Recording for a new film, edits to an old film

I had two talented theatre students, Tyler W. Toppings and Gabrielle Dufresne, running some lines from A Midsummer Night's Dream for me today to use in my new OTS8 project "Puck". This afternoon Erik Sirke was over and we looked at The Green Man (some very cool and bizarre cuts to the films). Films are coming together, a new step every day, although there are also setbacks. Erik becomes the fourth person to not be able to make my stereoscopic viewer work and now I question whether all the people who said it worked were entirely accurate in their assessment. It works very well for me. More testing is needed. This evening I really enjoyed "Pandora's Box" by Pabst. Thanks Christina for programming this one, I'd never seen it before.
Also picked up new contact lens today. 

French Friday continues

This morning I recorded Eric Hill's voice to complete my soundtrack for "Rockem', Sockem, Canister", my one take super-8 film which will premiere next week in Saskatoon. It amuses me to blur the line between the two Eric/ks, with Sirke playing Canister's on-screen nemesis and Hill playing the same character's voice.

Gerald Saul in Canister helmet performing lines for Erik Sirke film.

While I have suggested that Fridays this summer be changed to "Foreign Friday" where William and I would watch an non-English language film, the past two weeks have continued to be French. Last week we watched "Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia" with Gerard Depardieu. Today was William's pick. He passed over a lurid Italian comedy for "Les Enfants Terribles", written by Jean Cocteau. I think William was shocked by the seemingly unmotivated, inexplicable actions of the characters; lying to their friends and causing each other crisis after crisis. It was a fun way to spend a hot early afternoon. 

One Take Super 8

This evening was the tenth annual One Take Super 8 Event. Good crowd, mostly good films. It is interesting to note that some films felt short and others felt long even though they were all the exact same length. Who invented this reality thing because it seems so screwed up. Berny Hi (in audience to right of frame reading his program) made a film about his cat was one that Margaret and I were talking about on the way home that we felt we'd like to have heard more and had it go on longer. Charming and beautiful even though I didn't quite understand what he was cooking or how he got an ear infection. My film and William's film turned out well. There were a few who suggested that I "cheated" although no one presented me with a rule book governing the event. Dianne Ouellette, pictured above, also had a new film about the end of her relationship with a tall guy who's name happened to be Gerald. It might be time for me to write about Dianne again, haven't discussed her films in two or three years.

rain rain went away

Last night the power in our house went out for an hour from 10-11 and again a few minutes later for an hour and a half. It rained all night and was forecast for rain all day today. I took a chance and continued on my scheduled film shoot and got very lucky. Not a spot of rain from noon until four, allowing me to shoot both my Godard film and my One Take Super 8 film. Erik was a real trooper, thanks. Here we are shooting with Teagan and William using the Canon 5D and recording with the Ederol.

catching up

Last night I was at Kevin's house and he'd been trying to get his daughters back onto school schedule; they'd been staying up until 10. He was starting to get them up early so they would get back into the right schedule. Of course when I got home, close to 11, William was still awake even though he was exhausted all day. Taking a page from Kevin's book, I woke William before eight this morning. He's still up as I write the (nearly 10:30).
I thought I was going to go to the office today but decided to send out an email or two before I left, just a couple of things that could be done from home that I said I'd do before classes start. The day evaporated under a barrage of "little things". I suppose it didn't help that William watched the same scene from "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix" off Youtube over and over again on the computer beside me for two hours -- more than a bit distracting.
I shipped off my film "Cake" to The 8 Fest in Toronto; it will be screened there at the end of this month. They are only screening original film so of course I shipped off the super-8 roll.

One Take Super-8

This evening was the One Take Super 8 Event, sold out with overflow at the RPL. William's film turned out really well. It is of the cat walking among his Lego buildings while he reads from Shakespeare. It got a solid response. He was in a great mood all day but really flying at this screening. He was approaching other filmmakers and asking them questions. Top notch. Many of the films tonight were underexposed. I shouldn't talk since mine was sort of one of them, but still there did seem to be a lack of craftsmanship prevelant (mine was dark because of some complicated things I was doing with multiple lenses and parts of it were quite well exposed). I'm hoping the video transfer will lighten it up, but am also considering reshooting it since it was all made on my desk in my office and I'm sure I could do it better if I repeated it. I might even try to shoot it digitally using the new pentax/tamron camera mount I bought with which I could mount my true macro Tamron lens onto a Pentax digital SLR such as Margaret's mother has.

good news and bad news

The good news is that my guest in class today, Michele Sereda, was really interesting and talked a lot about how a director can prepare with a script to be more able to communicate with actors. Other good news was that William went to a science fair and had a great day too. I also joined Paved by mail and sent in a Professor Delusia video for their Halloween screening. I also recorded and edited the soundtrack for my one take super 8 film "Memories of Uncle's House". The bad news is that the toilet is leaking again.

long weekend

We are going to a Thanksgiving due tomorrow, today was mostly a work day. Margaret's mother Gertrud came over yesterday and today to help re-putty the storm windows. I scraped old paint off and cleaned them after the puttying. I'm shocked by what a poor job I did at painting them last week but the conditions were very poor and I was very rushed. At least I got a first coat on them. The putty job will take at least one more long day, maybe two.
This morning I worked with William to help him shoot his One Take Super 8 film which he is calling "Sylvie Bingles Lego and the Jet Pack". We still have to do the soundtrack but I have a plan for that which should be cool. Margaret spent much of the day baking pies and, her new passion, bread. I wonder what sort of madness is required to be a baker as many of the bread recipes I see contain food that just shouldn't be eaten (things have have soured or formented or just about rotted seem in order only there).

