Answer Print- Winter 2015

ANSWER PRINT WINTER 2015

EFFECT

CSIF Board of Directors: President: Leah Nicholson | Vice President: Ben Rowe| Treasurer: Wayne Bradford | Secretary: Scott Westby Directors: Tina Alford, Donna Serafinus, Michelle Wong, Taylor Ross, Matt Watterworth

STAFF Operations Director Bobbie Todd operations@csif.org Programming Director Nicola Waugh programming@csif.org Communications Director Nicola Waugh communications@csif.org Production Director Yvonne Abusow production@csif.org Production Coordinator: Dan Crittenden production@csif.org Designed and Compiled by Dave Reynolds + Nicola Waugh Editor: Guillaume Carlier Cover Photo: Things (2014) Dir. Ben Rivers Advertising Inquiries: communications@csif.org The Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers (CSIF) is a non-profit, member-driven media arts cooperative that encourages the production and exhibition of independent film.

Suite 103-223 12 Avenue SW Calgary, AB Canada T2R 0G9 Phone: 403.205.4747 Hours: Tues-Sat, 10am – 5pm Web: csif.org

IN THIS ISSUE QUARTERLY MANIFESTO 4 MEMBERS MISSIVES 5

7 DIRECTOR SPOTLIGHT 11 $100FF PREVIEW 14 ON THE SLATE 15 PRESENT ACT & PAST EVENT

CSIF is grateful for the involvement of its members, the network of artist-run cooperatives throughout Canada and for the financial assistance of its funders: The Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Canada Council for the Arts, Calgary Arts Development, and from its donors, members and individuals.

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QUARTERLY MANIFESTO There’s been a lot of movement in Calgary.

We’ve seen several major productions return to our city, as well as some new exciting projects passing through. We’ve seen young filmmakers with big ambitions running around thanks to TELUS Story Hive, One Eight/One Day Film Challenge, the Film/ Music Explosion!, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and now CineCoup is looming ahead.

There’s lots of opportunity in the air. It seems like just about everyone you meet has an idea for a short film, music video or feature. It’s all a lot of energy for Calgary.

Recently I was talking to a colleague and she said, “There’s so much good stuff out there!”

There is. But where is it? Online mostly,

incredible scenes and award winning crews fuel our creative energy.

4 calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com

shuffled around with links and passwords. We certainly have enough festivals out there, but are enough people submitting their works?

Are enough people attending?

Calgary has the self-imposed reputation of working hard and playing hard. I’m of the opinion that the film community shares the same motto. But I’m curious to see it all in a line, all up front, all on some platform. Am I being too utopian? Too idealistic? Probably. But based on all the activity I’ve seen, based on all the talent in the city, emerging and established, based on the sheer amount of people sharing their resources, I believe something good is coming and I want to see it.

Answer Print can only help so much. It’s up to the rest of us to make sure we are more visible. If Calgary is to become a film town, let’s make it obvious.

Guillaume Carlier, Answer Print Editor

MEMBER’S MISSIVES Creative Film Processes & Special Effects on Film

By Carl Spencer

In this article I will briefly describe a technique known as the travelling matte, which I have utilized in some of my more recent work on 16mm film. This experimentation is in its primary stages and is quite simplified when compared to larger scale productions that expand upon the process; nevertheless I am intrigued by the potentials that this past technique presents in contemporary film practice.

The travelling matte is executed using a Rostrum Camera. Essentially this is a camera mounted vertically, that takes photos of a table surface. In my case, I am using the Oxberry Master Series Animation stand (see Fig.1.) that adds specific controls for motorized zoom and panning functionality. With this camera system, I am able to photograph black and white shapes that I can then use to mask the superimposition of two images (or more) on one piece of film. The process is executed something like this: 1. Photograph black shape on white background while zooming the camera closer to the image. Each image is captured frame by frame, so the movement of the camera is extremely slow in this process.

2. Process the film as a negative in photochemistry. The image becomes inverted; black becomes white (transparent), white becomes black. The end result is a piece of film that functions as a mask, to be used in a process called bi-packing.

3. Bi-packing: using an optical printer, the mask is placed overtop of another piece of film (see Fig.2). The transparent (white) portions are then filled with the image placed behind. The images are then re-photographed and developed as a single piece of film.

4. The process can then be repeated for the inverted matte, filling this with another image that would surround the original shape.

The opening titles for the film Altered States (1980), provide an interesting example of a matte technique, illustrating that it can be utilized in a variety of forms with various forms of movement, size and scale (see Fig.3).

