Jon Behrens

"This film is a collaboration with friend-filmmaker, Mia Roozen Separately filming footage, unknown to the other, and splicing it together to create an abstract prosaic, a symphony of sight and sound, a subconscious exploration of neurotic origins"

"I wanted to capture the beautiful snow as it fell onto the trees on Christmas morning. Shot it one long take on my Arriflex camera from the deck of my home, in homage to the late great Peter Hutton."

This film was the second installment of what I call the URBAN LANDSCAPE SERIES. The film is more like an extension my earlier film Exposures, but this time I made a much more valiant attempt to say what I wanted to say. By the time I made this film I felt that I had mastered the art of cinematography.

"I did this collaboration with filmmaker Caryn Cline. Two filmmakers, two direct animation technics, two optical printers one roll of 16mm film."

This film features Kirsten McCory drinking coffee and telling me about her day.

I made this film by shooting around 180 rolls of 35mm slide film. I then hand processed the film in a very sloppy manner. I never mounted the film into slides I simply took the 35mm strips of film and spliced them together. Some of the rolls used in this film were shot by random people I sent a roll of film to that they shot and sent back to me.

“The second collaboration I did with R.K. Adams, we proceeded to experiment with the Idea of using panels in our films. When we talked about doing this we decided that we wanted to pay homage to the upcoming spring, the result was this film"

Made from sections of random family photos that I acquired while working at a film lab in the early 1990's. -JB

I made this film with the help of friend Timmi Harrop she graced the screen in this liquid like atmospheric industrial performance piece. Multiple exposures, water, and weird underwater cinematography shots that create the environment drowning the viewer in a symphony of sight and sound.

"This film was the third and final installment of my Urban Landscape Series and is my personal favorite of the three. In this film I utilized all the techniques that I had learned over the years and put them all into this film. I finally felt that my mission was complete regarding structures and that I could move forward and try other ideas. RUBATO provided the films sound track."

Symmetry was a film I made in 1990 at that time I wanted to experiment more with narrative elements in my films. Looking back on this film I see Ernie Steeles, O.K. Hotel, Virginia Inn, The Viaduct and James Carbo’s eastlake silver house all gone now. This film is different from the films I made before .. and the films I have made after. I was grateful to Pony Mourice for agreeing to be in this picture, if it wasn't for her the film never would have been made because she was the only one I could picture in my mind to be in my film.

"Kirsten McCory is the mending woman who is meandering through this hand painted and optically printed film."

Short film by Jon Behrens

Film by Jon Behrens

I made this film from manipulated and hand painted 35mm trailers of main stream Hollywood films from the 1990's. -JB

"This film is a collaboration between myself, Caryn Cline and Luke Sieczek. We made this film using a matte box. We used three different coin sized mattes, and we took turns exposing them."

I made this film in the summer of 1995 and released it in the fall, this film is made up from mostly images I shot of my friend Kitty doing her fire eating routine at the Pike Street Cinema, and other images I had.

"I made this film on an evening out with my dear friend Kirsten McCory."

"This is a film that I had wanted to make for many years. It was not until the summer of 1996 that I actually got it together and shot it. Again with the help of Steve Creson we packed up all our equipment and loaded on to a plane and flew to Arizona were we rented a car and drove around the desert for week and filmed everything that we thought looked interesting. This film is similar to the films in my urban landscapes series, only this film was shot in eye popping full color and there are no man made elements in this film at all. Lots of rock formations, colors, and shapes only things made my mother nature. This film also has a film score by RUBATO."

A hand painted/manipulated 35mm found footage film.

"This is the second film of the Anomalies Cycle. It is a hand Painted and manipulated film. I also used the technique of bleaching and batiking of the film emulsion. The footage was then step printed on a J-K Optical Printer. Although similar in style to The Flickering of the Minds Eye I began to experiment more with other colors and different textures such as dried leaves and flowers, hair, insect parts, and a variety of different types of inks and paints. The sound track for this film was preformed by NEGATIVLAND."

"This was film was shot on a train trip down to Portland Oregon in the Summer of 2016 with one of my Bolex’s . I was using film from a large supply of 7222 double X negative donated to me from a friend that became outdated in 1972. I shot the film normal and processed it normal, the film turned out to be very grainy which worked well. I then rephotographed everything on my optical printer. The sound for the film was made of sound I recorded of the train."

A collaboration between filmmakers Jon Behrens in Seattle, Washington, and Joel Schlemowitz in Brooklyn, New York, shot on ALL SAINTS DAY, November 1, 2000. They each shot 100 feet of film at the same time of the day 3,000 miles apart, and they did not tell each other what they shot. The film was hand-processed, cut up into two-foot lengths and then cut back together, alternating between Joel's footage and Jon's footage. The soundtrack for this film was done the same way.

Optically printed fragments of film I shot in the autumn months in Seattle. -JB This film was made in response to seeing some of Caryn Clines films. Caryn re introduced me to shooting my films outside. -JB