Words at the end of December

Conquest Acquisition, Arrival, Occupation, Departure, Reflection.

Also, Self-Forgetting, Repetition, Not Figure, Not Ground, Vision, and so much the naming of things.

Words.

Stills from Wenham Shoot 12/16

A chilly evening of exteriors with Leon Vuong, and Dino Traite doing PA. That's Grant trying to stay warm and look like Winslow Homer. Looks more like Byron though. The primary function of this scene is to help get the Grant character out of the film. Shot projections on the smoke. Have not seen the video that Dino shot yet. It looked great in the viewfinder but I have learned...both good and bad to tune to the  the discovering of the image on the film.
Shot Orwo 400T on the borderline. I am superstitious about loosing blacks when pushing this stuff. Off it goes to Burbank tomorrow. The crew were great troopers, ACL worked great in the cold with a body warmed battery. Not much but titles left to do... again I have learned. I know there will be some shots to  pick up.
Photos by Dino Traite

Velocity Film Update

I will be shooting the last bits with Grant and Amy over the next two weekend, compiling the rolls for telecine transfer, and designing the text for inter-titles. This is my structural solution to how I can incorporate text into the film while presenting an episodic narrative. I have gathered a lot of the sound and will be recording Grant and Amy this weekend reading from Ruskin, Krauss, Crary, Dickinson and Whitman along with their own poems. Another structural idea for incorporating the text that I want to sort of lay over the film. 

I'm not sure just what I was thinking when I started this in June, but it has changed into something more poetic than my original idea. Where I was perhaps thinking of an austere alternating of images and text I now am imagining something denser and more expressive of the mean-ness of the time. I have given myself until the end of December to finish the shooting. I will make the film out of what material I have at that time. After the telecine transfer  I will be editing the digital and conforming the original.

Velocity Update

 My modification of the Eclair for the Arri matte box seems like it will work with a 12mm lens. Nothing is as good as a rail system for this kind of work but this is the cheapest mod I could think of for now. It will allow me to shoot the text elements with images together instead of double exposing in the Bolex.  I imagine this poetic element as an important element of the film since it will carry some of the content for the two models who do not speak. This is how the beginning sequence of the film will work as well, black text over carefully selected images.

Here I am in late October shooting exteriors just before a hurricane. I need the actors for two more short sessions and the rest (I think) is copy work and titles.

The Ardelle Project

 Photo by Gabrielle Keller while shooting on the Ardelle in Gloucester Harbor last Friday. The Ardelle left for Washington D.C. on Saturday. The boat's designer and builder Harold Burnham is receiving a National Heritage Award at the Library of Congress on October first. Harold says he will trade a lecture about the boat for a copy of the finished film. I wonder if he knows that what I shot that day will cost about $200 to process and transfer. This project is not a front burner project right now. Maybe this moves it up a bit. Maybe some film education is necessary.

"Velocity" Update

Shooting in Salem on Saturday.
It was a run and shoot day, all handheld. I think we covered about 12 shots that will carry the story forward. It is tricky to do this project with just the three of us and Amy and Grant have been great to work with. A crew of three plus Amy and Grant would be perfect.  The shooting is exciting and the anticipation is still there. So now I have about 600 feet ready to go off to the lab. The new Orwo film looks great.
On parallel track, I have been recording and mixing audio and designing titles for the next studio sessions. Needing to spend time with musicians making sounds that don't sound like music.

Filmmaking and Printmaking

Sitting at the editing console and looking at the images going by for the first time is an moment of discovery. The images either confirm or deny the judgements made with a camera. In this sense, the editing moment is a continuation of the impulse to make meaning with images. This waiting period is part of the uncertain and potentially expressive edge that I really am pulled toward. Making a print involves a similar engagement with material. A plate, a matrix is constructed which has the potential image  embedded. The striking of a print confirms or denies the choices made in the making of the image on the plate. In between the making and the seeing are a number of operations which also have the potential to alter the image. Film image can be developed in different ways to emphasize grain or contrast, lightness or darkness.  The same or similar thing is true in making a print. To me this has always been a condition of creating: The image is generated from a combination of experience and intuition. Technical processes can be creatively applied to continue the making of the image. The result is carried forward in an altered or unaltered state to the state of presentation either as a time-based work or as a discreet image as in a print. This description sounds a bit dry compared to the anticipation that is inside the process. There is a guarantee of surprise at each point.