Wavelength (1967)

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Wavelength is a 1967 experimental film by Canadian artist Michael Snow. Shot from a fixed camera angle, it depicts a loft space with an extended zoom over the duration of the film.

Production

Snow's production notes for Wavelength show variations on the concept of an extended zoom that moves from a wide shot to a close-up. The film emerged from an exercise playing with combinations of words, clustered around "room", "wave", "length", "Atlantic", "time", and "ocean".

Snow cast the film from his circle of friends. He selected Amy Taubin because of her previous acting experience in a Broadway adaptation of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. His notes for her scene included the idea to ask Taubin to masturbate. Filmmaker Hollis Frampton volunteered to appear in the film after Snow asked for "somebody to die for me".

Snow spent a year preparing notes and looking for a space to film. To prepare the loft for filming, he placed the photograph of the East River on the far wall of the room. Above it, he attached a pair of photographs of women walking, along with two Walking Woman silhouettes. The inclusion of the Walking Woman in Wavelength marked the end of the series.

Wavelength was shot in a loft on Canal Street over the course of a week in December 1966. Snow borrowed a Bolex 16 mm camera and Angénieux zoom lens from filmmaker Ken Jacobs. He mounted it on a high platform from which it could capture more of the street scenes outside. The distance from the camera to the opposite end of the room was around 80 feet (24 m).

Because the camera could only record 3 minutes of footage before needing to be reloaded, Snow divided the film's runtime into about 18 segments and marked the positions of the zoom lens for the start and end of each segment. The scenes were shot out of order, with Frampton's death scene recorded first to accommodate his schedule.

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