Andy Warhol: 12 Screen Tests

Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol filmed hundreds of visitors to his studio, the Factory, using a stationary Bolex camera. The visitors—who included famous actors, writers, artists, musicians, and personalities, as well as unknowns—were instructed to sit still for the entire length of a hundred-foot roll of 16mm film, a duration of nearly three minutes, resulting in a "living portrait" on film.

Although these short films are called "screen tests," referencing the Hollywood practice of auditioning actors by filming them, none of Warhol's Screen Tests appear to have been used as auditions for his feature-length films. Instead, Warhol treated the Screen Tests as an end product in themselves. He sequenced them and projected them in slow motion, as they are shown here.