Screen test
Screen tests are an experimental film art form developed and practiced by the American artist Andy Warhol in the 1960s .
Usually the candidate had to sit on a chair in front of a screen and was filmed for three minutes with the camera still. The time limit corresponds to the complete passage of a 16-millimeter roll of film. The screen tests are always close-ups of the faces of the people portrayed. Sometimes only the mouth, one eye or some other detail can be seen. It was filmed mainly between 1964 and 1966 in Warhol's Factory . All recordings are silent films .
The effect on the people filmed was extremely varied: some tried to appear " cool " and showed no emotion, others could not stand the psychological pressure and began to cry or walked away.
One can see the “tests” as a parody of the test recordings of the casting of the commercial film industry in Hollywood , since mostly well-known, but at least always very self-confident personalities were exposed to a confrontation with the camera. Unlike in Hollywood, the tests in no way served the effect of external features that could be achieved through illumination etc., on the contrary, they were an "illumination" of the inner personality designed by Warhol that had to withstand the inexorable gaze of the camera.
Warhol also used some of the early screen tests in his films 13 Most Beautiful Women (1964) and 13 Most Beautiful Boys (1965), as well as in 50 Fantasticks and 50 Personalities (1966). The feature films Screen Test No. that were made together with screenwriter Ronald Tavel must be distinguished from the originals . 1 and Screen Test No. 2 (both 1965).
The result with the screen tests (around 400 to 500 in total) is a fascinating contemporary document of the 1960s and its protagonists in New York City .
Personalities who were "screened" by Warhol
- John Ashbery , poet
- Marisa Berenson , actress
- Ted Berrigan , poet
- Susan Bottomly (International Velvet), actress
- Salvador Dalí , artist
- Donovan , singer
- Bob Dylan , musician
- Marcel Duchamp , artist
- Cass Elliot , singer
- Danny Fields , author, manager
- Charles Henri Ford , poet
- Allen Ginsberg , poet
- Piero Heliczer , poet
- Baby Jane Holzer , actress
- Dennis Hopper , actor
- Ingrid Superstar , actress
- Sally Kirkland , actress
- Naomi Levine , actress
- Willard Maas , professor
- Gerard Malanga , Warhol assistant
- Jonas Mekas , filmmaker
- Marie Menken , artist
- Allen Midgette , actor
- Mario Montez , actor
- Billy Name , photographer
- Ivy Nicholson , dancer
- Nico , singer
- Peter Orlovsky , poet
- Lou Reed , musician
- James Rosenquist , painter
- Barbara Rubin , filmmaker
- Ed Sanders , musician
- Francesco Scavullo , photographer
- Edie Sedgwick , actress
- Ronald Tavel , screenwriter
- Paul Thek , painter and object artist
- Mary Woronov , actress
literature
- Gerard Malanga and Andy Warhol: Screen Tests. A diary. New York 1967
- Callie Angell: ANDY WARHOL SCREEN TESTS. The Films of Andy Warhol. Catalog Raisonne, Volume One. New York 2006