{"id":619297,"date":"2026-09-09T12:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/619297\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T12:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:42:15","slug":"austin-library-club-lets-members-create-images-on-old-film-strips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/619297\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin library club lets members create images on old film strips"},"content":{"rendered":"

Austin Public Library\u2019s Howson Branch was not exactly a quiet zone on a recent Monday night. People filled every table in the meeting room and spread out to more tables squeezed between bookshelves. They had come for Film Strip Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don’t have to have any sort of special background or extra training to partake,\u201d said Jennifer Quarles, a regular attendee for nearly a year. \u201cIt’s just an hour and a half where everybody just creates together and makes something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

The once-a-month, free club offers a chance for members to explore direct animation using 16-millimeter film \u2014 a process where film stock is manipulated using techniques like drawing, painting or scratching to create a new image on top of the existing ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t know much about film, and I’ve certainly never just handled film and then purposely messed it up as an art form,\u201d said Megan Rosales, another dedicated clubgoer. \u201cIt’s really fun and kinda challenging to not have a plan and just go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tess<\/p>\n

Tess Tarses uses a magnifying glass to look at a film strip. <\/p>\n

Each session starts with a screening of the previous month\u2019s creations on a 16-millimeter-film projector. Members also receive digital copies of their animations.<\/p>\n

Justin Green, the assistant manager at the Howson Branch, runs Film Strip Club in collaboration with staff from the Texas Archive of the Moving Image, or TAMI. A film major in college, he founded the program with TAMI\u2019s digitization lab manager, Victoria Perez, after bonding over a mutual love of direct animation at a friend\u2019s birthday party.<\/p>\n

While the library pays for art supplies and some film, TAMI gives the club access to specialty skills and equipment for free. It also digitizes members\u2019 films.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to provide a space where people could try out this art form with no barrier to entry, totally free and open to the public,\u201d Green said. \u201cWe provide the materials. We have the 16-millimeter projector. Texas Archive has the infrastructure to digitize patrons’ films professionally, which would cost a lot of money elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Patrons<\/p>\n

Members of Film Strip Club gather supplies during their meeting at the Howson library in West Austin. <\/p>\n

TAMI\u2019s library was also a source for some of the film people animate over.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re funded through the Texas Film Commission. We go around to cities in Texas, people bring their tapes and videos, and we digitize them for free,\u201d Perez said. \u201cWe had a lot of educational films, PSA reels we had digitized and were in the process of getting rid of. So we started off using those.\u201d<\/p>\n

The club hosted its first meeting in October 2024. The turnout was greater than Green and Perez expected. And that momentum has continued: More than 60 patrons went to the August meet-up.<\/p>\n

Green believes the club is popular in part because it\u2019s in person.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDirect animation lends itself to people making friends,\u201d he said. \u201cSitting at a table with strangers working on your film \u2014 that requires focus, but also lends itself to being able to make conversation with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are always new faces, but several folks are there every month. Some members, like Quarles, have even helped expand the materials and techniques the club uses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do a lot of experiments outside of film club,\u201d she said. \u201cWe found a type of alcohol marker that worked better than Sharpies. We experimented with some tape that you can cut up and stick onto the surface of the film, and now the library has brought some of those materials on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Elan<\/p>\n

Elan Mendoza and Lena Mani draw on film during Film Strip Club.<\/p>\n

Other members have become interested in analog film preservation through the club. A few have even gone on to intern at TAMI.<\/p>\n

\u201cCounterintuitively, people are becoming interested in the world of archives by destroying film, defacing it, and drawing, painting, scratching on it and cutting it up,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n

He hopes members will sustain the analog techniques being taught in Film Strip Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the tools used for this form of filmmaking are older and being phased out. We don’t want these technologies to be fully inaccessible or have these materials, via the scarcity of these types of equipment, get so expensive that the barrier to entry becomes high,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n

\"Art<\/p>\n

Members use paint and other art supplies to create images on the film.<\/p>\n

Perez stepped back from the group earlier this year. She passed her duties on to TAMI intern Paige Applin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t wanna see Film Strip Club go away,\u201d Applin said. \u201cIt’s a cool place where people can share their love of film and make something with their hands. \u200aThere’s not many other spaces in town where people can get together like this for free.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green plans to step aside, too, someday, so he\u2019s making sure there\u2019s someone at the library who can take the reins. People come and go, but he wants Film Strip Club to be forever.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can’t solve all of life\u2019s problems at the library,\u201d he said, \u201cbut we can at least be a resource to \u200aoffer something exciting and invigorating through these low barrier to entry activities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Austin Public Library\u2019s Howson Branch was not exactly a quiet zone on a recent Monday night. People filled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[262818,262819,262822,93,262820,262821,61,60,270,278],"class_list":["post-619297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-16-milimeter-film","tag-austin-public-library","tag-direct-animation","tag-entertainment","tag-film-strip-club","tag-howson-branch","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}