ALTERNATE TAKE
Alternate Take / Jasper Johns Making Prints
by Katy Martin, 1979 - 2024
4K digital transfer from the Super-8mm film original
30 minutes, sound
This film is created from newly restored footage of Jasper Johns, collaborating with Simca Print Artists, that I shot years ago for my film, Hanafuda (1981). None of it has been previously shown. In a voiceover narrative, I talk about what we’re seeing, focusing on my experience filming and Jasper’s process as he goes about his work. Even though this is a film I shot “way back when,” I wanted to examine what it means to me, now, as an older artist looking back. There were things I simply couldn’t see at the time, and also differences in what I remember and what I notice, working with the footage, today.
In allowing me to observe, up close and over time, Jasper became like a sensei to me. And in that tradition, I have to pass this along. So this film is also a letter to a young artist — or is it from a young artist, since that artist was me?
TECHNICAL NOTE ON THE RESTORATION. Most of the footage you see in this film was unusable at the time, due to technical problems I couldn’t correct for in film. Basically, over the course of the shoot, my Super-8 camera was wearing out - it’s a home movie (non-professional) medium, after all. But also, back then, the cameras weren’t standardized, which meant I couldn’t replace it and hope to edit whatever footage I then shot with what I’d already filmed. So I hung in there and on the last days - when things had really gelled - my camera lost speed, and I couldn’t use most of the footage. Heartbreaking, right? But life goes on.
Now, in digital, it has become rather easy to correct for such problems. The 4K transfer from the Super-8 film original made it possible to bring this old material to light.