Post-Invitational
Wow. There is good reason that this is such a popular event. Those films were entertaining, exciting, experimental, engaging... I could go on. My absolute favorite was "You Come Home to This, Portland, Oregon" by Orland Nutt. He animated hundreds (thousands?) of still pictures of Portland homes, emphasizing certain design elements that the homes have in common. That sounds simple, doesn't it? It was simple, I suppose. But it was poetic and beautiful.
There were a bunch of other films worth commenting on, but I'm no completist. I will leave the detailed reviewing to DB, who will do an admirable job with that, I'm sure.
The night ended on a very strange note, as Ted Passon went up front and gave an extended introduction to his film. He described the intense affinity he discovered he had with fellow filmmaker Vladimir. He had seen her work the previous year, and claimed to discover that he was actually Vladimir, trapped in the body of Ted. His film consisted of a clip from The Little Mermaid, with Passon's head pasted over the Mermaid's. And we all sang "Part of Your World." Experimental, baby! And also fun.
But then I went home, not to the victory party at Rake Gallery, where the winner of the audience vote was to be announced. So, this is the reader participation part of our program. Please tell us who won, and anything else interesting from the party at Rake, in the comments. Goodnight!
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According to Matt, it was a stunningly tight contest. There was a 13-filmmaker tie for second place! I love this ceonceit of the festival. The winner?
Julie Orser!
More on the films later.
I too enjoyed Orland Nutt's piece. I wonder how long it took the audience to see what was happening in the piece, rhythmically. It took me awhile before I realized that the film had moved on from using the doorway as a static framing point and into using the porch front, then the roofline, then hedges, then large trees, etc. I think this film could still use a bit more work, as I think the film could be even better, the rhythmic focusing even more hypnotic and dancing. I thought of the phrase "selective focus in 4-d" while watching.
I also think perhaps poetry could have gone on throughout, not just the very opening narrator voice which we don't hear again. I think a soft subtle poetry could exist quite nicely with the visual dance, especially because I think the film was too long. I also didn't like the music, far too ordinary ambient techno stuff.
Still, probably the most artful piece, though many were good, Karl Lind's with the floating electric bitmap hearts on top of a Super-8 Lionel Richie music video loop, with the subtle dj-ing of frames a la "Life Wastes Andy Hardy." The image quality of every frame I thought was very beautiful, though the end didn't do much.
The next to last film with the scratched leader photoshop'd either within human figures' shapes, or only leaving the figures' shapes was nice. I know it was meticulous Photoshop work since I sat next to the filmmaker and she told me. It was also her first film.
Julie Orser's montage piece was good. I do an exercise with my film students (mid and high school) where they are asked to do just that kind of editing, bouncing ball and all. Straight from Soviet montage theory.
The ocean water experiment was good, though I wish I had more info on the process. I like the displacement of the sound from picture, which i imagine is the result of being true to the optical soundtrack's physical displacement on the filmstrip which is typically corrected for in most films. Still, the Portland Houses piece (Nutt's) was like this but a notch further, locating design within an abstract onslaught.