(Originally published in Cinema Canada Oct. 1988)

        I am a filmmaker trying to make a living from
my own experimental films.  While trying to research
and write an article for Bruce McDonald about short
film distribution in Canada, I was given the
following advice:  "Get a day job.  Make films with
Arts Council Money.  An experimental film cannot pay
for itself."  Is this fact true?

        I agree that experimental films have a bad
name.  Often what is called 'experimental' is
self-centred, self-indulgent, elite, boring, long
and has very little to do with an experiment. Have
you suspected this before?  "My film didn't turn
out, so I'll call it experimental."  If a film is
made for what seems to be an audience of one person,
is it worth the effort?  I understand that short
experimental films are seldom shown.  But short
experimental films are what I want to make.  Can I
make a living from this?  I need to know the truth.

        Tentatively, I increased the speed of the car
to 55 miles an hour.  As I passed the black '86 Camaro
on Hwy. 401, headed to Ottawa, my heart surged with
the spirit of adventure.  The wind seemed to blow
away the smell of mouse nests that the car had
acquired from the long period of time it had spent
sitting in a field.  It also seemed to blow away the
doubt in my mind, imposed by the local rural wisdom
of Teeswater that the '67 Ford Falcon would fall to
pieces, once taken on The Highway.  "The rust, it's
just surface rust," said the farmer who sold it to
me.  I had bought my first car.  This was my first
trip with it.

        But I had other things to worry about.  I was
trying to make an experimental film.  I was three
and a half years into a six-month project.  The 10
minute blockbuster film that was to set the world on
it's ear and prove that I was a great filmmaker, was
nothing but silent animation tests.

        So, on Thursday morning, October 16, 1986, I
phoned the poet Colin Morton (a man I'd never met
before).  I had some money and the San Francisco
Poetry Film Festival was seven weeks away.  "Mr.
Morton," I said, "I'm on my way out to Ottawa to
make a film with you."  He didn't object.

        I realize that there are benefits to short
film making.  First of all, a filmmaker can achieve
100 per cent aesthetic, conceptual and thematic
control over the project.  This doesn't happen on a
feature.  And then, there is a limited budget, and a
limited risk in making a short film.  You can blow a
short film and still work in the same town.  The
problem looks like distribution, but how do some
short films reach a large audience?   Take the films
of Norman McLaren Internationally, his name is most
often included in any sentence containing the words
'film' and 'Canada'.  He changed the world's
perception of film making.  His films are
experimental, short, use the barest of resources but
reach a massive audience.

        As an example, in 1957 he made the 10 minute
film, "A Chairy Tale".  The materials used were: 
one studio, one actor, and one chair.  Through the
process of live action filming and frame-by-frame
pixilation, a man tries to sit on a reluctant chair.
The National Film Board could not quote the audience
the film has reached, but in 1988 the film still
works and is still shown.

        The tick-tick-tick of the engine penetrated my
thoughts.  I was seized by the situation, luckily my
engine was not.  Four and a half litres of oil
later, I arrived in Ottawa on Colin Morton's
door-step.  That night we started looking for
material to make a soundtrack.  I kept thinking
though, "Why did Norman McLaren's films work?"  It
seemed that he was able to take a subject and
analyze it to no end on a micro scale.  The
simplicity of "A Chairy Tale" was that it was about
one man and one chair, but the film, by being so
thorough on the micro scale, actually spoke to a
macro audience.  The film revealed something about
universal "Chairness", "Mannes", and what it feels
like to be sat upon.  By using an experimental
technique, Norman McLaren could show something
common to an audience, in a way that they had never
seen before.   I'm trying to make a film like that.

        That night, we found a piece that Colin Morton
had adapted from a 40-minute nonsense poem,
Ursonate, written by the late German DaDaist, Kurt
Schwitters.  On Friday, over an extended lunch break
from Colin's day job, writing for the government, we
recorded his performance in a local radio station. 
With the soundtrack done, we mapped out an animated
choreography of the text of the poem.  The film was
going to be a very close-up view of the words, typed
onto paper.  These words, through animation, would
become lively, and would dance to the rhythms and
feelings that the poem inspired.

        I took our plans and the soundtrack back to
Teeswater, and typed the animation onto 3,409 sheets
of  paper.  We called it Primiti Too Taa.  The
3-minute, 16 mm film made it in time for the San
Francisco Film Festival.  They bought a copy.  
Primiti Too Taa has since won four awards and has
been shown around the world, even in Zagreb,
Yugoslavia.  Herwig Gayer, my assistant, now has
reanimated the 3,409 pages of typing.  The 35 mm
version sold to the "Spike and Mike Festival of
Animation".

        I am on the road again, driving my car, which
is now painted plaid and am headed for Chicago to an
IMAX theatre owners, convention.  I have a 70 mm
version of "Primiti Too Taa" under my arm, in exchange
for our house.  I hear that IMAX lacks product. 
They have only a little more than 65 films for their
65 theatres.  And the longest film they have is 41
minutes.  This looks like a medium for short
experimental films and a really big audience.

        Next stop:  Chicago

        Editor's note:  Ed Ackerman was tragically
killed in an automobile accident on the way to
Chicago.  He was to unveil the IMAX version of
"Primiti Too Taa".  Mr. Ackerman is survived by his
wife Cathy and his two small children, Zara and
Brandon.  Send all donations to the Ed is Dead fund
to: Teeswater, Ontario, Canada.