Dear Marco De Blois,                                                         Tuesday August 21, 2001   12:06
 

                    Here is the brief proposal of a website based on the film "Primiti Too Taa".  It is in internet form (with hypertext links).  Please pass it on to whom ever you think should see it and get back to me if you need anything else.
 
 

                    Colin Morton and myself are proposing to work with the Cinémathètec québécois, yourself (Marcos De Blois) and/or anyone else within the Archives of Quebec to consolidate our 15 years of records about the film "Primiti Too Taa" into a single independent website.  The purpose in making the website in conjunction with the archives is

1)  To impose an archival structure and archival accuracy to the information presented.

2)  To make available to the archive any materials that they may need for their vaults.

3)  To create a model for future sites to follow (especially future independent film artists sites that
      may be built in conjunction with future government assistance).

4)  Although future government money may be in the form of an employment grant, youth grant,
     training grant or educational grant an archival approach needs to be imposed on the material to
     consolidate our film history in a form that can be stored for future generations and at the same
     time be useful immediately by the world public, scholars, students and educational institutions.
 

About the film:
        "Primiti Too Taa" was born on November 23, 1986 after six weeks of 3,409 frames of animated typing on paper.  It premiered at the  San Francisco Poetry Film Workshop as a modest two person production using an innovative technique.  Animated typing on paper.  The production was made as just a test for a longer film titled "Once Upon a Typewriter" (yet to be completed).

Screenings
Screenings of Primiti Too Taa (16 mm - 35 mm 1987-1989)
Toronto,  Oakville  Rimouski Vancouver Shanghai Peking  Winnipeg
New York Montreal Dekalab San Francisco Los Angeles Richmond Chicago Iowa City Ottawa  San Luis Obispo Madison Pittsburgh St. Catherines Milwaukee  Newport Boston  Kingston Sechelt  Powell River Quadra Island Courtenay  Duncan Salt Spring Is. Victoria  Prince George Kaslo  Osoyoos Nanaimo  Santa Cruz Trail  Kelowna Penticton Hedley  Riverdside San Diego  Long Beach Seattle  Washington Barrie  Guelph  Hamilton Brantford  Woodstock Windsor Teeswater Durham
Owen Sound Sudbury Thunderbay  Anchorage Elk Lake North Bay Pembroke Gloucester Collingwood Elora Peterbourough Bolton  Arcata  Austin  Baltimore Berkeley Billings   Boise  Boulder  Bremerton Cleveland Columbus Tekoma  Denver   Ellensburg Eugene  Hartford Minneapolis New Orleans Norfolk  Northhampton  Olympia Palo Alto Portland Providence Sacramento St. Louis Salt Lake City  Spokane

1988 Zagreb Tour  1988 ASIFA East Tour  1989 Film Trek Tour   1989 Spike & Mike Festival

Festivals
“Primiti Too taa” screened at the following festivals:
San Francisco Toronto Rimouski Vancouver  New York (ASIFA east) Ann Arbor Oakland Oberhausen Cleveland  Zegreb Yorkton New York  Ottawa  Shanghai Bombay

Awards
Rimouski   “Originality of Treatment”
Toronto   Genie Award Nominee 1989
New York (ASIFA east)  First Prize Sound Track
Ann Arbor   $100 Prize
New York Film Festival  Finalist
Oakland   Bronze Apple
 

Reviews
Reviews and Press Coverage
“Animated movie a David against two NFB Goliaths” -Ottawa Citizen
“Nonsensical poetry film nominated for a Genie award” -Teeswater News
“Ed’s Big Adventure....When I was kicked out of Ryerson my career was assured” -Oh Magazine
“Words dance, blip and slide by and their repetitions and permutations create a rhythms delirium” -Boston Phoenix
“Sets 30’s innovator Kurt Schwitters typewriter art to nonsense sounds” -Georgia Straight
“Could be a Genie Award winner” -Walkerton Herold-Times
“a shoe string animation that combined witty rhythmic patterns with a nonsense poem by dadaist” -Globe and Mail
“fummsbo.. booro..funsbowo...Juu Kaa?...to name but a few. One’s mouth wants to join in.” -Cinema Canada
“Primiti Too Taa continues to do extremely well at the festivals.” -LIFT Newsletter
“The concept s boring, and the weak visuals add nothing to an already bizarre poem.” -South Bay
“the word is energy and this piece was energy.  Either that, or a semiotician’s nightmare.” -The Ubyssey
“a three minute animated film that was noted for its innovative approach.” -Imax Newsletter
“A non-conformist’s winning ways...animated film chalks up five awards.” -Kitchener-Waterloo Record
“If you would like to see his film why not ask him” -OPUS Ministry of Labour

Distributors
“Primiti Too Taa”  Distributors
(16 mm, 35 mm, 70 mm, Video, Laser Disc formats)

Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre
CFMDC (West)
Winnipeg Film Group
Animated People (Holland)
Spike and Mike Festival of Animation
Imax Systems Inc.

