Concept and creative process
Titles for ‘Ebony’, a magazine programme for the black community. A portrait was solarised and turned into a high contrast Kodalith film positive and negative which were pegged in registration with each other. The negative was filmed back-lit on a rostrum camera, acting as a matte for soft-focussed rainbow-coloured gels panning behind it. The positive lith film was used back-lit on a second pass through the camera, together with a panning slit of black card to burn-in the white flare which ran around the outline of the face. Additional random coloured and white lines were exposed separately on the black areas of the frame on either side of the head. To mask the title ‘EBONY’ and its white lines as they animated in, the colours inside the head were replaced by pure white light which flared overexposed momentarily. The head and title were animated off, helped by a camera move, with the title turning from negative to positive, and held over the live studio shot.