Sunset Strip lightbox
exhibition text
Taken from Sunset Strip production
journal
Strip x
6 January 1995
At the end of January I got hold of a new sample of 35mm
film. I used my sketches of a dazzling sunset on the 6th of
that month as a reference for cutting this sequence into
the film strip with a scalpel. We'd had a long run of rain
and gales over Christmas and New Year. Then on the 6th of
January just after 4 o'clock the sky was pierced by needles
of light, before clouds moved in and it was winter again.
Strip 8
8 March 1995
Cold quick stormy sunset. Huge sheets of cloud and colour
sweeping across the sky, followed by a shower of soft hail
and thunder. This strip is made from magnolia petals picked
from the tree I passed on my walk up to Plymouth Hoe, cutup
Polaroid photos of the setting sun, and crazed black ink.
Strip 9
13 March 1995
Mottled light. Camouflage sunset of cracked Polaroids and
black ink, glimpses of the sun setting behind cloud. Seen
at 24 frames a second this sunset strip creates a
flickering iridescence.
Strip 12
18 March 1995
Skeletal sun, finger printed on mummified magnolia petals.
Strip 14
5 July 1995
A bruised, overcast sky all day. The air is dim and thick
with moisture but it won't rain. Gulls nest on rooftops
among the chimneys and squawk like mad babies. Hiding
indoors to escape the heat and humidity, I glued net
stocking onto a strip of clear 35mm film overprinted with
black and blue OHP pens.
Strip 15
22 July 1995
Fireball. My eyes scorched by the solar wind. Last night I
dreamt that I cut myself and my blood flowed into a foaming
pool of orange bubbles. This strip is magnolia petals cut
into circles then pressed into textured lacquer.
Strip 1
27 September 1994
Signs and hieroglyphics. Seeing things. Letraset, lacquer,
ink and dye. Hallucinogenic high pressure particles. The
after effects of staring into the sun.
Strip 2
29 October 1994
The clocks go back and we slide into winter, the sea milky
with silt washed down from the moors. I cut open a Polaroid
photograph I'd taken of the setting sun and stuck it onto
the 35mm film strip with lacquer, ink, net and blood.
Strip 6
14 November 1994
Blue OHP pen finger-printed onto coloured lacquer. The ten
minutes it took for the sun to set today are compressed
into 12 frames of film, half a second on screen. A heart
beat, one step in a journey that lasts 365 days.
Making the film
I spent a year observing each day's sunset from 1 September
1994 to 31 August 1995. I made notes and time-lapse
drawings of the successive changes in the sky as the sun
set. For reference I also took a Polaroid photo every day
of the moment just before the sun slid below the horizon or
behind a bank of cloud, the moment just before day becomes
night. I took a photo even when it was raining and there
was no sun, just wind and water.
During the year I made a series of 35mm strips during the
year of sunsets, trying out different techniques and film
stocks. All my test strips are 12 frames long, so each
sunset lasts last for half a second when viewed at the
speed of a cinema projector.
To make the film over 4000 images were created on a
continuous strip of 35mm film, using a variety of materials
such as magnolia petals, net stocking, lacquer and ink. I
also fed the film strip through a typewriter and typed the
title and credit sequences directly onto the film frames.
Sunset Strip is a day-by-day animated diary of a year's
sunsets, a dazzling expression of the visual music revealed
by 365 setting suns.
Sunset Strip film
credits
Director/producer/animator: Kayla Parker
Sound: Stuart Moore
Dubbing mixer: Paul Roberts
Funded by an Arts Council of England and Channel Four
Animate Award