Found footage

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Found footage is a filmmaking term which describes a method of compiling films partly or entirely of footage which has not been created by the filmmaker, and changing its meaning by placing it in a new context. It should not be mistaken for documentary or compilation films. It is also not to be mistaken with stock footage. The term refers to the "found object" (objet trouvé) of art history.

1 Experimental and Avant-Garde Film
2 Commercial cinema
3 Music video and VJing
4 Practitioners
5 See also
6 Further reading
7 External links

[edit] Experimental and Avant-Garde Film

The American collage artist Joseph Cornell produced one of the earliest found films with his reassembly of East of Borneo, combined with pieces of other films, into a new work he titled Rose Hobart after the leading actress. His film is notable for its Surrealist form and influence on later filmmakers. When Salvador Dali saw the film, he was famously enraged, believing Cornell had stolen the idea from his thoughts.^{[citation needed]}

In contrast to Cornell's use, structural film or "Materialfilm" (German) often demands that the artist only uses material of preferably unknown origin, not very defined content, and poor physical condition. This material might be treated in any way the artist chooses, even completely untreated, as long as he ignores any meaning or content of the source material.

The second major renaissance of found footage films emerged after Bruce Conner's "A Movie" (1958). The film mixes ephemeral film clips in a dialectical montage. A famous sequences made up of disparate clips shows "a submarine captain [who] seems to see a scantily dressed woman through his periscope and responds by firing a torpedo which produces a nuclear explosion followed by huge waves ridden by surfboard riders."^[1] Conner continued to produce several other found footage films including "Report," and "Take the 5:10 to Dreamland" among others.

Subsequently, films by Ernie Gehr, Ken Jacobs, and Bill Morrison (director) have focused on minor manipulations like image enhancement or reductions in speed (or famously no manipulations) in film footage. In Douglas Gordon's "24 Hour Psycho" which slows Alfred Hitchcock's film down until it is 24 hours long.^[2]

Stan Brackage used found imagery for his film "Murder Psalm" (1981) while numerous other avant-garde filmmakers have incorporated pieces of found footage into their work.

Other notable users of this technique are Craig Baldwin in his films "Spectors of the Spectrum," Tribulation 99" and "O No Coronado." Bill Morrisson uses found footage lost and neglected in film archives in his 2002 work "Decasia." Another remarkable entry in the found footage cannon is Peter Delpeut's "Lyrical Nitrate."

[edit] Commercial cinema

Another common use of found footage searches for material with recognisable content, which is edited into more or less narrative structures. Through means of editing, sound, voice-over, subtitles and/or inserts, the filmmaker tweaks the interpretation of the audience in a way that it accepts the new "truth" of the footage. Normally the source footage is of unknown origin, however, if footage with recognisable content (like historical or well-known commercial footage) is used the result can be made a parody or a political statement. A term which describes this genre is "mockumentary".

One of the first examples in mainstream cinema is Orson Welles' "F for Fake" (1974), which masterfully plays with truth and fiction and seems to be able to proof each of its statements. Another example of the use of found footage is in Woody Allen's first film, "What's Up Tiger Lily" in which Allen took a Japanese spy film by Senkichi Taniguchi, completely re-edited it and wrote a new soundtrack made up of his own dialogue for comic effect.

A third meaning of found footage came up with the invention of TV formats which featured odd films and videos, mostly done by amateurs, combined with outtakes of film and video professionals, as well as stunts and accidents from sports shows.

[edit] Music video and VJing

A certain style of music video makes extensive use of found footage, mostly found on TV, like news, documentaries, old (and odd) films etc. Prominent examples are videos of bands like Public Enemy and Coldcut. The latter also project video material during their stage show, which includes live mixing of video footage. Many artists already work in this new field of "VJing"", but not all of them work with found footage. Those who do extensively mine the internet for new material, dig through archives like the famous Prelinger archive, or trade material among artists

[edit] Practitioners

Martin Arnold
Craig Baldwin
Yann Beauvais
Abigail Child
Bruce Conner
Joseph Cornell
Guy Debord
Peter Delpeut
William Farley
Cécile Fontaine
Barbara Hammer
Ken Jacobs
Standish D. Lawder
Matthias Müller
Paul Pfeiffer
Jürgen Reble
David Rimmer
Stephan Sachs
Keith Sanborn
Sharon Sandusky
Philip Solomon
Chick Strand
Leslie Thornton
René Viénet

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

Cut: Film as Found Object in Contemporary Video, Stefano Basilico, Milwaukee Art Museum 2004.
Found Footage Film, Cecilia Hausheer, Christoph Settele, Luzern 1992, ISBN 3-909310-08-7
Films Beget Films, Jay Leyda, London, George Allen & Unwin 1964.
Recylced Images: The Art and Politics of Found Footage Films, William C. Wees, Anthology Film Archives, New York: 1993. ISBN 0-911689-19-2