Working Within My Limitations: “Who Shot the President”

As I’ve aged, I find it harder to make movies. I don’t have the energy that I had when I was younger. I won’t let that stop me.

In this post, I want to take a look at one of my first movies, “Who Shot the President,” and consider how I worked with my limitations back then..

This post includes spoilers, so you may want to watch it before you read the rest of the post, you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lSTEhH0d4E . The film runs about 3 minutes.

I made two versions of this movie. The first in 1994 on Super 8, and a second in 2004 on 16mm.

Inspiration

While I completed the first version of “Who Shot the President” back in 1994, the idea came to me a few years earlier. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I watched several documentaries about the assassination of John Kennedy. Then in 1991 I saw the movie JFK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFK_(film)

To begin with, I was open to the possibility that there was a conspiracy. But I am also something of a skeptic in general, so I was apt to question what people said. The more I learned about the assassination, the less likely I felt that there was a conspiracy.

This was before I really got serious about making movies. But I began to think about making a parody movie of the conspiracy documentaries that I had watched.

Generating Ideas

Over the next few years, I came up a quite a few ideas for my parody movie. At the time I thought of this as a feature length live action movie.

One idea was to have a character do a blow up of a reflection in a piece of chrome on one of the cars to reveal the shooter. Who would be someone who obviously couldn’t be the shooter.

Another idea I had was an “interview” with one of the co-conspirators to expose the plan. I had several different ideas as to what the interview would expose.

Realization

It was during this period that I began to get serious about making movies. I made one movie on Super 8 (“Weekend in Calgary” https://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/weekend-in-calgary) which was screened at the first $100 Film Festival.

I started to look for an idea for another movie, and I went back to my assassination conspiracy theory parody movie idea. At this point I had managed to make a 3-minute film on Super 8. The ideas I had for my parody movie were far beyond what my skills and finances could accomplish.

The realization made me discouraged and, so, I gave up on the idea.

Reconsideration

Later, though, I went back to the idea. I knew I had the skills and money to do a 3-minute movie on Super 8. Could I develop one of the ideas I had come up with into a movie of that scale?

My first question was to ask myself, what do I want to say with this movie? I didn’t want to just have a joke. It had to have a bigger meaning.

The answer was that I felt that so many of the conspiracy theories used circular reasoning. For example: If there was no proof of a conspiracy, that was proof that there was a cover up. Since there was a cover up, that proved that there was a conspiracy.

Recognizing Opportunity

My observation that conspiracy theories follow circular reasoning fit with one of the ideas I had for the interview with the co-conspirator. The interview would follow the pattern of the old Abbot and Costello “Who’s on First” routine, where the conversation plays off misunderstandings and goes around in circles.

I didn’t feel up to the technical challenge of doing an interview, so I came up with a different approach to the visuals for the movie. I would use a series of stills related to the assassination. As the interview progressed the individual shots would get shorter. I would select these images so that at the end of the film they would create the impression that the screen was spinning in a circle.

The spinning effect worked well on the Super 8 version of the movie, but when I redid the movie on 16mm, the effect wasn’t as effective.

Later, when I watched Chris Marker’s movie “La Jetée” I was struck that he used a similar approach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU99W-ZrIHQ

Making the Movie

Some years ago, I wrote another blog post about making “Who Shot the President.” So, if you want more details on how I made the movie, you can read about them here: https://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/how-to-make-a-film-for-the-hundred-dollar-film-festival-part-3/

Of particular note, when I did the first version, I used a tripod and placed the stills on the floor. This resulted in my doing about 2,000 deep knee bends while shooting the movie. I don’t think I could do that now.

Lessons Learned

The movie was a success from my point of view, and I got a lot of positive feed back from people. I also got physical threats from people who found it upsetting.

However, what I learned from making the movie the way I did was that it was possible to rethink an idea to fit both the goals you want to achieve with a movie and the limitations of your own abilities. In the end, I believe the film I made was better than what I would have made if I had the wherewithal to make the feature I originally conceived.

Another lesson is the importance of having a clear idea what you want to say with your movie. In this case, knowing what I wanted to say helped me focus on those aspects of the movie that carried that message and in a way that I could actually achieve.

I’ve thought of this approach as similar to poetry. The structure of a poem constrains how a poet can express themselves. It is those constraints that encourage creativity.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

How to make a Film for the Hundred Dollar Film Festival - Part 6

In this and previous posts, I looked at how I made some of my films for the festival. In later posts, I will summarise what I learnt from those experiences and suggest how you can make a film.

