frustrating. Many people found it frustrating because the beauty of images goes off suddenly. But I find that comprehensive. Because a series of long hand-painted works, which are very hard to remember, becomes overwhelming. And the concurrence of the work was kind of an off-shoot and additional. The end of Elementary Phrases goes into the beautiful prismatic look and I used a certain piece of glass. That's secret. So, the concurrence was that glass. Then in ...Seasons, Stan started to scratch after painting because he got cancer and he thought the dyes in magic maker and paint were the causes. So he stopped painting and then used scratching. And the...Reels. There are three or four parts. One of them has sound by James Tanny. Stan gave me the material to play with it and I did it by myself.
—Did Stan instruct you on anything?
Nothing. He just let me play. So I shot by myself and then I showed it at the salon of the University of Colorado. I showed one roll. Someone said "it looks like fall," and that inspired me. So then, I kept working in trying to make winter, summer, spring and fall. One day, I said to Stan, "I need more summer." The next day, there was a loop in my mailbox and it said "Summer for Phil." That's classic Stan. I edited ...Seasons myself. I wanted to do it differently from Stan. So there are hundreds of cuts. Often, Stan doesn't edit painted films too closely. It's much looser than his photographed films. The editing is not as rigid. I wanted to edit this very, very close so that it would be very articulate. It was challenging because I don't work myself with complete abstract. That's why my name is first on credit for ...Seasons.
—I think there are three terms used for your credit, "dedicated to," "transfer by" and "step-print by." What was the difference?
"Dedicated to" was because I helped him when Western Cine couldn't do that. But it was mostly the machine. Because he thanked me for helping him get it on to the machine. Because it's all paint so we had to photograph it.
—In Love Songs, there are differences in speed. Sometimes it is photographed several frames at a time, and other times it is photographed one at a time. Was it instructed by Stan or was it your idea?
I didn't work on Love Songs, that was Mary Beth. But I think it was his idea. You could slow it down here (pointing to the sequencer) or by hand (gesture clicking). So if you photograph two frames for every one frame here, that's half slower. Stan would often do, "1-2-3, 1-2-3" because he didn't like too much of the machine. That's why he didn't like digital. He liked to have it be organic like life.
—How about your work? Did Stan instruct you?
With Trilogy, as far as I remember, he told me to set this machine and we let it go.
—We can't figure out which ones are with you and which ones are with Mary Beth.
I worked just on Trilogy, and I think some Preludes, maybe from one to twenty four. But not collaborating, just helped. Since 1999, almost all were step-printed by Mary Beth. Love Songs, Dark Tower, Cloud Chamber, Jesus Trilogy and Coda. All that's Mary Beth. She is not credited as a collaborator, but Stan knows that she is really very, very helpful. From films like Mothlight, The Horseman, the Woman, and the Moth and The Dante Quartet, Stan started making painted films. And then about in the 80s, he worked with Sam Bush. Cannot Exist, Black Ice, all those films were Sam Bush. They had to fire Sam Bush because of money and since then I helped and then Mary Beth. She was my student. That was my suggestion because I didn't want to get too caught-up. I was busy at my own work. And Mary Beth is like an angel, very, very helpful. She also cared for Stan and the kids, they were very close. She's been very good to him. And also a very good filmmaker.
—Could you tell us about the step printer and how do you make painted films?
Stand did all of the paintings. We would put a film like this, having a twist in it, so it keep s reversing (puts the film into the machine). This motor goes on here so we can photograph and re-photograph the film frame by frame. And we could use the sequencer, which does it automatically, or by hand, and this is how Stan liked to do it. He didn't like the machine. We use that printer, which has two gates. We would put paint on the first gate, and sometimes I would put things like images of water in the second gate, and the water would illuminate the paint. So, it's like painted water. Then the paint would lighten up only where the water is lit, very natyral rhythm to the lighting. It comes to be very handy to have two gates. This is called "aerial image." This lens projects the image onto the paint. You could also use two pieces of film and put them together. We did that a lot. It's extra thick.
—That's up to two films, right?
Yes, three is too much. But I could pu two more on the other gate. Then it's so dark.
