William Raban

Home movies shot on Super 8mm by W+B Hein over 10 years.

"Like all the works I have done which refer directly to another artist, After Lumière… is not directly 'about' the Lumière original. It is the starting point for an investigation. In this case it is an investigation into consequentiality, or at least the significance of sequentiality in the construction of meaning and concept. As such, the film encroaches on 'narrative' cinema, but in a way which treats narrativization as problematic, not transparent." - Malcolm Le Grice

Le déjeuner sur l’herbe is simultaneously perceived from four different camera positions in a work which engages with the pro-filmic in order to question documentation, illusion and the film viewing process.

Experimental documentary following the flow of the Thames out of London to the sea.

Experimental documentary following the flow of the Thames out of London to the sea.

Documentary about architectural structures in the UK.

Documentary about architectural structures in the UK.

A rapid time-lapse journey from the London Houses of Parliament to the English Channel near the port of Dover is offset by David Cunningham’s musical score composed from fragments of Margaret Thatcher’s Belgrano speech.

A land and sea-scape film drawn from rich sources of imagery: the constantly changing mood of the sea to the distinctly different shorelines of Kent and the Pas de Calais – twenty-one miles of water that define both the “island race” and English hostility towards a wider integration within Europe.

"For this short film event, the film is removed from the film feed reel, and is unwound, to span the space between the projector and screen. The projector starts, and the film snakes back through the audience, as it is consumed by the projector. The screen image is a film footage counter which measures the 'throw' of the cinema. (WR)"

"This experiment determines what happens when a negative is superimposed upon its own positive image. The center of the picture forms the optical soundtrack on both left and right screens so that what you see finds its aural equivalent in sound." - Anthology Film Archives

Directed by William Raban.

“The film image is a row of boarded-up town houses pending demolition. Two cameras film in alternation this derelict facade from two changing viewpoints. They pan in opposing crossways movements and develop a picture view that appears to extend beyond the edges of the screen. The durations and sequencing of one shot in relation to another are not pre-scripted; the shooting patterns take the form of a space-time game where a new movement or action on one camera provokes a corresponding reaction from the second camera.” –William Raban

“The film is in three parts, each one exploring the fragmentary experience of perception by resorting to various forms of temporal and spatial dislocation. ‘Concrete Fall’ and ‘Fergus Walking’ are both filmed from a moving viewpoint, and the camera motion is ‘converted’ through simple editing and printing procedures to register subtle depths in space, the layering between foreground and infinity. In ‘Packeted Passages’ I filmed with two synchronized cameras and fused the two views in the printing stage into one disintegrated screen space.” – William Raban

A camera recorded one frame every minute (day and night) for two separate three-week periods in autumn and spring. The film is shown on two adjacent screens, each having a soundtrack that was recorded on a sampling basis. The left hand screen was shot at the autumn equinox and the right-hand screen at the spring equinox. The structure of the film is based on the rotation and tilting of the earth as we pass from summer to winter and back. The centre of the film coincides with the equinox and is the point at which day and night are the same length on both the left and the right screen.

Part One: Variation in Density a)The picture on each of the five screens is identical, seven second fades from black, through clear, to black again. The same fade is printed onto the optical sound track to synchronise with the picture. b)Then follow fades from light to dark. c)And from dark to light. Part Two: Intermittency Relative patterns of occlusion and exposure occupy 2 screens. Each exposure fires a stroboscopic flash of colour: yellow for one screen; blue for the other, filling the centre of both screens with colour, haloed with after-image complementaries. W.R.

Shot in a remote part of Dartmoor, Breath is structured around a precise score. Three people are each given a camera loaded with 100ft of Kodachrome film and instructed to walk away from a tape recorder that has been placed within the landscape. The camera operators’ breath and whistling become a measure for the duration of the shots as they film their journey.

This film documents the transformation of a derelict fire station into studio and living spaces for artists. The opening of the restored building is celebrated in performances and installations by its new occupants. In common with Raban’s films that reflect upon different aspects of the changing face of London’s East End, this tightly structured film-poem confronts the present with the past: the building’s war-time role is recalled in archival images, and by women who served in it as Auxiliary Fire Service officers.

Following the eruption of the Lakakigar volcano, Iceland in 1783, a sulphurous haze shrouded vaste swathes of the northern hemisphere, causing widespread crop failures, consequent famine and disease across Europe, parts of America, North Africa, and India. It is estimated to have killed millions of people. Using first-hand accounts from Iceland and from across Europe, Raban’s film connects this event with the current global political and ecological crisis. It continues recent film investigations into the use of the long single take and revisits Raban’s preoccupations with landscape film from the early 1970s.

"ISLAND RACE contrasts everyday events with actions of right wing extremists, counter anti-racist demonstrations, the funeral of a gangland leader, and the jingoistic street parties celebrating Victory in Europe Day. Using only picture and sound, with no added commentary, Raban gives viewers the space to draw their own conclusions about the film’s portrayal of English national identity in the late 1990s." - Anthology Film Archives

"ISLAND RACE contrasts everyday events with actions of right wing extremists, counter anti-racist demonstrations, the funeral of a gangland leader, and the jingoistic street parties celebrating Victory in Europe Day. Using only picture and sound, with no added commentary, Raban gives viewers the space to draw their own conclusions about the film’s portrayal of English national identity in the late 1990s." - Anthology Film Archives

Documentary about the surroundings of a skyscraper in London.

Documentary about the surroundings of a skyscraper in London.

With the threat of nuclear conflict between North Korea and America comes the realization that the blast effects of a nuclear strike would be outweighed by the potentially irreparable damage to the Earth’s atmosphere. In 1783 the Laki volcanic eruption, and the resulting haze that covered vast swathes of the northern hemisphere, caused widespread crop failures and consequent starvation across Europe, parts of America, North Africa, and India. Raban’s new film connects this ecological theme with the current political crisis in Europe and America

A witty take on the contingencies of the conditions in which to best read Marx. Filmed over 6 days, the time-lapse technique compresses a classic text (Karl Marx's 'Das Kapital') into a 9 minute experience, raising questions as to how film might transcend verbal language. The picture is offset by David Cunningham’s score which is composed solely from the two words of the book’s title.

Three screen piece. "I was looking for a pure image, an image which was intrinsic to the medium of film. This film is not an abstract film; the subject is the projector gate, the plane where the film frame is arrested in the projected light beam, and the frame whose edges contain and divide the projected illusion from the blacked-out present of the movie theatre. W.R."

William Raban's Sundial (1992), shot in the same location as his film Island Race, combines strongly formal procedures with an equally emphatic political message, which is conveyed through careful juxtaposition of objects in the field of view.