I made If I knew . . . for the fourth festival in 1995. Like My Next Film, If I Knew . . . was a reaction to my previous film, Who Shot the President. Who Shot the President, although in some sense a simple film, had taken me much longer than I expected. I wanted to do a simpler, easier film for my next project.

The original idea came from a comment a co-worker made. We worked in the forecasting section of Transportation Planning. One day, while we discussed the difficulties of forecasting, she said, “If I really knew what was going to happen, I’d be down at the race track.”

The concept I developed was to have a series of static shots combined with title cards that had a “If I Knew . . .” comment on them. I came up with four titles and then looked for images to fit them.

I ran into some technical problems that made the film more difficult. The most serious was that one of the cameras broke. I lost the shot I had done with it and had to reshoot. That also messed up another shot. I wanted to do a dissolve for one of the images, but the only camera I had access to that could do a dissolve was the one that broke. I used a fade out instead. When I transferred the film to video years later, I took the opportunity to put in a dissolve.

I over exposed the titles and didn’t have time to reshoot them for the festival. Several people asked how I got the “cool” effect on the titles. I was slow to admit that it was just a mistake.

Several people told me they liked the film, although they weren’t sure they really understood the film. I’m not sure I really understand it either.

When I transferred the film to video, I had James Reckseidler do a music track for it. I feel that really added a lot to the film.

I planned to talk about my film Contingency in my next blog, but since I already posted an article on that film, I decided that I would move on to my summary of how I would make a Hundred Dollar Film Festival Film.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

How to make a Film for the Hundred Dollar Film Festival - Part 5

In this and the next post, I will look at how I made some of my films for the festival. In later posts, I will summarise what I learnt from those experiences and suggest how you can make a film.

I made My Next Film for the tenth festival in 2001. I came up with the idea for this film as a reaction to my experiences with my film Line of Taxis. Line of Taxis was my most ambitious film to date and took much more effort than any of my other films, until My Most Difficult Case. 

I wanted to make a smaller, less challenging film. It developed over a period of two years. Initially, I used events from my own projects, but when Patrick Aull agreed to appear in the film, I began to add fictionalized versions of his experiences with his film “All of a Sudden”.

I developed each bit of the script on its own, and bounced the ideas off other people. I dropped the ones that didn’t work and kept the ones that did. Eventually I compiled them into a script.

In many ways, this was one of the easiest of my films to make, but it was not without its challenges. As the film itself describes, I kept the production as simple as I could. I shot in a single location (my garage), used black and white film, and used a voice over for the sound.

My original intent was to have the film as a single static shot of Pat, but this approach didn’t work so well. While it was easy from the point of view of the camera operator, it is more difficult for the actor. Instead, I edited together shots from a variety of takes I did for the film. I incorporated many of Patrick’s suggestions that into the film.

For the shoot, I recorded my own reading of the script, which I then played back to Patrick as we shot the film. After the shoot, I rerecorded the voice over with Patrick. Again, I did several different versions and cut them together.

I shot the film on 16mm film and transferred the film to video where I did a preliminary edit. I used the video edit as a guide to do a cut of the film. I wrote some of the edge numbers on the print itself to help me go back to the cut of the film. If you watch my film Contingency closely, you can see one of the numbers in the shot from My Next Film. I completed the film with a negative cut and an optical track for the sound.

Although I completed the film with a 16mm optical sound print, I believe I could do a similar film today without that final step. As I did with my film Contingency, I could have projected the cutting copy, and played a CD of the voice over, or have the voice over done live.

In my next post, I will look at If I knew . . . , the film I made for the fourth festival in 1995.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

How to make a Film for the Hundred Dollar Film Festival - Part 4

In this and the next few posts, I will look at how I made some of my films for the festival. In later posts, I will summarise what I learnt from those experiences and suggest how you can make a film.

I made The Fence for the fifth festival in 1996. It developed over a period of nearly 10 years. It began when I noticed the fence one day as I rode by in a bus. It caught my interest, so one day I went out and took some stills of it. I thought about it from time to time, but never thought of anything more I could do with it.

When I decided to make my first 16mm film, I was stuck for an idea again. I thought about the fence again. I still wasn’t sure what I could do with it, but decided to take some film of it. Fortunately, for me, the fence was still there and I got some images of it. A few months later I went back and got some more.

By then, I had begun to see how I could use the images in a film. Over the next few months, I collected more images, at different times of the year and different weather. I also shot some of my old stills to get a greater variety of images.