—When did you get that machine? I got this in 1991, when I came to Boulder. The people at the university asked me what I would like to work on as a professor. They gave me $20,000, then I bought a computer and this for my work. Boulder campus of the University of Colorado is one of a very few schools where we teach experimental films. The other schools in the US are Boston Massachusetts College of Art, Chicago Art Institute, San Francisco Art Institute, Milwaukee. Maybe 10 schhools. The rest of them study Hollywood and now digital. I started working on digital, but we'll see. It doesn't have the romance for me, but I'm learning it. My students know more than I do because they grew up with video games and computers. I use computers for sound. Very, very useful. And I got the other machine in 1983. I made ...Seasons, the work by me and Stan, with this one.
—Who made this machine?
This is made by a man named Jaco in San Francisco. He started making them in the 70s. Before that an optical printer was very expensive. You know, the machine used by George Lucas for special effects was $100,000. This one is about $5,000. So many filmmakers were able to buy this and that changed a lot of American experimental films.
—Is Jaco still there?
Yes, Jaco is still there. I think he makes surfboards and optical printers. He's from Portugal. A very nice man. And he makes just one at a time.
—How long does it take for him to make one?
Probably five weeks. He has parts.
—Still $5,000?
Maybe a little more but not much. The one the University of Colorado owns, is $10,000. But I'm a professor there, so I get to use that.
—In Japan, experimental filmmakers sometimes make those machines by themselves. Is Jaco a filmmaker too?
No, not a filmmaker. This is very crude compared to digital technology, but much more beautiful.
—Do you know what this is originally part of?
He makes it from nothing. But like a projector, the gates and lenses are ready-made. In Elementary Phrases, I moved through the thickness of Stan's paint. There are moments when it looks like it's squeezed. That's from moving the lenses. Very exciting, because it's actually thick. It has different layers and Stan also sprays it with a fixer. So you could see come of them are really thick.
—We saw changing of light, too.
The lighting? I have other ways of changing the light, which is secret. My students ask me all the time.
—Is this machine only for 16mm?
No, also for super 8 and regular 8 and some are for 35mm. We now have a professional optical printer at the university donated by Hollywood. Huge, with 35mm, amazing with computer control. The machine is new so we haven't used it yet, though. The Dante Quartet was done at Western Cine in Denver and it was painted with I-MAX, 105mm. And they put it on a light box and filmed it by single frame over the light box. They made 35mm and 16mm.
—So it was done at Western Cine?
Yes, in Western Cine. And that's very important to understand that. Stan's relationship with W. Cine is very unique for an American filmmaker because they really appreciated who he was. He was very eccentric. They were interested in his works. I remember in 1983 he brought them moth wings pasted to twigs. And they laughed when they saw it. Over the years, his career is virtually concurred with W. Cine. W. Cine and Stan are inseparable. And also Sam Bush. He did optical print in W. Cine for The Dante Quartet and Earthen Aerie and many, many, many films. And I should tell you about a problem in prints. In W. Cine, they were processing positivie prints with negative chemicals for the last four or five years. So you may have noticed that the black was not very good. Some of the black looks very muddy, looks brown. I strongly disagree with Stan, but Stan liked it. Some of the prints, since W. Cine had to move five years ago, they had been using this wrong chemical. The black doesn't look as good. With Elementary Phrases, I sent it to an other lab, maybe Dallas or somewhere. It had to have good black. They knew and Stan knew the problem, but he liked it. He thought that the color looked subtle. I like contrast, he doesn't care as much for contrast. So, anyway, in the future, hopefully when they get new prints, it will go back to being a good black.
—Will Stan's films be screened at Boulder in the future?
Now the inter-negatives are all at MoMA. We, the participants of the salon held by Stan at the University of Colorado, got a big grant and we bought one print of everything. So we have the entire collection. In the future we hope to have a Brakhage Center at Boulder and then we hope to get enough money to make new inter-negatives so that we will be able to make negatives. Also, we are going to buy his papers. Including his letters, there are 80 boxes of papers.
(Denver, February 2003)
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