Under the musical moniker Noveller (emphasis on the second syllable) Lipstate, armed with an electric guitar and a litter of pedals, conjures up vast, inner and outer landscapes. Seemingly impromptu in her pattern making, these worlds feel strangely, almost primordially, familiar to the listener. Within the span of a Noveller tune it isn't unusual for one to experience a loneliness and euphoria similar to that of deep space travel or of a recent breakup.
Her short films are reflective and reflexive. As much as they are studies and dissections of a subject, a mood, a motion, they exude a quicksilver-ish playfulness and curiosity. It should come as no surprise then, that they are often complimentary to her music. In some cases -- as in her experiments with film leader looping -- they are directly related to her live shows as visual accompaniment.
This past February saw Lipstate's auditory and visual sides come together under a slightly different marriage, with a multimedia installation project called ARTIFACT. Gallery patrons entered a four walled echo chamber where they were invited to explore - as her website put it - "...process, rescission, and artifact in film and sound..."
On a rainy afternoon in late April I sat down with Sarah in a Brooklyn cafe for a spot of much-appreciated tea and a chat. With flighty jazz as our background soundtrack we discussed the intuitive, very hands-on creation of ARTIFACT, her film school roots, bartering, and the changing nature of scoring for film.
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Ben Umstead: What's the story behind you getting into filmmaking?
Sarah Lipstate: Well, I went to college at the University of Texas in Austin. I started out in the English program, and in my sophomore year I took the intro to filmmaking course, and I thought, "I want to pursue this, and get my degree in filmmaking." So I applied to transfer and was accepted, and spent the last two years pursuing that course of study. At the college they offered some really amazing experimental film courses that were perfect for me. I took this video installation course where I was able to do some kind of crazy things, and they had this experimental film foundation course, which is where I first worked with camera-less filmmaking, just working directly with film leader, which is primarily what I am doing now.
BU: Yeah, that's what it seems to be from what I've seen...
SL: That's what I am most interested in at the moment, but for that course I shot a lot of my own super 8 footage -- black and white and color -- but I also did some found footage work too, like 16mm, just hand editing it. I had a splicing block and press tape, and that film was pretty short, under three minutes, because it takes a lot of time to hand edit 16mm. So that course was probably the most influential in terms of the direction that I would head in after I graduated. And that was around 2004, 2005. I think I made my first Super 8 short film in 2005. So that's when it really took off for me.
BU: Two shorts from that time are Radiation in Moderation and AEAEAE.
SL: Yes, AEAEAE was the first short film I ever made.
When I was creating those I was really excited about what I was doing, and I told myself that just because I was creating it for a college class didn't mean it had to go into a box and collect dust somewhere, so I submitted those to SXSW, and I showed those films and others at different festivals. A lot of those films have screened all over the world, so that was really cool for me. I tried to encourage my fellow student filmmakers too. You know if you've created something you're excited about, try and do something with it.
BU: When you were doing those projects were there people around (students, professors) that were big influences, or stuff that you were watching... when I watched "Radiation in Moderation" it felt like there was this 1950s industrial/educational thing going on. It was between that and Guy Maddin...
SL: I can see that, yeah. Now a lot of those films... a lot of my creative output is pretty closely intertwined with personal experiences. Radiation in Moderation came about because of these medical tests I had undergone.
I did this weird test where I had to eat some food and drink some water that had some radioactive isotopes in it, and then I had to lay flat on this machine for about an hour and a half. This machine monitored the progression of those radioactive isotopes in my digestion. So I was lying there, and my mom was sitting next to me, and basically I was being x-rayed every few minutes, and I asked, "aren't I being exposed to a lot of radiation?" And she was like, "oh a little bit is all right." So I was like, "oh, radiation in moderation is okay." And I remember, " I like the way that sounds! I'm gonna use that for something."
And I was watching a lot of stuff, being exposed to new filmmakers during those courses, so I'm sure that came into play as well. And some of my films... a seed was planted by a prompt from the professor. You know the way those classes are formatted, it is not like, "okay, you have to shoot a film and it is due next Friday!" We did one (and I don't think it is available online) where we had to edit in camera, where we had to plan out the shots, and the film came in processed, and we showed it on an 8mm projector just like that. A lot of stuff came about that way.
BU: Jumping ahead, you're out of school and you don't have access as readily to these older, lesser used formats... how has that worked over the past few years? Is it just finding the right people who can get you those kinds of materials?
SL: In terms of material, luckily we have the internet and it makes it pretty easy, even though you would think in New York there would still be the suppliers, stuff like that. And there are, but I found that just turning to the internet has been the easiest way. I ordered 30 minutes, about a thousand feet of clear 16mm film leader, and some take-up reels. I ordered my 16mm projector from ebay, and it came from some university in Texas, not the one I went to, but...
BU: ...funny enough...
SL: Yeah! So, you do find a lot of schools, a lot of educatioal institutes who used to rely on projectors and this stuff to show films to classes, and they're now getting rid of it. So suppliers seem to have that kind of web presence. Now my friend helped me out, he found a place in midtown that sold 16mm film press tape, and he picked some of that up for me. So there are places in New York if you want to hunt around for it. But there aren't that many anymore.
