film

from Human Resources was the film I completed this year. Through a friend, I saw someone I hadn't seen in years. We're all from SJ and we had actually lived in the same building in Mont. in the 80s. Once he found out that I had come to Whoville to study film he offered me the chance to make a film, something I hadn't done in a couple of years (there was the matter of a thesis for a while). The project was being realized through our local co-op LIFT (see Links). The intention was to make a film with a poet and the eventual screening would have the poet read live to the film.

Visually the film attempts to suggest the thematics of the poet's work. If her words are described as "polyvocal" then the film can be described as polyvisual.

The film also tries to capture what human resources might mean.



The screening went really well and the turn out was great. I suspect there was around 100 or more people. It was standing room only. Two films were projected on 8 and 16 mm that added another layer of sound. We were asked to not use sound for the screening, but could later lay down a sound track if we wish to for distribution. I found it odd at first to consider making a film without any sound at all, but I also found that this minor obstacle opened up the textures of the poet's sounds and rhythms of her words. She made a primitive cassette tape of her reading the poems that I found very useful to mimic her own pacing while trying to create some meaning with the visual text.

Hopefully a collection of all the 15 films will be brought together on dvd for distribution (that's part of the plan). The intention was to eventually do a proper studio recording of the poet reading the work and I can then go in and add any other layers of sound I would like to add, but honestly I liked the finished product the way it is. The single voice gives the audience enough to digest and I believe that the film stands well on its own that way.

As for more films? Let's see what the new year brings.


postnote:
Technically (a funny word for me to even consider using since I'm about as techy as a whoville), the film marks the end of two film stocks, Kodachrome and b&w 35mm still slides. For those that don't know, Kodak ended production of super 8 Kodachrome film. So what's out there in the world is all that's left. I got the last two LIFT cartridges. When I decided to create an animated mid-section to the film I went to still slides (initially wanting to use the JK Optical Printer to do a 16mm print -- that's another aside that maybe I'll get into later when I actually complete something on the Optical Printer) and black and white was my choice. The lab technician asked if I wanted to buy extra film since they were no longer making black and white slide film. I couldn't see another application for it so I declined and besides buying the film created a budget for me that I didn't want to encourage). She also said that I would need to develop the film before September or else I'd be s.o.l. (my words not hers). So good bye to Kodachrome! Farewell B&W slide film.