Roger Beebe in his Hopkins Hall studio on Wednesday. Credit: Ethan Pangrac | Lantern Photographer
Roger Beebe stands in his community garden — but instead of a shovel, he holds in his hands a Bolex 16mm film camera sideways. He waits, unsure of what he’ll get.?
That’s exactly his goal.
Beebe is an experimental filmmaker, interim chair for the Department of Art and professor in both the Department of Art and the Department of Theatre, Film and Media Arts. He has spent decades teaching students to use cameras in unexpected ways, all while creating his own films and touring across the country.
Beebe said he didn’t start out with experimental films. His early movies followed a narrative style, with linear story structure and traditional cinematography. However, Beebe said he quickly became frustrated with the high cost, the intense logistics and what he felt was a rigid art form.
Experimental films don’t typically follow a traditional narrative, Beebe said. He said it compares to an abstract painting, concerned more with composition, rhythm and color than a specific subject matter.
“It really is sort of like the cinematic equivalent [to modern art],” Beebe said. “I was like, ‘How can I enjoy making these things rather than just enjoy having made them?’”
After finishing graduate school, Beebe said he shifted away from narrative filmmaking, where his appreciation grew as he became more familiar with its extensive history and traditions.
Before coming to Ohio State, Beebe taught at the University of Florida for over a decade. Though he said he enjoyed engaging with the film community in Florida — even starting a film festival and running a video store — he decided he wanted a change that could take him in new directions.
Currently, Beebe said his work explores a variety of experimental forms. He enjoys looking at emerging media environments such as photochemical film, digital camera, desktop cinema, and draws inspiration from major figures in the history of abstract animation, like Harry Smith and Norman McLaren.
“They do [things like] drawing directly on film, or scratching, or handmade soundtracks,” Beebe said. “Just the spirit of invention in those films I find really exciting.”
His current project, shot on 16mm film in the community garden he manages, is about “the return of life after winter,” and a celebration of spring, Beebe said. As he films, he said he experiments with unconventional techniques such as manipulating the shutter, using multiple projectors and shooting with the camera sideways.
“If you’re a guitarist… you start, shoving a screwdriver under the strings or stuff like that, where it’s like ‘What happens if I do this?’” Beebe said. “They don’t always work, but those are the kinds of ideas that tend to set my films in motion.”
Beebe said alternative techniques resonate with colleagues as well.
Kym McDaniel, another experimental filmmaker in the Ohio State arts community, is an assistant professor of dance film and digital technologies in the Department of Dance, said she similarly emphasizes artist-driven production, grounding her practice in feminist and queer filmmaking traditions.
McDaniel said she finds inspiration in Beebe’s use of analog film, gesture and expanded cinema as an experimental vehicle for choreography.
“By hybridizing film using screen and live performance, it moves the medium from a disembodied state to one that is more exciting, energetic and unpredictable, much like life,” McDaniel said.
Much of Beebe’s previous work, he said, has explored built environments. However, more recently, he’s begun turning towards the natural world and taking a fresh perspective.
“I want to do it in a way that feels like it’s not just me pointing a camera at a flower and being like, ‘Isn’t this pretty?’” Beebe said. “[Experimental techniques are] how I think a kind of banal observation, like ‘Flowers are pretty,’ might become sort of exciting in a different way.
Beebe said his films don’t stay in the studio. Last spring, Beebe traveled 13,000 miles and performed at nearly 40 screenings. While the pace can be taxing, Beebe said he loves the small but dedicated community that has formed around experimental filmmaking.
“What I love about [touring] is seeing the network and realizing, ‘Oh yeah, who do I know in Albuquerque? Who do I know in Tucson?’ And really realizing, I got these people everywhere, this little weird community,” Beebe said.
Beebe said that community has created many impactful moments.?
For example, shortly after Hurricane Katrina, Beebe said he screened in Shreveport, Louisiana, where many New Orleans residents had been displaced by the storm.
As he ran around the room operating his projectors, Beebe said one audience member leaned in and patted him on the back; a small gesture that has stuck with him.
“It really was like magic,” he said. “You don’t think of Shreveport, Louisiana, as being the center of the film world. But just like that, in a place I had never been before, I found this community that, in this very trying time, was like an oasis for people.”
That same community spirit, Beebe said, carries into his classroom.?
Beebe, who has taught for over 25 years, said he tries to create a space for students who may not fit into traditional academic molds, and encourages students to pursue their personal artistic interests.
Though experimental filmmaking can seem difficult for students to approach, Beebe said he uses a variety of media, from commercials to music videos, to introduce students to experimental techniques gradually.
From there, Beebe said it doesn’t take much convincing to get them invested.
“It’s like, ‘Just take this camera out and go play,’” Beebe said. “That’s a pretty easy thing to sell.”
Experimental film methods may be more familiar than many realize, Beebe said. Techniques such as strobing lights, switching reels and offbeat titles appear everywhere from horror to advertising, and have become widespread through commercialization.
Beebe said many of his students do exciting work themselves, engaging with local art initiatives like Fuse Factory or programming at the Wexner Center of the Arts, and encourages students to attend events both on and off-campus.
“I’m trying to create the environment that I would have been excited to have when I was an undergrad,” Beebe said.
Tristan Turner, a graduate student in the Art Department who completed his master’s in film studies at the University of North Carolina, had already encountered Beebe’s work through his mentors before meeting him on tour sometime around 2017.
Turner said he decided to study at Ohio State for the opportunity to work with filmmakers like Beebe and McDaniel and was drawn to the flexibility of the program, which allows him to work with a variety of artistic media, such as painting, sculpture and performance.
“Roger is an extremely passionate educator,” Turner said. “[His] encouragement has really allowed for me to step into new territory and explore film performance as a new practice for my own work.”
Turner said Beebe’s impact goes beyond campus and into the wider Columbus film community,from developing upcoming filmmakers, to bringing his students to engage with local performances.
“He’s birthing and stimulating brand new passion with students for experimental film,” Turner said. “Without him the experimental film community in Columbus would be far less interesting and healthy.”
McDaniel said similar thoughts about Beebe’s impact.?
“He has made major contributions in teaching, supporting, screening and advocating for experimental film at [Ohio State] and in Columbus, and I am grateful to be his colleague,” McDaniel said.
For Beebe, he said these next few years will bring a new chapter. In July, he will officially take over as the department chair, a position he will hold until 2029.?
When that time comes, he said he hopes to have finished some new films and he’s excited to hit the road and share them with the world.
The article was updated on April 30 at 10:21 a.m. to correct the Department Theatre, Film and Media Arts name.