BU: So once you get the materials... what is that process? What is the process you've developed since that first class?
SL: It's really kind of varied a lot. I graduated and moved to Brooklyn pretty much immediately... I graduated December '06, and I moved to Brooklyn like January 3rd. Since then I've focused on my music a lot, but when I work on the film stuff, it's mainly been loop based, so I'll grab a section of that clear leader, and then decide how I'll want to treat the film, ultimately knowing that it'll be projected.
BU: I take it creating something on the leader and projecting it -- and I've seen some videos -- that plays into the musical performances too.
SL: I've created a bunch of loops over the past few years specifically to have as visuals while I'm performing. So I'm creating a loop and I'll know that'll play for 30 minutes. The cool thing about directly treating the celluloid is that it is kind of a surprise once it is projected, once the light is passing through it, and it's on a big surface. So a lot of it is trial and error... doing a pass of something like India ink or spray paint.
The most recent piece I did was called ARTIFACT and it was for a gallery installation. I decided that I wanted to sew into the celluloid with needle and thread. The idea just popped into my head and I got obsessed with it. It was kind of a tedious process, it took a lot of time to do. You know, I'm just working with a loop, so it is not feet and feet of celluloid. It is kind of a tough material.
It was about a week and a half before I was ready to splice the loop together and run it through the projector, and then it was like, "oh so that's what that looks like!" And it was really cool. I had other things going on so it wasn't like I was sewing all day long. I'd get everything together and sit up in bed while I had a film on.
BU: So in a way that became almost like second nature.
SL: Yeah, and in a way you have to figure out what kind of shapes and patterns you want to create when you're sewing into it, but once you get going it becomes kind of rhythmic, watching a movie or listening to music, or where in my case also, I had to try and keep my cat... my cat likes to chew on the film... so it was trying to keep her from eating the thread and the film while doing that and watching a movie!
I started out using red thread and when it was projected it kind of just looked like black but you could tell a little bit that there was dyed thread, that it was red. So I decided that I wanted to do another pass with a different color. I ended up doing that, and that was another couple of days. And then the way it worked for the installation is that I had my friend, Chris Habib, come over with his Panasonic HVX200 and we projected the first two passes of needle and thread onto a wall and he filmed that, and so we put that into Final Cut, color corrected it and everything, and then I painted over the film and the thread with India ink, and we projected that and he filmed that. And then I cut the thread out of the film, so what you had was just the ink that I'd painted on and the holes from where the needle had passed through, and these very faint traces, silhouettes of where the thread had been. So we projected that, the third pass.
And then from there I used some acetone, which is a kind of solvent, and I went over the paint with that. It removed a lot of the paint. We projected that and we filmed that. I made DVDs and created loops, so we had these DVDs looping the four different layers of this process of treating the film, and then kind of redacting that treatment, seeing where you've ended up after you've kind of abused this film!
For the installation I had four monitors showing these loops [walled in to create an echo chamber]. Then what I ended up doing with the original loop that was just ridded with all these holes, I went back in with a new thing of thread and sewed them back in, making new patterns. I brought my 16mm projector and we projected that onto the wall so people could actually see the film passing through the projector with the thread in it; see that thrown up, that big image. When people were looking at the monitors, I don't think without me explaining it to them they would necessarily think, "oh this is thread that's been sewed into celluloid!"
BU: If it is such a subtle thing, I imagine you'd have to stand there with it for quite a while and see one thing first and then see a second. And for you, all this seems like filmmaking to its fullest extent. Really being with the leader, manipulating it...
SL: Yeah, it is very tactile. My hands were sore after sewing, my hands were covered in India ink afterwards... for days, you know!
BU: There is this kind of story on your hands... all that work... that history...
SL: It's really enjoyable for me to work with film in that way.
BU: You were saying that people weren't quite sure what they were looking at with ARTIFACT. At least when they were in the four walls, the echo chamber as it were. How was that seen overall though, once they walked out and saw the projection on the wall?
SL: People sought me out at the opening and asked me to explain what they were seeing.
BU: Was that frustrating? Flattering? A bit of both?
SL: For the installation there was a sound portion also, and thematically it kind of followed a similar process, and so I enjoyed people asking me, "how are these two things connected? What am I seeing and how does this relate to the sound portion?"
You know with pieces like that, pieces that are somewhat conceptual, I don't mind...
BU: ... you expect that people are going to be asking and picking your brain a little bit...
SL: Right. And the gallery actually had me come in before the installation opened, and they filmed an interview with me. That was put up online, and in that interview I explained a lot of what I just explained to you. There were people who saw the video and knew what they were walking into, but it is not like a museum where you can walk up and read a little plaque next to the piece and it explains everything. You're just walking into this white walled room, and seeing these films and this sound piece. I'm sure the people who stood in front of it for a while, and then went home, they got something from it, but probably not what I intended.
BU: So perhaps with the auditory element and the materials you are working with, the way you are working with them, people get to experience something a little bit more intrinsically rather than getting it up here [points to head].
