Selection of Shorts by Ben Popp, U.S., English. Films in order of presentation:

László Lassú (2011), 4 min. Made with music from the band A Hawk and a Hacksaw, two lovers are separated by the recesses of space, only to be reunited by the music they share with one another.

A Thauma-Tale (2014), 2:30 min. A digital optical toy comes to life to tell the tale of a person making a leap into the unknown.

Juxtaposition (2015), 2:30 min. An in-camera roll of Super 8 film juxtaposing colors, textures, and imagery.

With animations constructed through Super 8mm, 16mm, and digital photographs, Ben's hand-processed films honor the traditions of experimental and underground cinema while continually seeking to create something new. Ben is the co-founder of the Portland microcinema, Grand Detour which evolved into the Experimental Film Festival Portland.

Can you give us some insight into your animation style and how it might have changed over time?

I first began making films on 16mm, and I have always been fascinated, coming from photography, with how the celluloid frame can be its own canvas; you don't have to just fill the frame with one particular image, but you can separate one image into various. I played with this a lot early on, creating matte films using both real world images and hand-painted loops to fill in the spaces on a frame. I called these “still moving images.” However, after moving to Portland, I began doing more cutout animation, shooting with high-contrast 16mm film and hand processing them. The last few years I’ve been experimenting with taking multiple photographs in a particular location and putting these into image sequence loops, to express a documented moment in time. I have also begun trying out some watercolor and colored pencil animated works. Throughout all this, I’ve continued to shoot on super 8 and 16mm, figuring out ways to create the works all in-camera, juxtaposing imageries, speeds, etc. More than anything I am very much interested and intrigued by structuralism and how we can construct, deconstruct, and so on and so forth, continuing to create new visual forms of film and animation.

What are you working on now?

I am about to finally tackle a documentary portrait of my dad and step Mom who, after retiring, moved to my step mom's family's village in Hungary. I have been shooting and recording audio for the past six years, trying to figure out how best to come at this project as I also want to blend in some animation. I think I now have the time to sit down and focus on this particular project.

What are some common themes throughout your work?

Playfulness is very much a common theme throughout my work. I think that’s because as I am trying to discover something, I find it much easier to just have fun with it rather than be super serious. I also think within play you can discover things that you might not have thought of before, and then use those ideas to help push a story forward or create something visually engaging.

Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Ben first started making videos on the family VHS camera while learning photography on good old 35mm film. After a short stint in the great city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin where Ben first got his paws on a 16mm camera and was exposed to the wonderful Riverwest Film Co-Op, he moved back to NM to finish up a Media Arts degree at wonderful Universtiy of New Mexico. There he met and began working with Basement Films, a motley crew of cinephiles with a massive 16mm collection. Shortly after completion of a BA, the midwest beckoned him back for a Masters degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Two years and many films later Ben arrived in Portland Oregon and immediately commenced in making films once more. In 2009 he helped form the micro-cinema Grand Detour which evolved into the Experimental Film Festival Portland. After teaching toddlers, elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, high schoolers, college students, and adults, animation, film, and video at an array of organizations Ben landed at the Northwest Film Center where he currently resides as the Filmmaker Services Manager. And yet he still keeps making films!! 

 This work was presented as part of SHORTS FROM UNDERGROUND, a weekly curated series that highlights boundary-pushing filmmakers from around the world.