13 Most Beautiful...

Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests

Ann + Paul + Edie + Billy + Susan + Dennis + Mary + Nico + Freddy + Richard +Ingrid + Lou + Jane.

I finally received my Limited Edition DVD of Andy Warhol's "13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests". With my pre-order I also received a limited edition gelatin silver print photo of Edie Sedgwick and a booklet and poster. when I opened the nicely silver packaging, It reminded me when I opened my Madonna, "Sex" book which is also silver, and was about the same size. Both 13 Most Beautiful and Sex are just wonderfully packaged...OK, I'm a sucker for organization, and first impressions!

So, I sat down and watched the DVD yesterday with my camera in hand to photograph 13 shots from the film so that I could post the photos today for everyone. Andy Warhol's Screen Tests were filmed from early 1964 - November 1966. Factory visitors who had potential "star" quality would be seated in front of a tripod mounted camera, asked to be as still as possible, and told not to blink while the camera was running, however most people blinked of course and just ended up doing their own thing. Each "star" was filmed with 100 foot rolls of film. All the screen tests were exactly the same length. The resulting films were projected in slow motion so that each lasted approximately 4 minutes, at 16 frames per second. The results were really fascinating, because within that period of time, their personalities and emotions came out...while some cried, others laughed, posed, smoked, drank, and some had a hard time looking into the camera such as Paul America, and Dennis Hopper. I personally loved Ingrid Von Schevens screen test, for her crafty finger flipping during the entire filming.

Out of 500 Screen tests these 13 are the first that have been converted over to DVDs for the public to purchase. Thanks to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and Plexifilms here in Brooklyn, NY...Their collaboration on this project has been well worth the wait since the day I pre-ordered about 3 months ago!

http://www.plexifilm.com/