The one thing I feared was that someone would tear down the fence before I finished my film. It just so happened that I couldn’t see the fence until I got to where I shot it. Until I got there, I didn’t know if it was still there. It was still there several years later, but eventually they removed it to build a condominium.

I did a time-lapse shot for the film, but this time I didn’t have an Intervalometer. Instead, I sat there and every few seconds I pressed the cable release. It wasn’t a bad way to spend an afternoon on a warm sunny day.

For the most part, the monologue is a description of how I felt. I did fictionalize the comments somewhat. I didn’t know how to end the monologue and wrote some words as a place keeper. I planned to write the actual ending later. As so often happens with my work, the positive feedback I received about it convinced me to use it, rather than develop a new ending.

When I developed the monologue for the film, in my mind the voice was female. That didn’t seem right to me, so I used Steve Hanon. He had access to recording equipment at his work, so we recorded the sound there.

I finished the film on 16mm with a negative cut and synchronized sound. The negative cut allowed me to do some nice dissolves. The original rules wouldn’t allow this. You can achieve a similar effect with an optical printer, which the rules would allow.

You could make a similar film today without the fancy dissolves and synchronized sound. It would depend on the nature of the film though. If you accept the limitations at the outset, you can develop your idea so that you don’t need them.

The Fence was another successful film for me, with screenings in Calgary, Ottawa, Edmonton, Los Angeles, and Adelaide. More important to me though, was the comments that I got from individual people who saw it.

I noticed an odd pattern. It seemed that most women who watched it liked it, while most men didn’t. As I mentioned earlier, when I developed the monologue, the voice I heard was female. I often wonder how the film would be different if I had used a female voice. Maybe I should try that sometime and see.

In my next post, I will look at My Next Film, the film I made for the tenth annual festival in 2001.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“Some Days . . .” Update - 2012 November 4

I worked on my film “Some Days . . .” this week. I want to submit it for the 2013 Hundred Dollar Film Festival. http://100dollarfilmfestival.org/fest2013/

I originally did the film for last year’s festival, but I wasn’t happy with the image quality, so I withdrew it. I hope I get it right this time.

I took out a camera Tuesday, shot on Wednesday, returned the camera Thursday, and sent the film to the lab Friday. It usually takes about 2 weeks to get back.

I didn’t use up all of the film in my shoot, so I finished off the roll with some experimental shots. Maybe I can use them as a starting point for a new film for the 2014 festival.

The camera I used, a Canon 16mm Scoopic, came with a manual. I’ve used Scoopics for about 16 years and never saw a manual before. I picked up a few useful tidbits from it.

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“Contingency” Wins Award at the $100 Film Festival - 2012 March 11

They screened my film Contingency Saturday night at the $100 Film Festival.

The screening went well. They had a good turn out. They moved the festival this year. The last few years it was at the Plaza theatre, but this year they had it at the Alberta College of Art and Design in the Stanford Perrott Lecture Theatre. The festival was there several times in the past. My wife thought it was a better location for the festival.

The last time I went to the festival I only met a couple people I knew. This time I met about a dozen. I did some promotion of the film, but I only know of one person who came because of the promotion I did. He got the date wrong and went to the Friday night screening.

After the films were finished, they announced the awards. I was very pleased when they announced that Contingency had won the Best of Alberta award sponsored by Calgary Economic Development. That impressed my wife. I got a trophy designed by George Duncan

The host, Nowell Berg (who hosted the first $100 Film Festival) asked me to give a little speech. I said that I knew that while many in the audience were film makers, many others had never made a film. I challenged them to make a film for next year’s festival. I would really like to see that happen.

After the screening, several people came over to me to say they liked my film. That makes me feel good. I get a screening fee for the film. That makes me feel good too.

I haven’t decided what to do with the film next. Ordinarily I would look into getting some distribution of the film (Moviola showed My Next Film), but that requires I get releases for everything on the screen, and that would be a nightmare to do. I've lost touch with some people and I never did know the names of some other people. I haven’t decided what to do with My Next Film either.

I do feel inspired to make another film for the festival.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“Contingency” Update 2012 March 4

I got the picture and sound done for Contingency this week. I used a CD for the sound. It is very hard to get perfect sync with that arrangement, but I think it should be close enough. The projector I used varied between a little fast to a little slow.

