Pacific Northwest Film Camp June 8 – 15, 2024 Spend a week on beautiful Orcas Island, WA investigating celluloid film as a physical medium, learning to make your own emulsion, exploring various hand-processing techniques, and pushing the creative and aesthetic limits of the handmade filmmaking process from start to finish. Our home base is located right at the water’s edge – and whether you choose to camp in the great outdoors or take advantage of limited indoor accommodations in the lodge, the setting will provide an inspirational backdrop for an intensive immersion in all aspects of filmmaking. The week will also include a filmmaking excursion to uninhabited Sucia Island, designated as a Washington State Park. We will share gourmet meals al fresco featuring the Handmade Film Institute’s legendary vegan cuisine. All materials are provided, and participants will have access to conventional and underwater filmmaking equipment, as well as darkroom and printing facilities.
The Wilderness Film Expedition July 28 – August 6, 2024; please contact us to if you are interested. This unique backcountry expedition will be a more than one week immersion devoted to producing a complete 16mm “Mountain Symphony” film that we will shoot, process, edit and premiere in the wilderness. We will explore zero-emissions filmmaking in this remote and beautiful setting not just in its technical dimension, but in its aesthetic and landscaoe-embedded dimension as well. We will be staying long enough that our artistic senses and creative decisions can themselves become permeated by the wilderness, and thus the visions that we create on location will reflect our presence there both in subject and in how we think about the subject. As in past years, we transport an entire simplified handmade filmmaking apparatus on our backs, carrying the necessary chemistry, film stocks, cameras, editing tools and projection equipment up to our campsite at 10,500 feet. Once established, the base camp becomes a filmmaking studio en plein air – the streams hydrate our chemistry, the sun dries our film, and the darkness of the night provides the limitless darkroom in which we work. Frequent climbs, day hikes, and opportunities for quiet reflection will offer unlimited opportunity to think, capture footage, push your limits, and explore this magnificent area of Colorado.