The literary resources available that describe this process largely apply to the commercial movie industry (pre-computer), however these ideas are just as relevant in experimental filmmaking, with this being my primary focus. These interests are motivated by a desire to increase my own understanding of traditional film techniques and in doing so, enable local communities to explore aspects of 16mm filmmaking that might be otherwise unfamiliar. For some, it might seem unusual or unfeasible to work with the equipment and processes involved in making films this way. My intention is to demystify aspects of this and to simplify the understanding of how these tools can be used to create works that reflect a distinct sensibility inherently linked to the decision making processes one makes when shooting on film. This is a pursuit that moves beyond the justifications of nostalgia and tactility associated with celluloid film as an object. I believe that the dance with the machine (camera) becomes essential to informing one’s decision making through process and that it helps to form a base of knowledge obtained through experimentation. It is an effort to identify what works, what does not (aesthetically) and, to my mind, this is without failure. There will always be something to learn from in preparation for the next shoot. This idea becomes crucial for filmmakers in the way that they are informed through the camera lens. Dziga Vertov’s notion of the Kino-Eye becomes particularly relevant in how we negotiate our perceptions through 5

the naked eye and that of a mechanical one (the camera). Having an understanding of the capture and translation of information through the lens as documentary is crucial in a filmmaker’s ability to create works of fiction and my interests lie in the use of these techniques so far as they enable an illusion of a space that is fiction, perhaps something of a dream.

Carl Spencer is an artist and teacher working in Calgary, Alberta. His past works have explored various aspects of systems theory and process art through the use of video, sound and projection, with a focus on the modification of electronic devices for use in generative systems of art. He is currently working on several 16mm films and a sound project that involves sending audio via regular mail.

fig. 2

fig. 1

fig. 3

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PRESENT ACT & PAST EVENT Kyle Whitehead Interviews Stephen Broomer

Stephen Broomer is the visiting artist for the 23rd edition of the $100 Film Festival. He is a prolific filmmaker, film preservationist, historian and all around fascinating character. His films will be screening at this year’s festival, as will a piece by the interviewer.

KW: Stephen, you’ve grown up and are currently based in Toronto.Your work has a strong connection to place and landscape. Has living and working in Ontario your whole life impacted your process and the content of your films?

SB: My films are indigenous to southern Ontario in general and Toronto in particular, and because much of my work is specific about its environment, the content is often guided by what is immediately around me. I’ve never spent more than a few weeks out of the city.

My process began with Super 8 films shot in aimless walks when I was a teenager. I began to revisit those reels about eight years after I’d shot them, and imposed my maturing aesthetic ideas on them.

KW:You are this year’s visiting artist for the $100 Film Festival.You work with an economy of means, and in the past you’ve stated that your work is self-financed. Given that the $100 Film Festival was founded on a DIY approach to making films on celluloid, at a time when Super 8 film was still readily accessible

and affordable for most people, do you think it is still possible to finish a film on film for $100 today? Does financing your own films afford you any liberties relative to making work within public funding structures?

SB: My films have been fuelled by whatever I can scrape together from teaching, writing, debts, loans, and the generosity of my community, and I’m as frugal as possible. I do think that it’s still easier to finish a film on film for $100 than to finish a video for the same, given how much equipment and skill and time it takes to make video palatable. I say that as someone who works between mediums. If you don’t care about making negatives, or optical sound, or overworking your images through printing techniques, it’s completely possible to finish a film for $100 today, even if it’s just a single reel of Super 8 reversal made in-camera. In terms of liberty, my sense is that the practice of experimental film should always be concerned with aesthetic liberties, to excite and press the bounds of vision. If anything, making works in an impoverished state lessens one’s liberties.

KW:You work extensively with small format film, but your work is not necessarily medium exclusive, with some films finished or existing only in digital formats. In a previous interview, you give the metaphor of video being like pen and paper where film is gold leaf. But in the case of films like Ravine the opposite seems to be true. Do you think its possible and/or feasible for small gauge film to be the pencil and paper, like a cinematic sketchbook?

SB: I’ve only produced a couple of films in pure conditions, made either on Super 8 camera originals or entirely digitally. Almost all of my films pass through different media on their way to either a digital file or a 16mm print.

Super 8 is the root media of most of the film work. In no way has, or will, film of any gauge truly reach the access point that now we have in video, which I’m sure is how small-gauge film seemed when Super 8 arrived. But now every phone has a video camera – there is no cost prohibition to making images. But there 7

Spirits in Season (2013) by Stephen Broomer

remains something wonderfully medieval about the gold leaf.

