| Length: 5 to 15 minutes
Main Project: The completion of a Canada Council A Grant (1998), finished to a minimum output of a video with sync sound. Materials: Original Still photographs Method: 35mm motion picture film will be shot on the animation of still photographs and of photographs on a computer monitor. The resulting 35mm film will be hand processed. Sounds will be recorded onto 35mm mag stock and synchronized to a 35mm picture. Premixing and maybe all mixing, will be done on computer. Note: The animation (or movement of the still photographs) in this project will entail manipulation of the 35mm film through hand processing in sync to the sound track and the synchronizing of the sound track to match the hand processing effects. The grain, contrast and exposure effects created in the hand processing will be designed to match the emotion and content of the film. Intent: This film will be unique in it's treatment of the process of developing film, in relation to the process of constructing memories. Subject: Photographs taken by Frederick Clardy (my Grandfather) in the1930`s. The photographs exist only as small faded paper prints. There are no original negatives. Most of the photographs have already been scanned into a computer, and have been retouched and arranged into a book narrative of pictures and text. The collection of photographs and story in book form at the moment is TOO personal and self serving. This is to be expected and is normal for most `Family Histories`. If all goes to plan, the animation that will happen at Quick Draw will lead to a film that will transcend the personal story of a single family. The film will speak to the fleeting, ephemeral existence of both `life` and of the `photograph`. The connection between, the photograph of a person and the death of that person is inescapable. With every photograph taken of a person, time stops. The person ages and dies. The photographic record remains potentially eternal. With every photographic click, there is the click of death. Is this morbid? This family history ends in death. The end of the family. The end of the family that existed only around the posed pictures of a young mother, two children and the shadow of the father; the photographer. Though a shadow in most of the pictures, the father is the spirit and flame of the family. At the beginning of the Great Depression working as a chemist near Pittsburgh Pennsylvania the father progressed from being an amateur photographer to an artist. The entire life's work of art became the preservation of his family in a photographic record, as his family disappeared, in front of his eyes. The children were only age 3 and 5 when their mother died. On the day of the beautiful portrait of Nellie laid out among her funeral flowers, Frederick lost his family and lost his photography, forever. This is the way of all photography and of all human history. The photos that exist of dead people will only outlive the people for a short time in the grand scheme of things. Photographs die too, they are not etched in stone. The human spirit exists before the physical body. The human spirit exists before the mixture of silver halide crystals is excited by light and captured on paper or celluloid. The human spirit in the end however transcends photography. We know who build the pyramids, without having to see a actual photograph of them. Equipment: 35mm Oxbury Animation stand
Space:
Quick Draw washroom for minor 35 mm hand processing.
Informal Member Workshops: Every Saturday, all day, specializing in Film Editing, sound transfer, sound editing, hand processing and synchronizing sound with picture. Synchronizing 35mm mag sound with drawing on film. Making a hand processed slash print. Show-and-Tell: Introduction July 13 2002
Secondary Projects: Organization of my life's work onto a few video tapes. Drawing on Imax film. Various little experimental animated pieces along the way. Submitted to QuickDraw
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