New student video site

This evening was the One Take Super 8 Event. It went well. William stayed for the whole thing for the first time. luckily he has no school tomorrow as it didn't end until 10:30. My film was in focus, although a couple of the mirror shots were too dark. It went well.

i've set up a new youtube site where my students are required to post the assignment i gave them, which was to draw images from the public domain internet.org site and make a found footage video. They are also required to give an image back to the world, uploading it to the same site. the videos they made will be HERE.

the next generation

Today I shot my One Take Super 8 film for the 8th annual event. This is my 8th entry, I don't know how many others have entered every time, maybe Shawn Fulton and Rob Pytlyk but definitely not many. This year's entry is "Professor Delusia Jr.".

Winnipeg

I hosted a screening of films by Jean Oser at the WNDX festival in Winnipeg this evening. It went well, the crowd was small but good. Dr. Elizabeth McLuhen came with her husband, he'd taken a course from Jean in the mid 70s. Brett Kashmere and his parents were there, as was Alex Rogalski. Patrick Lowe sent his regrets. There was a number of others as well. Later we went to the 3rd Winnipeg One Take Super 8 Event, it has a big space and is very popular. It closed with a rather fascinating piece about food being thrown onto rapidly jiggling naked breasts. Three women were involved. It was well lit and in focus. Another of my picks was one that seemed to be a shot of light coming out of a projector. There was dust and some distortions as the lens was moved or removed. Uncertain exactly what was happening, but Alex, probably with instructions from the filmmaker, turned on his microphone and aimed it at the projector itself, amplifying the projector noise.

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Margaret posted her first extensive interview since her radio show was canceled. It is with Alex Rogalski and me about 10 days ago, after the One Take Super-8 Event when I showed "Cake". It is 40 minutes long. You may have to click the button that says "if you are having trouble playing this file, click here" or something like that. I have been hearing it play in super fast forward for some reason.

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Today was William's last swimming lesson of the term, we'll sign him up to continue after Christmas. After the lesson I took the screening fee I received from the One Take Film, which I certainly have to share with William, and bought some Lego. There is a good deal on the Creative Box, 480 pieces of general Lego in a plastic bin, at the Bay for $13.60. I bought a couple.

This afternoon I ordered a new computer from Dell. I've been frustrated for too long with my last one, and it also seems that William's computer won't run a game I just got for him, so it's time for upgrades all around (he'll get my old one). I didn't see a time frame on delivery, but I assume I'll have it by December when I intend to spend more time at home working on it.

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I wrote about Tyler Banadyga's film "Toast" from the One Take Super-8 Event in my experimental film review blog. Later in the morning, Alex Rogolski came by the house and Margaret, he, and I spoke for a half hour on tape about the super-8 event. Margaret is moving on with her thoughts on recording and will be more actively collecting interviews with artists. It was pretty relaxed, I think talking in the kitchen might be a better way to go sometimes than going to a studio.
CUPE is on strike so the facilities for our department are shut down. I slipped into the darkroom to do an experiment while it was not in use. Following instructions I found on line from Roger Bunting, I successfully developed a piece of movie film using Maxwell House instant coffee and washing soda. Coincidentally, I received the book "The Chemistry of Photography" by Bunting today. I've just read the first page, the instructions I used were just from the website. I used regular film fix rather than his alternative, sea water, due to my current shortage of sea water and to wanting to test one method at a time.

The shadow on the left side of this sample frame is actually the result of the scanner and my lack of necessary holders for scanning 16mm film frames. It looks better than this. I developed it as a negative. I followed the 25 minute suggestion but I think I over developed by a few minutes, I might be able to do this hi-con film stock in about 15 minutes.

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Margaret and Tanya were on CBC radio this morning, a total of four times as far as I've heard. I've put one of the broadcasts onto Margaret's blog, it's only a couple of minutes, check it out.

Patrick Lowe is in town for the next few days shooting his new film on the Oxberry stand at the Filmpool. He stopped in and we chatted and ate candy for a while.

Tonight was the One Take Super-8 Event at the RPL, free. I'm showed a new film I made with William called "Cake". Two other films that grabbed me were also father/son films, one by Tyler Banadyga in which his one year old exhibits amazing expressions while eating toast, and another by Sean Fulton in which Sean makes faces at the camera to the amusement of his son. Both were simple yet riveting.

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This morning I shot my One Take Super-8 film, or at least most of it. I'll have to conclude it tomorrow morning when I have some fresh cream and good light. I'm still looking for the perfect counter point soundtrack, have a week to put that together.

I finished watching Jason Britski's films today. The last two were both screened at the 50-104 festival but the second viewing brought an entirely different tone to them. When I first saw them a few weeks ago I thought they were entirely formal, I thought that he was distancing himself from content. One is primarily about China Girls, the momentary flash of an image of a woman that is put onto the opening leader of movie film to assist in colour correction. The second was about power lines. This time watching them I think they are highly sentimental, being about his long time passions for film and for looking up at the sky. What will a third viewing bring...?