I remember being over at Bruce Conner's house and he showed me a textbook with an image from "Marilyn Times Five". The producer of the volume wanted to confirm the title, and have the photo approved by Bruce. I ask Bruce "how much are they paying you Bruce to use your photo". He looked at me as if he never thought of such a thing. Basicallly because he never did think of such a thing he asked me how much he should charge. I came up with a reasonable figure for each photo they were going to print. After sending out an invoice, indeed they paid him the price he was asking to reproduce the photos. In turn Bruce send them better copies of the images that they were going to use.
Now Bruce could be difficult to work with, to say the least, however, I had a good, although rocky, working relationship with him as the Director of Canyon Cinema. One thing he told me is that other people should not be making money off the backs of artists. I agree with him. The textbook was being sold and the publisher made money. If a graphic is used by a venue to promote a screening they are making money, so why not the artists involved, including publicity photos. Of course it's up to an artist to determine if they want payment or to do a donation of the artwork. In Fred's case they should have done the simple research to discover the source of image and at least ask permission. It is just plain lazy not to do such in this tech age. Dominic On Tue, Aug 11, 2026 at 1:08 PM Dennis Doros <[email protected]> wrote: > Mark brings up a very interesting discussion. There are dozens of books > using stills from our licensed films without our, or our > filmmakers' permission. I suspect academics are more willing to ask > archives and academics they know for permission, but see everything else as > fair use. > > Fondest regards, > Dennis Doros > *Milestone Film & Video • *38 George Street • Harrington Park, NJ 07640 > Phone: +1 (201) 767-3117 • Email: [email protected] • > www.milestonefilms.com • www.missingmovies.org > > Pronouns: He, Him > > JOIN MILESTONE'S MAILING LIST TODAY! > <http://milestonefilms.us3.list-manage1.com/subscribe/post?u=4a0b9e434a9f3e8603c29806e&id=f30d1906e2> > Support us on Facebook > <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Milestone-Film/22348485426> and Twitter > <https://twitter.com/#!/MilestoneFilms>! > > > > > > > > On Tue, Aug 11, 2026 at 3:26 PM mrktosc <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Actually this Anticipation image is from a photo I took of the original >> for the film, and which has appeared online here and there. The visible >> perfs are original to my image and not added by anyone, though they’ve >> partly doubled the image for design purposes, it seems. >> >> I think originally this photo was put online for something I wrote about >> inspecting Stan’s film elements but can’t remember. Nobody asks for >> permission generally for these kinds of uses, though academics/writers who >> have written about Stan’s process have usually asked me if they can include >> photos I’ve taken (and I always say yes and give them the original photo to >> make sure it’s decent quality). The photos I’ve taken are generally >> archival/illustrative documents of the films as objects for informational >> or descriptive purposes about archiving or process, and aren’t meant to >> represent the films as cinematic experiences, but folks often like the film >> strip object as a stand-in for a still, so it’s not surprising they get >> used that way. >> >> Mark >> >> >> On Aug 11, 2026, at 2:39 PM, Dominic Angerame <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> >> Hi Fred to add to the reproduction of your scan, in the image that the >> Modern Art Museum used even the sprocket holes are on the wrong side if one >> is running the film on a set rewinds. Obviously whoever did this design >> knows nothing about celluloid film. They are just using it as decorative >> art. >> >> Dominic >> >> On Tue, Aug 11, 2026 at 4:09 AM Fred Camper <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> This admittedly harsh rant is in response to a little ad for a likely >>> very worthy program of experimental films coming up at the MoMA. My >>> objection is to an image shown below. The post is at >>> https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0JuRUP85Wnng2eC3bzcaZUSG2FoNdxaKnkvrBXvai6mkUrARdjcxrVRhZ1j4jcyX7l&id=100021319367953 >>> <MoMAStrip.jpg> >>> >>> >>> Thank you for making me aware of the fact that the Museum of Modern >>> Art's Department of Film has stolen one of my many scans of strips from >>> films by Stan Brakhage off of my Web site. >>> <https://www.fredcamper.com/Film/BrakhageS.html> >>> >>> Forgive me, because this rant may seem somewhat insane, but I believe it >>> to be justified. My many scans of strips from prints of Brakhage films were >>> made over two decades with scanners I purchased myself, the images selected >>> as