KW: Films like Serena Gundy and Pepper’s Ghost, among others, are based on a pre-determined set of conventions, systems or strategies, or specific sets of parallels or axioms that exist between your subject, influences and your process. Can you comment on how much of your process is premeditated, and to what degree a project must be realized before putting film through a camera? How do chance operations play a role in your process?

SB: All of my films contain some elements of instinct and improvisation, regardless of structure. This is truer of some than others – in my videos, such as Pepper’s Ghost and Hang Twelve, the relation between maker and instrument is compromised in such a way that it becomes necessary to assemble a system. But even then, we establish rules and bend them. I work in several conflicting methods – and I still just wander around with a camera and shoot what strikes me, which is the method of Conservatory and Serena Gundy, among others. And in terms of chance, much of my later structuring of those films involves attention to motifs, call-and-response, trading fours, and other time-grammars, often working with chance and aleatoric processes.

KW:You employ superimposition quite regularly in films like Spirits in Season and Brébeuf.

Can you speak to the use of this technique and specifically to its ability to de-centre or decontextualize what might otherwise be commonplace or mundane imagery?

SB: Working with multiple exposures, and digital and optical superimpositions, tends to allow me to create contrasts between subjects, but also between forms, lines, colours. In the films where layers and mattes are most dense – some of the more recent films use four or five acts of overprinting – I think the impulse toward abstraction becomes most clear. In my recent film Wild Currents, for instance, the image-relations among overprinted elements bear a debt to cubism. I believe the same is true of Christ Church – Saint James and other earlier films.

KW: What are your thoughts on the notion of a director’s archive, or database? The idea being that any images or content created by a filmmaker is fair game for use in any future (or past) projects. Are you interested in the concept of a personal archive, and of reworking or recontextualizing old images or old films to give them new life or meaning? Do you ever reuse or repurpose old footage into new works? Does a film need to be finished?

SB: I carry that repository around and wear it on my sleeve! There’s some distance of time between anything I’ve done, between the act of making and editing, and there’s always some resonance between present act and past event.

But that’s not to say that I dwell. I rarely reuse materials, though I do repeat gestures and processes. There are so many new images left to make.

Stephen Broomer is a filmmaker and film preservationist. He holds a BFA in Film and Video Production, an MA in Film Studies, and a PhD in Communication & Culture, his dissertation a study of the origins of the Canadian avant-garde film. He has given public presentations of his film restoration work at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Canadian Film Institute, and his own films have screened at Views from the Avant-Garde, TIFF Wavelengths, and the Berlin Directors Lounge.

Kyle Whitehead is an artist and filmmaker, working primarily with small-format cinema, experimental sound and electronics. He holds a BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design and currently resides in Calgary where he spends most of his time in the dark.

DIRECTOR SPOTLIGHT Jarret Twoyoungmen

By Guillaume Carlier

Answer Print asked filmmaker Guillaume Carlier to get together with fellow man-behind-the-camera Jarret Twoyoungmen to learn about his recent production, Morning Star: Îrha, his life and community work in Morley, AB and what may come next for the Aboriginal filmmaker. Along the way, two discussed the experience of speaking English as a second language, discrimination, the work of David Lynch and even the Twilight series. Read on for a look into the experiences of these unique Albertan talents.

GC: I heard that your movie is very dark.

JT:Yeah, it is.

GC: Are all your films about Morley?

JT: The last one we did, it’s about Morley. I wanted to show everyone outside of Morley what its like here, what’s going on. It’s just something that I see everyday. I want to write about [it].

accepted. So I said, “alright, let’s see what happens.” I gave them my idea and my biography and about a week later they told me I won.

GC: So then you rented your equipment through CSIF? Did they help you with a program?

JT:Yes, they helped me with equipment and also with workshops. But it was too late for the workshops. I’m not professional, I just learn whatever I can. Because we’re not professional, we just do it for the fun of it.

GC: I think that’s better. Especially when people are doing it from the heart instead of for money.

JT:Yeah, exactly.

GC: What is the name of this project?

JT: I called it Morning Star: Îrha. Îrha means smile in Stoney.

GC: Do you find it’s the title that comes first, then the movie, or the other way around?

JT: I was going to call it Edith. Until my brother Daniel said, “that’s my ex-girlfriend’s name, why would you name your movie after my ex-girlfriend?” And I said Edith is such a good name, it’s a really good name. He said, “No, it’s not.”

GC: It’ll be the next one.

JT:Yeah, next one. Anyways, I was at work, and I heard someone say, “Morning Star!” to his kid. I just thought “that’s a really nice name.You know what, I want to call it that.”

