They Say

Michele Smith: `They Say consists of two reels of heavily edited (frame by frame) and overlaid 16mm film. It was then intercut with the grainy and scratchy Greek melodrama rental films on VHS. I used fewer 16mm found footage source reels and focused on a few reels as the bulk of material to play with narrative structure in a way related to but different than in my first work. I used quite a bit of footage from one narrative short film about a boy and a wild horse. When nearing the end I was getting tired of editing it and decided to put it out in my garden and dumped a few litter boxes on top of it. Contents -wood pellets and bunny poop. I forgot how long I left it out -it rained a few times. Perhaps a week. I then washed it with laundry detergent and hot water. I want my films to be open. The viewer creates the version of the film they will see by the way in which they view it. This is on a narrative/symbolic/metaphorical level as well as on a visual and structural level. The rapid intercutting and weaving of strands of different footage and elements creates a time space where one must mix what they are seeing for themselves. There is no one way to perceive the links of still images into an illusion of movement. One can, with a readjusting of their viewing, change their experience of the work throughout.’