carefully as I could based on my feel for his aesthetic and knowledge of >>> his films. They were made, more importantly, out of love for the films, and >>> I tried to find images that would be interesting or attractive on their own >>> but would also represent the film well. Hence many scans, such as this one, >>> were chosen to display particularly meaningful cuts. These choices were >>> made by someone whose life was changed by discovering Brakhage films at 16, >>> attending the world premiere of “The Art of Vision” at Yale at 17, and by >>> showing and speaking on his films at various venues throughout the world >>> after having shown them at a film society I co-founded in Cambridge, >>> Massachusetts, in 1964, which included the presentation of the premiere of >>> “23rd Psalm Branch,” with Brakhage in attendance and me projecting, as well >>> as other programs of films by Peter Kubelka, Bruce Baillie, and Warren >>> Sonbert, with each of them in attendance, and more. >>> >>> When I showed Brakhage the first pages of stills on my site, right after >>> setting it up, in the fall of 2001, only a little less than a year before >>> he died, he really liked them. I want to say he loved them. He asked how >>> long they would be up on the Internet. When I said something like >>> “permanently” or “indefinitely,” he seemed surprised and pleased. >>> Twenty-five years later they are still up, and are still being used without >>> permission in ways that misrepresent the films. >>> >>> Isn’t “stolen” a little harsh? I haven't tried to copyright my choices >>> of stills; I assume that they can't be, and that seems just. But that >>> doesn't mean people should use them without permission. The so-called >>> “Brakhage Center” did that some years ago, mixing them in with a >>> student-designed mashup of images. Had the Museum of Modern Art, Department >>> of Film, New York, bothered to write me for permission, the strip would >>> have been free, but they would have gotten a sharper, higher-resolution >>> strip than what I put on the Web. They also would not have been able to >>> misuse it the way they did. >>> >>> Marilyn Brakhage and I have never permitted the strips to be run >>> sideways. Run that way, they are false to the film. The whole point of >>> trying to get people to run strips rather than single-frame enlargements is >>> that Brakhage’s ever-changing film spaces are best suggested by strips. But >>> sideways? Really? The baby shown sideways? Would you do that with a >>> single-frame enlargement? Run vertically, the strips can encourage one to >>> imagine an instant of the film. Horizontally, they are reduced to >>> decoration. >>> >>> What’s even worse: we tend to “read” a horizontal strip left to right, >>> in the direction in which we read text. Seen that way, the viewer will >>> infer that the baby is right side up, and that it appears after the blue >>> light. But in this brief segment of “Anticipation of the Night,” the >>> baby is shown upside down, and the blue light comes after. In the film, the >>> camera swirls about the baby, and it is seen in what feels like all >>> possible orientations. >>> >>> I suppose it’s possible that someone made their own scan from a print of >>> the film. That would explain the absurdly “decorative” presence of three >>> different lines of sprocket holes running along the edges of the film, two >>> very thin ones and a full one. Or would it? This kind of stupid and false >>> paste-in job, adding sprocket holes (which in fact some of my strips do >>> include), has been done before with my strips. But how would they have >>> managed to choose exactly this cut? In any case, their image is not only >>> less sharp than mine, but far too “overexposed.” >>> >>> My dear friend Kirk Winslow said at a dinner in 2002, when I complained >>> about a bad editor trying to introduce factual errors into my film writing, >>> after the other three of us complained about poor film projection in New >>> York, “Fred! People just don’t care,” pounding his fist on the table once >>> for each word. I perhaps would not remember this so vividly, and cite it so >>> often, if it were not the last time he went out. He died of HIV a month or >>> two later. >>> If we wish to make the world better, we need to stop thoughtlessly >>> slapping things together, and instead, to start caring. >>> >>> <http://www.fredcamper.com/> Fred Camper <http://www.fredcamper.com/> >>> Chicago >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Frameworks mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> >>> https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org >>> >> -- >> Frameworks mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org >> >> -- >> Frameworks mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org >> > -- > Frameworks mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org >
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