GC: Explain to me a bit about how you got this together?

GC: So the name came to you. Have people in Morley seen it?

JT: Well, I collect thoughts. I collect everything around here in Morley. I collect stories.

I just see something so negative and I write it down. Maybe I’ll use it in the future. My girlfriend, she helps me write my stories. She helps me get organized with the kids. She’s the one who told me about imagineNATIVE. So she told me to apply for their production grant and see what happens. I did apply for a few grants this past year, but they didn’t get

JT: No, November 6th [is the premiere date].

You should come see it too.

GC: That’s right! You’ll be here?

JT:Yeah, I’ll be here.

GC: I’d be worried, myself. But earlier, I was thinking that there’s a point where it doesn’t matter what you think. It’s out there, people are going to see it and it’s out of your hands.

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Morning Star Îrha (2014) by Jarret Twoyoungmen

JT: Some people said it might be controversial because no one has really shown anything like this before.

GC: Do you care?

JT: I do care. At some point, they need to see.

A lot of times cops just think we’re drunken buffoons. In Cochrane, they just see us as drunken idiots walking around in the streets.

When we go to stores, they’re not going to like us. This one time, I went to this bookstore with my girlfriend and all the kids we work with, and we’re looking at the books. Then one of the clerks came and said, “hey what are you doing?” We told him we were just looking at some books, and one of the kids was a making fun of this exercise book. The clerk told us to get out. We were shocked. My girlfriend got angry and started calling him a racist bastard or something. The guy tried to accuse us of stealing books. We get that a lot.

GC: I’ve seen that. It’s crazy. The only thing that’s causing that sort of stuff is old ideas.

For a lot of people too there’s an us vs. them mentality. On both sides. But how are you going to change that? Is it through the arts?

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Government? Policies? I have no idea. But most people have no idea either.

JT: For me, I learned a lot through my grandma. She always predicted things, really incredible stories. If she saw a really bad, negative thing going on, like someone hurting you, [she would say you should] just leave it alone because sometimes it comes back 10 times worse.

GC: How did you get introduced to film?

JT: Well, after I did some animation in the Winnipeg Film Festival, it won an award but that was the first time I did animation. I just told myself how it began and ended, and then I did it in Stoney. When it showed to the kids, they loved it. One of my friends asked if it was okay to send it to a film festival. I said “as long as the kids see it, do it.”

GC: When you were growing up were you always into movies?

JT: Oh yeah. Every Friday my dad would rent movies, just a whole stack of movies. I love movies so much. I thought they were so real.

Ever seen La Bamba?

GC: With Lou Diamond Phillips?

JT: I thought Lou Diamond Phillips was Ritchie Valens, that he was the real deal. When I saw him on the next movie, on Young Guns, I said, “I thought La Bamba” died.” I thought he was a real person!

GC: Was there ever a point when you were watching films when you started seeing Native Americans on screen?

JT: I think it was Little Big Man. Everybody looks up to Little Big Man. There really aren’t that [many films starring Aboriginals, and most are inaccurate representations of that culture]. Most people disagree [with these portrayals], but it’s also fun to watch them.

You just have to accept the way it looks. Turns out that back in the day, in the 50’s, all the Indian actors were white people. I was looking at one wearing a headband or something, I thought, “why is he wearing that?” It was because it would hold the wig. I just started laughing so hard.

have a story. But now, we do. We have a title too: Jacob.You know, from Twilight?

GC: Nice. They’ll love that or hate that.

JT: I don’t care. I hate that Twilight Saga stuff… I like weird stuff. I was watching Twin Peaks last night. I love David Lynch GC: I like his movies so much because they’re unafraid. I have to admit that there are a lot of bad films out there in the local scene. I think it’s because people aren’t being creative enough. For me, my idol is David Lynch for sure. He’s so unafraid of doing weird things.

He’s so unafraid of being spiritual. He doesn’t always say it or show it, but his movies feel spiritual.

JT: I was so blown away by his stuff when I was a little kid. My dad let us rent anything we wanted. So I just picked that movie when I was 15 or 14. It was the weirdest, creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.

GC: Did he influence your stuff?

GC: Right, it just doesn’t make sense. But now it’s going to be interesting when people in Morley see you film because it’s from here; it’s from the heart.

JT: I tried to make my stuff look like him, but I didn’t know how. I wanted to steal his ideas, like a little taste. A little dark, like Morning Star.

JT: It’s what’s going on right now.

GC: Don’t you find that making a happy ending is such a hard thing to do?

GC: When stuff like this happens, there are always problems of representation. People will want to take it apart. I just want to say, “make your own then.”

