Films and Fairy Dust by Cara Morton
It started
with this dream: I am surrounded by lowing cattle. The moon is pregnant,
promising, full. The air is sweet and warm and I am on my back, floating in the
grass, while Maya Deren pulls a tiny key from her mouth again and again, while
Maya Deren pulls a tiny key from her mouth again and again, while Maya Deren
... Kazaam! Hang on a second ... this isn't a dream at all. This is real. I am
on a filmmaking retreat taught by Phil Hoffman on his enchanted property just
outside
I'm fully awake and it's the end of the first day.
Nine of us, eight women and one guy ("the guy on the girl's trip")
have just spent an amazing day playing with the camera. For some it was a time
for rediscovery; for others, it was that first glorious encounter between
magician and medium, otherwise known as the Bolex. Now it's around midnight,
and we are lolling in the grass like the cattle in the field next to us,
(chewing our cuds and watching Meshes of
the Afternoon flicker off the outdoor cinema (the side of the barn). For
me, this is film at its best: fields, forest, cattle, countryside and total
immersion in the process of creation.
I went on the workshop in the first place because I
hate film. I mean sometimes I have to wonder, what has gotten into me? Why am
1 putting myself through this agony? I've spent most of my grant money. I'm in
the midst of editing and I find myself asking, what is this damn film about
anyway? Why am 1 making it? What am I trying to say? At this point those of you
who run screaming from process-oriented work can laugh at me. I don't plan much
(what do you mean, storyboard?). I like letting things happen, letting that
creative, unconscious self reign. But sooner or later that insightful (not to
mention delightful) self turns on me and I'm left stranded in a dark editing
suite with the corpse of my film and that evil monster self who thinks
analytically, worries about money and who just doesn't get it! So, 'round about
May, that's where I found myself. But then, the cosmic wheel turned and I went
on the workshop, hoping to exorcise this critical, anti-process, monster side
of myself. And it actually worked. I opened up to my instincts, started
trusting myself again. (So what if this sounds like a new-age self-help
tirade. Just go with it ...)
`We
Are Going Home’ by Jennifer Reeves (Film Farm Retreat 1997)
One of the first censors to go was the money-obsessed
self-the self that abruptly grabs the camera away when you're trying to have
fun. Now, in the mainstream film world, this may sound subversive, or
certainly weird, but if you can shoot without analyzing every detail, without
worrying about money, money, money ... Imagine! You can experiment! You can try
things, be free with the stock! How? Cheap film! At Phil's we were shooting the
incredible Kodak 7378, at 12 bucks/100 feet. It's cheap because it isn't
actually picture stock, but optical print stock. It's black and white and has a
varying ASA somewhere between twelve and thirty depending on how you process
it. And it's gorgeous: very high
contrast with a fabulous dense grain.'
OK, so we can shoot cheap! But there's
more! Remember Polaroids? At the workshop it became clear to me that I had been
missing that sense of wonder about film-that sense of playing an important role
in a magical process. Thanks to Phil's workshop I got that feeling back. How?
Hand processing. It's better than Polaroids because you can control the process
of development. You can develop your film as negative or reversal, you can
solarize (a personal fave), you can underdevelop, overdevelop-anything you
want-in minutes. Imagine, you wander around the countryside shooting to your
heart's (and wallet's) content and then run back to the barn, where the
darkroom's set up, and process your film. It's hard to describe the feeling you
get when you hang your film out to dry. It's a mixture of wonder,
accomplishment and connection to the medium. And all this for less than one
quarter of what you usually pay.
At this point, you can tint or tone your film with other colours to get
some far-out. moody effects. Most of us favoured the potassium permanganate,
which eats away at the film emulsion.
The Film Farm Barn,
Across by Cara Morton (Film Farm
Retreat 1996)
This
brings us to scratching. lmagine not only not worrying about scratches, but
trying to make them! Nothing, I mean nothing, beats stomping on your film,
rubbing it against trees, rolling around with it in the grass or even chewing
on it like bubblegum (OK, no one actually tried that, but it would be fun,
no?).
These experiences totally changed my relationship to
film as a medium. I became equal to it; no, I became the master of it. No more
God-like can of film handled with white kid gloves: I shot it and I can fuck
with it, and if I don't like it, well, I can re-shoot for the price of a new
pack of crayons. Film can be a truly plastic medium.
Believe it or not, the mythical last day arrives. We
have our final screening (most of us have actually finished a short piece) and
then a discussion. Later that evening, as we are striking camp, the sun is
miraculous, huge and orange, setting over the marsh. It's so beautiful that we
stare, but after five days of total immersion in beauty, we are saturated by
it. It's too much, all we can do is ridicule how goddamn perfect it all is.
On the way home I
realize I've achieved more than I imagined possible. I've found the magic in
film again. My next dream goes like this. I'm in
this article was first
printed in the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers (LIFT) Newsletter. Summer
1996.
From Landscape with Shipwreck (