Chrome - Dir/Pro/Cam: Esther Urlus - Sound: Huub Emmer
7'40 min, 16mm blow-up to 35MM Vertical Cinemascope, 2013

Chrome is inspired by the autochrome process, a colouring technique for black-and-white photographs invented by the Lumière brothers in 1903. In Chrome the images created by this process are ‘amplified’, as if they are viewed through a microscope: a constantly moving noise of grains that forms shapes and outlines. The images have been created by applying homebrew film emulsion in grain structures to transparent 16mm film with an airbrush. The resulting filmstrips have then been exposed and developed to black-and-white images. Layer by layer these images have been transformed to colour, resulting in teardrop-shaped figures that seem to be falling and fragmenting. The super-enlarged grain structures create unrecognisable shapes and apparitions.
The soundtrack was created with Huib Emmer, who created an electronic adaptation of a musical piece dating back to the time of Auguste and Louis Lumière, the pioneering days of photo- and cinematographics.

This film is part of the Vertical Cinema project commissioned by Sonic Acts, see for more information: verticalcinema.org