4D Witch Remix (2004)

4D Witch Remix creates an original movie by repurposing footage from Psyched By the 4D Witch, an grindhouse era exploitation film which was made from stock footage itself.

Full Description

4D Witch Remix creates an original movie by repurposing footage from Psyched By the 4D Witch, an grindhouse era exploitation film which was made from stock footage itself.

Developed in collaboration with Tanya Bezreh (who narrates the piece) and is in part inspired by her video autobiography work. http://tanyabezreh.com

Work metadata

  • Year Created: 2004
  • Submitted to ArtBase: Monday May 14th, 2012
  • Original Url: http://vimeo.com/42141957
  • Work Credits:
    • Sam Zimmerman, Writer, Editor
    • Tanya Bezreh, Narrator
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Artist Statement

This is a concept piece with a long-winded back story:

In the late 1950's through the 1960's, the movie industry split into two distinct tiers. The top tier was the Hollywood establishment, the major studios and national theater chains who chased blockbusters and catered to the censorship-minded powers of that era. The lower tier was a motley network of independent theaters, regional chains, drive-ins, and storefront theaters who screened whatever they could get their hands on that could possibly make a buck. This has been referred to as the "grindhouse" circuit, and it gave birth to a new genre of moviemaking called "exploitation".

Exploitation cinema originally meant exploitation of the audience - literally suckering people into buying tickets with the expectation that they would see something (naughty) that would not actually be delivered. Exploitation movies were made as cheaply as possible with all of the creative effort applied to the posters and radio spots to reel in the ticket-buyers. A profitable innovation of this industry was putting existing films back out on the road under new names. Recycling was a popular creative tool - producers would buy outtakes and unfinished films as scrap material and write new scripts to match old footage, shooting as little new footage as they could get away with.

A movie that optimizes this huckster ethos is Psyched By The 4D Witch, a sleazy mix of stock footage, incompetent soft porn, and cheesy psychedelic effects. With breathtaking audacity, this feature film delivers it's narrative entirely in internal monologues and telepathic conversations.

As we find ourselves in the midst of a sea change with the advent of digital sampling and video, let's take a moment to reflect on the lessons of the grindhouse era. 4D WITCH REMIX treats a movie made from stock as stock itself, writing a new story from the scraps of the "original" using the same monologue technique to glue it all together.

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