"Play as Content- Tricks for the Eyes"

The past lecture period Carl showed us three movies that contained Film Trickery or Special effects. In "The Great Pumpkin Race," 1910 Emil Cohl changed the perception of a normal pumpkin into being something with the mind of a small mammal. All from using a simple technique called "stop motion" he made the pumpkins role through the streets, in through house, down through sewers, and up over walls. This technique allows you to make anything move in the way you want. Even if that this is an old tire painted to look like a pumpkin. 

In the "Lead Shoes," 1949 Sidney Petersen used a found novelty object and rigged it up to fit on his cine special. This anamorphic lens made a distorted ring causing somethings to be in focus and somethings being out of focus. Not always being predictable it added a very uncontrolled experiment  aspect to the film. This effect or trick that petersen used gave an errie feeling that went right along with the movie. A women finds a divers and brings him home. The music of the movie is this ragtime up beat experimental sound that brings the three elements of this movie together: Sound, Story, and Anamorphic lens creating an experimental piece that is unlike anything main stream. 

The tricks used in early experimental films were used to explore the possibilities of the moving picture. Being able to distort reality in any possible way is the means for which these directors were searching.