Recent Donation Updates

We want to make note of recent donations from one institution and one individual.
The Hill House Museum and Garden in Washington DC. Has donated a large collection (11,000) slides and slide viewing equipment to the Institute. The collection represents their collection of 19th and 20th century Russian art, furniture, costumes and decorative objects. The collection is housed in 5 slide storage cabinets. A lightbox included in this donation will be great for shooting titles on film. The slides are absolutely fabulous.
Film maker Paul Turano has donated some quite usable Super-8 editing equipment to the institute along with some 35mm film cameras.  The viewers will become part of our Film Camp equipment base. The gear is being inventoried this summer. Thanks Paul.

View of the shooting space in the 301 Gallery.

Shooting film "Velocity" in the 301 Cabot Street Gallery space

The story is an examination of the movement and activities of a man and a woman in the late 19th century. Although they are not acquainted their paths cross over a photographic portrait. This film is essentially a follow up to the Super-8 film called After All which I shot last summer. I was inspired by the work of Rosalind Krauss and Jonathan Crary primarily. They both present a narrative of the late 19th century which acknowledges the importance of psychology, optics,  and phenomenology and the emerging cognitive sciences of the mid to late 1800's. This narrative exists in parallel to the more common story of the linear development of technology and modernity. The characters of Him and Her are constructed to represent two distinct and different experiences of the culture of this time. One is grounded in a Cartesian and measurable universe.  He is an artist who uses his skills and his eyes to render and capture the landscape around him. by contrast, her character is more comfortable with her inner mind and the subjectiveness of her experience. She is also connected to the realm of time, technology and speed.

The actors are playing out their roles more as emblems rather than specific individuals. They are graphically accurate rather than being historically "correct". The film is in 16 mm black and white and will present it's own atmosphere and artifacts to the imagery.

Shooting film in 301 Cabot St Gallery

We have turned the 301 Gallery at Montserrat into a film set for the month of June. We are shooting interiors for a film project tentatively titled "Velocity". Much of The Institute's 16mm production gear has been moved over there. It is surprising how quickly the space has filled up. I do not look forward to the strike and load out. Maybe we can have a party. Here are some stills by Lillie Harden from our second night of shooting.

Next Random Orphan Film Show February 24th

Our next Random Orphan Film Show will be on Friday February 24th at 7:30 pm.
We will showing films from our collection of educational, industrial and narrative films.
Each show is chosen at random from the collection by the first arriving audience members.

It is our goal to present these films in the best way possible while preserving the collection for future study.  Visit us at Montserrat College of Art on Friday February 24th at 7:30 pm.

First Random Orphan Show of 2012

We have moved the Random Orphan Showings to once a month. Last night choices gave us three films. Bleeding and Bandaging, Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge, Orthographic Projection.

Bleeding and Bandaging is a Red Cross film aimed at instruction. It addresses the need for quick treatment of bleeding wounds in the event of a disaster. Obviously made before the advent of the Disaster Film genre, it shows a host of curiously passive victims being treated on location in simulated earthquakes, indiustrial accidents, car crashes or un-named disasters. The wound and blood effects are quite realistic and since it has already become a "pink" film from the fading of the color dyes in the film emulsion, the blood is even more rich and red. Not as frightening as being on the last commuter train after a Bruin's game but it is sobering and poignant in the way people are shown caring for each other's bloody wounds in the pre-HIV world.

Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge is a classic short black and white film based on a short story by Amborse Bierce. Directed by the late French Director Robert Enrico in 1962. Shot overseas, it is an impressionistic film that creates and interesting visual space with with lots of camera movement and extreme closeups. The film won best short film awards at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival and a short film Academy Award in 1963. The film was later purchased for broadcast on the American television series the Twilight Zone. The sound on our particular print was not great which didn't do justice to the post dubbed sound. (I could have over driven the sound on my amp). The post dubbed breathing and amplified foley sounds of this kind of sound film is remniscent of the intense presence and sonic awareness of the Italian Westerns of Sergio Leonie. Great story and I'm glad we have it in the collection.

Orthographic Projection is an instructional film about mechanical drawing of objects from multiple points of view. From the McGraw Hill company which also published textbooks this used simple and well produced animations that illustrate the principles of drawing multiple views of object for manufacturing purposes. There is little else but information here but those of us who had to learn mechanical drawing in high school were sent right back to those shop classes with the t-squares, numbered pencils and compass sets. An interesting elision happens about the word projection since important operations of projection are described but never explained. This I guess, happens in another film. File under; postwar vocational training.

A good show and a good audience.