Regina
26+ HD video sketches, 1-2 minutes each, 2012
Composite half hour experimental project, in progress
I've always been interested in the "city symphony" films such as "Man with a Movie Camera", "Manhatta", and "Berlin, symphony of a city" as well as the more contemporary "Undivided Attention" by Chris Gallagher, but had never put any effort into making such work myself. In 2011, I assigned my students in my experimental film course to create short, silent city symphony films, each to be shot here in the city of Regina in Saskatchewan. For the most part, this project yielded uninspired results, even though the students were quite hard working and capable. I was going to discontinue the project in future years but decided instead to challenge myself to do the project I'd asked others to do. Following the same guidelines, I endeavored to create silent videos, each about a minute or two in length, which used the city of Regina as subject matter while exploring some formal aspect of video. Some of these explore resolution, editing, colour correction, reproduction, artifacts, repetition, tilt focus, pin holes, time exposure, step printing, and composition. I found that I frequently became interested in construction or demolition sites, places of change. Having grown up in this city, I felt that change was very slow. Perhaps as a sign of my age or a sign of the times, but change now seems rapid and out of control. I posted these videos onto Vimeo each Thursday during my six month sabbatical, accompanied by temporary soundtracks drawn and distorted from my recordings of violinist Jeff Looysen. Beyond the sabbatical, I slowed the creation of new work, but have not stopped. Students in the following semester, probably due to my clearer understanding of the project myself, created more adventurous and inspired videos.
A longer project, interweaving the existing footage along with additional and ongoing new footage, is in progress.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | ||||