SL: Something that I thought was interesting... the fifth part of it, the loop that was being projected on the big wall, there was a bench placed in front of it and that was fun for me to see people come and sit on the bench and watch that projection for fifteen, twenty minutes. And what they're seeing is about 8 seconds of footage just being looped, but the experience of watching that over time, it changes.
Some people came up to me afterward and said that it was a kind of very moving thing for them to just be with that piece for twenty minutes.
BU: It could be like a visual mantra almost, or rather a meditation...
SL: Yeah, the way they perceived it shifted over time. So that was really cool for me to hear.
BU: How long did that run?
SL: It was just a weekend. It opened on a Thursday, and ran through that Sunday.
BU: So what are you gonna do with that whole set up then? You have this whole chamber, right?
SL: [Laughs] Right, I still have all of it. I did make a DVD that I've shown at some of my live performances. I've basically done ten minute segments of the four different loops, so that's a 40 minute DVD, and that's been kind of interesting to show it that way. But, yeah I have all the monitors and everything just sitting at home... so yeah, we'll see if I show it again...
BU: It seems like that could be something easily taken elsewhere... you could travel around with it, or ship it off, if somebody over in Vancouver or LA, wherever, who knows, if they asked for it.
SL: Right.
BU: Well it seems to make sense in someway to talk more about the music, because at least to me, it is very cinematic. I can see how you want to have some sort of visual element when you're playing, or at least offer that when you can. But on it's own without images being projected, and beyond the obvious ambient and atmospheric sound, the music is very cinematic. Is some of it it improvising as well?
SL: Yes.
BU: Just kind of feeling your way through it?
SL: Yes, there is a definite element of improvisation in the music I've created.
BU: It seems that at some point you would be asked to do a film score.
SL: [Laughs] Yeah, I just did an interesting exchange with a filmmaker named Matt Kleiner who just completed a film called Way of the Ocean. It's shot in Australia and it's about surfing, and it is beautifully shot. He contacted me about using two of my pieces that were already recorded and put out on a CD last year. So he was like, "I just think your music would work really well with these images. So I said, "yes you can use those pieces in your film, and when you're done editing could you send me in exchange..." cause' you know we bartered instead of like traditional payment, so I asked him if he could send me like fifteen minutes or so of footage he didn't use of the water, the landscape... b-roll stuff... for me to edit a music video to, for my new album [Glacial Glow]. So he did that, and we cut together a beautiful, six minute long music video for one of my new pieces, and it was an awesome trade...
BU: ... Now that's the way you really want to do it!
SL: Yeah.
BU: ... you really get something back, you can build on that relationship too, in terms of artists sharing.
SL: It's amazing. We gave him a co-director and cinematography credit. I'm really excited about it 'cause for me to go to Australia and actually shoot this footage with a waterproof camera that would be impossible. It would cost so much money! So it was a really beautiful exchange. I haven't seen his film yet but I'm really excited to have my music accompanying those images.
I am talking to someone right now about collaborating on a music project and he makes a living scoring films. I was asking him a lot about what that life style is like, so I think if in the future I decide I wanna try and do that, it'd be possible.
BU: It'd be an easy transition I'd imagine...
SL: Yeah, 'cause I record the soundtracks for all the short films that I do. I just feel that I would like to create the type of music that I do, that I do well, and have a filmmaker want that instead of like, "oh well I want it to sound like this techno, I want this techno soundtrack!" Just having to go out of my element to create music that isn't personal. Unfortunately, I think largely that's not how it works [laughs].
BU: I don't know... from other people that I've talked to, filmmakers, and friends that are filmmakers... They are finding someone that they just like. Essentially they are letting the musician do what they want because the basic nature of that person's music lines up with the project's. I think as we move away from all these John Williams type orchestral scores - whether independent or studio - I think filmmakers are more willing to allow the process that you're talking about.
SL: I hope you're right.
BU: So for the new music, beyond the video, will you be using some of the old material, or creating some new kind of loops for the live performances?
SL: I think I will be creating some new work that I'll probably end up showing at some live shows. It has kind of gotten to this point where people see the videos of me live online, and then will ask, especially festivals, they will ask for me to perform and to bring visuals 'cause they like the package.
So I'm planning on creating new stuff, again with the 16mm leader and I'll probably have my friend transfer it. It's a lot easier to bring a DVD than carrying around a 16mm projector and these loops, although I have done that, in addition to all the gear... oh yeah, the amp, guitar, pedals, projector... it's a lot! Especially for one person to carry all that stuff around. It's a lot.
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An excerpt from the ARTIFACT loops can be found below. The new Noveller album Glacial Glow may be previewed and purchased at Lipstate's website. While you're there check out the aforementioned music video made from the Australia footage, some of her short films we discussed, and quite a lot more.
Lipstate starts her Noveller U.S. tour with U.S. Girls on June 11th in Arlington, Virginia. The 15 city tour ends on the 26th with a homecoming show in Brooklyn.
Photo credit: Lou Caldarola
-- Ben Umstead