Graphic Tools - Text 1
The choice of the tools used for drawing on film depends on several factors. These are not only aesthetic (which tool will produce what kind of visual configuration), but also practical, because the choice is determined in part by the base involved — the film stock. Three major lines of approach can be distinguished: working on black leader (etching techniques); work on transparent film (painting and drawing techniques); and working on already-printed film (collage and découpage techniques, etc.).[1] Switching from one instrument to another is in no way an attempt to “improve” one’s technique, in order to determine, after several tests, which would be the “best” instruments with which to work the film stock, but rather an artistic choice (using a particular tool to achieve a particular effect).
As Pierre Hébert has remarked, “there exist no instruments designed specifically”[2] for drawing on film. The choice of tools is a personal one, and “depends on physio-psychological factors (how does my hand move?) and aesthetic factors (what kind of drawing do I wish to make?).”[3] For Hébert, and in the case of his own work, it is nevertheless “pretty much inevitable that one use both points (for making lines) and blades (for working surfaces).”[4] Where the choice becomes more precise is with respect to the technical qualities of these points and blades, particularly in terms of their angle: if this angle is obtuse, Hébert remarks, “it becomes possible to draw a very clear line in the layer of emulsion. [Conversely,] if the angle is too acute, the furrow tends to fill in again behind the point.”[5]
Among the possible tools to use are styluses (such as a vaccination stylus, for example), which make it possible to vary the depth of the line being drawn (depending on whether one uses the point or the side of the instrument). Normal McLaren demonstrated the utility of this instrument, “any common type of which” can be used; for the production of animated drawings, however, “hard” models are often preferred, “because [they] make it possible to maintain with greater ease the same depth of the line in very image.” In this respect, he adds that “for very fine lines, use Josef Gillott’s crow-quill nibs, or a similar type.”[6]