I took the film and CD into the CSIF office Tuesday. The festival will screen it as the first film on the Saturday night (March 10). The screening starts at 7:00 p.m. in the Stanford Perrott Lecture Theatre in the Alberta College of Art and Design (1407-14 Ave NW). More information on their website: http://100dollarfilmfestival.org/fest2011/

Melanie Wilmink, who runs the festival, told me she’d like me to record more information about the start of the festival. Back in 2003 (year 11 of the festival), I wrote a short history of the festival for the CSIF’s newsletter. I’ve posted it on my website now http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/articles/the-history-of-the-100-film-festival/ Melanie also posted it on the CSIF blog. http://csifblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/the-history-of-the-100-film-festival/

Over the next few days I plan to do some promotion of the festival, and my film of course.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“Contingency” Update 2012 February 26

I made good time on Contingency this week. I had it ready to take into the film festival office Friday, but then I got the extra film I shot delivered Thursday. Most of the new shots looked very good, but a few were disappointing. My sloppiness I’m afraid. I got most of what I wanted, so I was happy. There was only one shot I debated about using.

I felt the new shots were an improvement on what I had.

I tried to refinish the film Friday. I got all the new shots in, but the recut film is longer. It was only about three seconds, but I need to adjust the sound a little to make it fit. I didn’t have time to do that Friday.

I asked for an extension to get the film ready and they said I could bring it in early next week. I don’t think I’ll have a problem with that.

They have started to promote the festival and posted a “review” of my film on-line. csifblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/more-100-film-festival-reviews-by-tim-zak/ It is only one line long, but he is nice to me.

I showed the film to my wife and she said nice things about it.

I’d reshot my film Some Days . . . as well, but I had accidentally jarred the camera when I was shooting and the image was off center. Other than that, it looked very good. I decided that it wasn’t ready to show. Next year for sure!

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“Contingency” Progress Report 2012 February 12

 

I worked on my film Contingency most of the week. Some of the shots I had in the film were not as good as I would have liked, so reshot them. During the first part of the week, I set up or arranged the images I needed.

Wednesday I went downtown to pick up a camera from the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers. They moved their office just before Christmas and it was my first time to visit it. They have far less space now, but I think they have it more efficiently laid out. I believe they plan for this to be temporary. Temporary can last longer than permanent though.

I shot Thursday. It was a long day and slow work. I had to move the camera and tripod around, but fortunately, I didn’t need to use any lights. Even as it was, my cracked rib gave me a lot of pain. I tried to reshoot my other film, Some Days . . . , as well, but I’m not confident I’ll have a final version from that.

Friday I returned the camera. I sent the film to Niagara Custom Lab in Toronto http://www.niagaracustomlab.com/. I hope I get it back in time to get it ready for the festival. The time is tight though. In the past, I knew Rick Doe, who ran the film lab here in Calgary, would give priority to a project if you asked for it, but not for a 100-foot roll.

The $100 Film Festival accepted both Contingency and Some Days . . . this week. I told them that I didn’t think Some Days . . . would be ready. I have a version of Contingency that I feel is good enough to show, so even if the new film isn’t back in time, I can show it.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“Contingency” Progress Report 2012 January 29

Both Contingency and Somedays were accepted to the $100 Film Festival this week. I felt good about that. I’m sure that they accepted the films on the merits and it had nothing to do with my starting the festival. I decided to withdraw Somedays because I was so unhappy with the image quality. I can redo it for next year’s festival.

I made good progress on Contingency this week. I finally got all my clips ready and taped them together. There are a few things to do before it is ready to show. There is one clip that I think I’ll trim down a bit. Otherwise, I think it is about ready. I’d still like to redo some shots, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to.

I want to make a few changes to the sound track too, which should be easier. I want to have short clips of people talking about randomness, uncertainty and so on. I have a few, such as one from Steven Jaye Gould, but I’m having trouble finding more. I plan to add Trudeau saying, “Just watch me”. I watched a bunch of stuff of Marshall McLuhan, but didn’t find anything that I felt fit. If you know of anything please let me know.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“Contingency” Update - 2012 January 22

I made some good progress on Contingency this week. It was slow going because of my back and arm pain. I’ve collected all the shots I need for the film. I still need to trim a couple shots, but the rest are ready.

I found some alternative clips that I think I may want to use. In particular I found some test footage I’d done to convert Weekend in Calgary from Super 8 to 16mm. I only have part of the film, but for the clip I want for Contingency it would be fine.

