Behind the Curtain, Iron

posted in: The Film | 0

This is my bedroom at the MacDowell Colony.

Half of my bedroom.

Since I’ve been sleeping in my studio, I use the bedroom as a waystation and closet. When I first saw the room I assumed that behind the curtain was a place to hang my flannel shirts and stack my wool sweaters. But no. Here’s what’s behind the curtain:

Old school editing machine.

This is a Steenbeck. It’s an editing machine not used much anymore. Film was once thread through those reels and images flickered on those monitors at varying speeds, forward and backward. Like any editing system, it’s a kind of time machine.

I’ve never worked on a Steenbeck. I work on one of these.

Final Cut Pro has eliminated the need for the 500 sq. ft. a Steenbeck requires.

But I love that the Steenbeck is stored (and at the ready, because some people do still use them) behind a curtain in a room where I would sleep, and that maybe some of the thousands of images that passed through its rollers would somehow infiltrate my dreams.

Would, maybe, if I slept in the room.

P.S. You may recognize the rug from a VCCA post.

See also: Behind the Wall, Silicon.
Images from the MacDowell Colony.

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