Imax rentals.
“Primiti Too Taa”
The Hague 1990
Los Angeles  1991
Bradford 1994
Chicago 1994
Vienna 1995
Vancouver 1997
 

                    The film was originally made in 1986, in 16 mm but since then has spawned a 35 mm version and a 70 mm Imax version as well as a sequel and an American public service announcement (Smokey the Bear made with animated typing on paper).  The film has won many awards.  The film distributors are Dutch, American and Canadian.  It has participated in many group film tours.  I have a historic collection of programs, posters and news clippings, magazine articles and academic papers.  This year the film was chosen as part of the LIFT retrospective in Toronto, a 70 mm
screening in Chicago and of course the Canadian Independent animation retrospective in Portugal curated by Marco De Blois.

Internet
“Primiti Too Taa” is already on the following Internet pages:
(If you notice, everything on the internet is in English so far.)
These links were last checked Mon, 17 Apr 2000

Distribution - Imax
  Index
  Distribution
  Education
 http://208.240.89.229/films/distribution/index.html

Distribution - Moving Images
  Moving Images -- Titles                                   not listed for some reason
  Moving Images -- Animation (P through Z)       not listed for some reason
Moving Images -- Subject Index (L)                      not listed for some reason

Reviews
 Best of Festival of Animation reopens the Somerville  April 20 1990
 SHORT AND EXPERIMENTAL FILM REVIEWS

Colin Morton
  Poetry and fiction by Colin Morton
  Their Turn
  UTC Poetry Web: New Links
  SRR3_bios.html                                                  link not working
  At a nameless bend in the river
  Who is first draft?
 Yahoo! Arts:Humanities:Literature:Poetry:Poetslink not working
  Yahoo! Arts:Humanities:Literature:Poetry:Poetslink not working
 Who'sWho's
  InterText v5n1: Crown Jewels by Colin Morton
  no title

Inspiration
 Wiggle Word

Lists
  Primiti Too Taa (1988)
  TEG's IMAX page             no longer maintained  old page here   http://www.geocities.com/TEG2/IMAX/
 IMAX Movies
  The 80s Server -- Movies: Directory for 1988

Screenings
  Sony theatre in NewYork Imax short film festival
  THIS WEEK [NOVEMBER 14 - 21, 1999] IN AVANT GARDE CINEMA

Fans
 Nova Drive
  IMAX® Films

Organisations
  National Poetry Association link not working  new address  http://www.poetryandperformance.org/cp.hello.html
  MAXIMAGE

Required Viewing
"Primiti Too Taa" is required viewing side by side with:
                       The Eye Hears, The Ear
                       Sees An Hour with Norman
                       McLaren by BBC/Garvin
                       Miller, 58 min.
for a Utah film course.  http://www.cc.utah.edu/~klm6/
 
 

              The film is only 3 minutes long.  The film was independently produced.  Distribution of the film is an act out of love and obligation, not money.  The original negative for the 16 mm and 35 mm versions are in my apartment.  I may be moving soon.  The ten year Imax distribution contract is up for renewal, and they have suggested that the renewal price for the next ten years is zero.  Income from distribution of the film is from $100 to $500 per year.  ( I was expecting much more that zero from Imax).

            Colin Morton  and I brought the film into the world back in 1986, and we continue to look after it.  The film is based on the work of the German Dada Poet Kurt Schwitters, who died in 1948 and influenced by Canadian animator Norman Mclaren who died in 1987.

                    Our proposal is to work with the Cinémathètique to mold all of the information we have on the film into a form for the world public to view on the internet.

                    We propose to work with the archives of Quebec to design the site to:
1) conform to an archival accuracy standard (Spelling, dates, names, places) and
2) archival structure (consistent index, footnotes and link methods to other sites) and
3) archival preservation of the actual printing elements of the film, posters, photographs, original artwork, etc.

Budget
                    The structure should be at least bilingual,  (French and English), but because of the history and academic interest, should probably be in German as well.  The German archives should have some of this material as well, but it was made here.  Anyway, our proposal is to build a working model site.  The start up money needed to be a working model site would be $500  for domain name registration and site hosting for the first year and each following year.  Colin Mortin and I would need some money for our time.  Colin Morton is fluent in French and will translate the content.

First year
$500 Internet
Plus two to four months of labour (Colin Morton and Myself).

Following years
$500 Internet hosting and maintenance.
 

                    The bulk of the archival material to get started with is right here in Montreal, and Ottawa.  The rest is spread around the world. at Lift, CFMDC, Winnipeg Film Group, Saskatchewan Film Pool, CFMDC West, ASIFA Canada, ASIFA East (New York), Animated People (Holland), Spike and Mike Festival of Animation (San Diego), Imax (Los Angeles and Oakville).  There is also information and archival artifacts with Stan Brakage in Boulder Colorado, and may be material at the Kurt Schwitters Museum in Hannover Germany.

The first sketch of a site (made for the Portugal film festival to download images for their program):
 http://www.innocentvision.com/primititootaa/

Yours Truly
Ed Ackerman
Innocent Vision