I am still concerned about the image quality of some of the shots. I don’t have anything that would be a direct replacement, and I’m not likely to get a chance to reshoot them in time for the festival. I have started to consider a recut of the film to eliminate those shots. I’ll need to redo the sound, or add some other images, which I’m reluctant to do. On the other hand, the theme of the film is how random events affect how something turns out, so changes at this stage would be appropriate.

I use an old 16mm movie viewer that I picked up years ago in my editing. Part way through the week the light stopped working. I don’t know if I can still get a replacement bulb. I tried to work around it, but then I noticed that the power cord looked like it might be broken. It was identical to a cord I have left over from an old computer, so I tried that. That fixed the problem.

Most of the equipment I use is getting quite old and nearly impossible to replace. Every time I use them, I worry that it may be the last time they’ll work. I had a similar experience when I did The Fence. Every time I went to take another shot, I worried if the fence would still be there. Someone removed it a few years after I finished the film. They built a condominium on the site. I had an unexpected reminder of that this week when the condominium was evacuated due to flooding.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Films Submitted to the 20th $100 Film Festival

This week was the dead line for entries into next year’s $100 Film Festival. I submitted my two films just in time. Somedays . . . is a short one-gag film. Contingency runs longer and is an experimental film about the history of the $100 Film Festival. I hope they are accepted.

I still have some work to do before they are ready to screen. I have until March to get that done. Some of the shots I did turned out poorly and I want to reshoot them.

My plan was to do the 16mm films in the same way that I would have done a Super 8 film, but use the work print. I could still go back to a negative cut or transfer if I wanted to later. Now I’m starting the think it might be better to use the CSIF’s optical printer. That would give me a complete negative of the film, so I could do multiple copies.

I’ve never used the optical printer myself, but I went to a workshop on it. I think I can figure it out, although maybe I need to find someone who has to give me some guidance.

The CSIF is closed until January, so I have some time to plan where I go from here


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First Film Shot on My $100 Film Festival Film

After substantial procrastination, I’ve taken a break from my transportation planning stories to work on my short film for the 20^th annual $100 Film Festival.

Wednesday I picked up a camera (a Canon Scoopic) from the CSIF’s new production coordinator Yvonne. It’s been a while since I used a 16mm camera, so I had to practice loading the film. I had a heck of a time with the practice film, but when I loaded the actual film, it worked just fine.

Faltering Steps Forward on Two Stories and a Film - 2011 June 26

The Crying Woman

I did a little writing on The Crying Woman this week. I’m about a quarter of the way through the first draft. I haven’t really filled in the outline yet. I have done most of the easy stuff. My original plan was for a film similar to Before Sunrise. I’ve decided to do it as a short story first.

The idea is for a long conversation. It is a challenge for me to do that. I want to maintain interest for the audience so I need characters they can have empathy for. I think I’ve got two good characters that change in the course of the story. They also both have secrets that they may or may not reveal.

I am stuck on what they will talk about. I know the general thrust of what they want to say, but for most of the story they talk around what they really want to say. I need to come up with topics that allow them to say what they want to with out actually saying it. I did that in the part I’ve written and I think it worked well.

The Gladstone Barrier

I got the first draft of the story done this week. I’ll need to revise it quite a lot though. Overall it is longer than I want it to be, but the last part of the story is shorter than I want it to be.

It has been a hard for me to write it. Partly it is because I draw on some personal experiences. I’ve done that before in other projects, like Line of Taxis, but I usually find a way to distance myself. This is much closer to me.

While I wrote it I started to apply some of the techniques I’d read about writing dialogue. As a result, some of the early parts of the story are really in a different style. I think I’ll need to toss some of the early parts out and rewrite from scratch.

$100 Film Festival Film

In 2012 the $100 Film Festival celebrates its 20^th year. Melanie Wilmink at the CSIF contacted me about making another film for the festival. I hadn’t planned to do that again, but since I have 800 feet (244 meters) of 16mm film in my fridge I decided I’d give it a shot.

I got in touch with Howard Horwitz, who was one of the other filmmakers in the first festival. We agreed to collaborate on a project. We’ve come up with some ideas and I expect that as we progress the project will evolve. I used a similar approach when I made The Fence.

This week I started to get ready to shoot some film. I contacted the Niagara Custom Lab in Toronto about to make sure I could get the film I have developed and printed. I got a bit of a scare, until I realized that I’d sent them the wrong information about the film I have. Next week I’ll be in to the CSIF to talk about equipment. I plan to shoot a test roll first. It has been a long time since I last shot film.

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