JT:Yeah, that’s going to be my answer. Nobody is doing anything here and I’m doing something good here, and there’s someone telling me there’s something I can’t do. I mean, I’ve worked on this for so long I don’t give a crap what you have to say.

GC: At a certain point you’ve made it, it’s done, it’s out there.

GC: So, Morning Star is done. Where are you now with the next one?

JT: It is, it is… We’ve got so many people here with interesting stories. I don’t want to talk about me; I want to talk about them. I want to talk about the kids. They have so much to say, so much to give. To all the racists out there, I want to make them see all the kids. They’re just like you. They drink and eat and walk around, just like you.

Morning Star Îrha premiered on October 23rd at the IMAGINENative Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto

JT: We were talking about making a werewolf movie about three years ago. I still want to get that one done, but [at the time I thought] we couldn’t write anything because we didn’t 13

$100FF PREVIEW Things by Ben Rivers

By Anne Garth

Ben Rivers is best known for his intimate explorations of remote cultures and individuals who have chosen to live outside of civilized society. Rivers refers to his films as “portraits” – quiet external observations of subjects in their own space.

Rather than using commentary and voice over in his ethnographic explorations, Rivers takes long shots of his subjects, using their own actions and routines to expose their character and story. Rivers’ work bears similarity to the Nouveau Romanciers, a French literary movement from the 1950’s. This movement was structured around the idea that the inside thoughts and feelings of characters in conventional novels were falsely given and unrealistic. The Nouveau Romanciers avoided letting the reader peer into their characters’ minds. Instead, characters’ personalities were defined by the material belongings and external elements of their lives. In his most recent short film, Things (2014), Rivers turns this technique inward on himself, focusing on pictures, books and elements of life from within his own apartment to create a portrait of his life as he moves through the year.

In addition to exploring how his material belongings and surroundings represent his life, Rivers examines the effect seasons have on his mood and relationship to the world around him. The film is thus broken into four segments; winter, spring, summer and fall.

Rivers curates different collections of objects, sounds and elements of life into each section while experimenting with different types of film to represent his shift in mood and thought through each season.

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Things opens and closes with the same image of a cave drawing from the Lascaux caves.

As the seasons change, parallels and associations are made with items that have been shown in previous moments of the film. Multiple references are made to Robert Pinget’s French novel Fable. The book first appears in spring, as a woman reads from the first page of the book out loud. The story she reads is a surrealistic account of a man on his voyage home through an apocalyptic world. These repetitions and parallels seem to represent reflections on past moments that foreshadow the future. Like Pinget’s novel, Things tells the story of the artist on his journey through his apartment and life but in a style all Rivers’ own.

Things screens as part of the $100 Film Festival on Saturday, February 28th at Arts Commons’ Engineered Air Theatre.

OUR STORIES, OUR PEOPLE, OUR LOCATIONS, OUR PERSPECTIVES, OUR CULTURE, THIS IS OUR ALBERTA.

Proudly supporting the more than 3,000 talented individuals in our screen-based industry who tell Alberta’s stories to the world.

To learn more about this important industry, please visit albertafilm.ca.

ON THE SLATE PROGRAMMING 23rd Annual $100 Film Festival

February 26-28 at the Engineered Air Theatre, Arts Commons (205 8 Ave SE)

Join CSIF for a 3 day celebration of Super 8 and 16mm films! Includes the Film/Music Explosion! visiting artist talk and workshop with Stephen Broomer, and several new offsite works. More info at 100dollarfilmfestival.orgÂ

Friday Afternoon Socials Every Friday 4pm onwards

Join CSIF staff and members for Friday afternoon drinks at our office- a great opportunity for networking and sharing ideas and information about filmmaking. BYOB or a few dollars to contribute.

Script Club Every second Tuesday of each month, 7-9pm

Bring your script in progress and workshop it with fellow screenwriters. Get feedback, insider knowledge and inspiration. Contact Ben Rowe scriptclub@csif.org for more info.

Upcoming Workshops Documentary 101 with Dominique Keller

April 11-12 Basic Camera with Philip Letourneau

April 18 Shooting with the Scarlet with Aaron Bernakevitch

May 2 Cinematography with Philip Letourneau

May 14 After Effects basics with Mitch Barany

May 30-31

Register for workshops via production@csif.org | 403 205 4747 Call for Submissions

CSIF is always looking for engaging stories by new and experienced members for upcoming issues of Answer Print. We welcome critical essays, film reviews, personal reflections and visual works. Please contact Guillaume Carlier at answerprint@csif.org to get involved.

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