Mermaid's Murder (after Myrtle's Murder)

Back in the 1970s, Saskatchewan's legendary film mentor Jean Oser shot a sequence of shots on 16mm which featured Myrtle Surjic. This footage was edited and re-edited by many of Jean's students over the years, including myself when Jean returned to Regina in 1986. On Friday I conducted a short shoot at the university which featured a couple of the same shots (the knife, a pair of people at a table, etc). I've given it to the grad students to demonstrate your individual editing approaches. There is a photo of a mermaid on the table between Rania and I (the two of us were the performers with Zaheer, An, and Xin shooting) so I'm calling it "Mermaid's Murder". 

restored

Today I finally finished restoring "Daytona: A Happening", a film by Jean Oser that was accidentally cannibalized for found footage sometime last year. Luckily most of the parts were intact. I accidentally destroyed a six inch part in the process and have another six inch part that part that I could not locate a home for. There are a couple other gaps but overall it is there.
Jean Oser was a film editor and a great filmmaker in his own right. He made quite a few short commissioned films in the fifties and sixties (industrials when such things were still pretty cool). He then came to teach at the UofR where he became one of the most influential people in the creation of a film community and film industry in Saskatchewan. The films he made are housed at the Saskatchewan Filmpool and are unlikely to be housed collectively anywhere else in the world. While many of them likely exist in other collections or in the archives of their commissioning companies, no one else has them collected as "Jean Oser" films. This one in particular is a fast paced short about motorcycle racing. Made in the 60s, it is filled with odd bits of slang. At one point the narrator points out that when the race is over, the action hasn't stopped and we see the rider necking with a sexy girl. It was commissioned by the Triumph Motorcycle company.
It was Paul's birthday today: HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL. We had pizza and cake. His brother Mike came to town and surprised him half way through supper. Then we went to the opening at the Dunlop. William was doing a number of drawings and had them laid out on the floor. Two people, including one person who is a programmer at another local art gallery, walked by just as he'd finished them and stepped directly on them. What kind of people go to art galleries these days?

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.