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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 18, 1973)
celluloid The other side This past summer, while the rest of us fumbled around trying to scrounge up the price of another ticket, several dedicated University film freaks went out and changed their relationships with the medium. They became producers rather than consumers, artists rather than audience. The problems they faced gave them a new awareness of what movies involve, just as Nicholas Ray told us when he appeared on campus last spring. As a matter of fact, it was Ray’s statement that everyone in terested in watching movies should try making them that first determined Norm Hale to step behind a camera. He came up with a basic story idea, then got Tom Hyde to join him in creating a 16mm silent black-and-white film. The two English grad students borrowed camera, tripod and light meter from an obliging faculty member, figured out which end of the camera was the eyepiece and which was the lens, and shot their first roll of film as a test. The quality was good enough that they went out on the next available weekend and snot uieir entire film in one exhausting day. The film tentatively titled The Soft Pedaller, revolves around a man, a woman and a tandem bicycle. The two actors are friends of the directors, but the bicycle had to be rented. The first problem Hyde and Hale faced was one of logistics—how to move all the people and equipment (two regular bicycles were also needed) from one location to another as quickly as possible. They also discovered that as they worked they followed the script less and less closely. They shared camera duties so that each could get on film the shots he could not explain verbally to the other. Asked how they’d change their approach to the next film, Hyde and Hale said they’d use a looser script, take more time planning camera set-ups and angles and shots, and take more cut-away shots for use in editing. The experience made them both more conscious of composition and the cameraman’s contribution to films they see, and far more respectful of camera work which manages to remain unob trusive. Jerry Higley was using 8mm color indoors for his venture into film-making, but his experiences brought him to a similar new ap preciation of films he sees. He now feels film-making is more creative in many ways than poetry writing, which was one of his central in terests just a few years ago. And he has come to this conclusion despite participating in a highly democratic filming process, in which he ended up as just one of six people working together—actors, writers, crew. Higley came up with the original conception, based on a short story published in an anthology of American fiction, but a friend whose area of interest is still photography ended up adapting the script. Another friend became the drama coach, and Higley found himself in the classic directorial role of coordinator and resolver of problems. Where Hyde and Hale found their first big problem was getting everything in one place for shooting, Higley’s first problem was to realize that although his action takes place in one house, he could split the shooting up into several houses, in order to get the right rooms. He also discovered mobility in his camera work—at first he depended on a tripod, then he switched to a hand-held camera for flexibility, and he finally ended up with all three legs of his tripod held together to form a kind of “unipod,” which gave both more stability than the hand-held approach, and more flexibility than the tripod used in the standard fashidn. Higley was fortunate also in having more than one camera available, in having the basic photographic and lighting knowledge of his friend, Jon Peterson, and in having the time to spend to get his scenes right—he spent a whole half day shooting a two-minute scene. KASH RADIO PRESENTS Cheech & Chong with special guests AirtO "formerly with Deodato & Miles Davis" Sunday, Oct. 21, 7:00 pm Lane Community College Tickets: *3.50 advance *4.00 at door Available at: LCC Information Desk Sun Shop EMU Main Desk Crystalship Meier & Frank A Double Tee Production But like Hyde and Hale, he found careful scripting hampered nun more than helped, and it took him a while to develop the flexibility and the crew rapport that he has learned to appreciate in professional work. From his experience editing, shooting and writing, Vahe’ Man sourian could have told both these groups of film-makers that they needed responsive scripts. As a matter of fact, he and Eric Bellman spent last spring concentrating on just that—now they have a script for a half-hour film, designed to be adapted to the locations Man sourian eventually decides to use for the filming. But he, too, came up with problems this summer—the lack of $5,000 to rent equipment, buy film, and have lab work done. Unfortunately, Mansourian has no past financial successes to show a potential backer, but only a certain amount of experience, a script, and the possibility of getting help from film-making friends like Steven Hall of the now-defunct Film House. The film-to-be is titled Alien-Nation, and is a fantasy along science-fiction lines which Mansourian says cannot really be related to any other film he’s seen in any general way. It will be shirt in 16mm color and sound, will need three major actors and about 35 extras, as well as a crew of six besides Mansourian himself. While he searches for backing, Mansourian is hoping to work out some of his visual ideas in Dave Foster’s cinemagraphics class (a campus hotbed of visual excitement), and is also keeping his eye on the American Film Institute. The AFI gives awards of about $200,000 a year to film-makers whose projects they find worthwhile, and though the competition is terrific, Mansourian refuses to give up hope. Some of what Mansourian is trying to do has already been ac complished by Bob Willig, who got East Coast backing to put together a 16mm sound black-and-white film, in what was truly a learning experience. He shot 4200 feet of film, which has since been edited to a rough cut of 1000 feet, but Willig hopes to shorten it still further, to about 600 feet. He decided to go the sophisticated route, in order to get the best quality he could, and he discovered that the attempt led to the same kinds of problems that Hyde, Hale and Higley faced, with one difference—his problems were more sophisticated. Willig’s major problem was having too small a crew. He found himself doing camera, sound and direction on some shots, which was too much even for someone as energetic as he is. His schedule in corporated two and a half hours of shooting spread Over a full week of moving from location to location, solving set-up problem after lighting problem after angle problem. He even discovered casting problems he didn’t anticipate when one of his three actors decided to go camping instead. All of this was on top of dealing with a rip-off rental agency which charged him over $800 for a week’s rental of his equipment, nice as it was. In other words, despite his avid reading of the best how-to books, and his daily attendance at some of the world’s best movies, he was not as prepared as he thought he was. He ended up being more con cerned with questions of continuity than with the different technical factors he had studied. Like so many other film freaks before him, he has come down to the basic question that plagues us all—just exactly what are the movies? Hyde, Hale, Higley, Mansourian and Willig can all agree on one thing after their summer struggles—the more you learn about the movies, the more you discover you don’t know. Coming Soon So now you’ve seen Last Tango in Palis, and you found it quite interesting, and you can talk about it with everyone else, because everyone else has seenit, too. You may have seen The Conformist, too. But were you aware that professional film-makers all over the world find Bertolucci’s earlier work, The Spider’s Stratagem, to be superior to both of these as a film? Genius is at work on the screen! See it, absorb its psycho-emotional visual impact, this Friday at 7 p.m. or 9:15 p.m. in 150 Science, or on Sunday at 8 p.m. in the University Theater. Pierre G. Dunn ★★★★★★ folk concert THE WICKHAMS and Caster’s Last Band friday oct 19 emu ballroom 8 pm $1 adult 50* children sponsors: cultural forum & u. o. folk music club THE °°*N BEAT Featured Band All Week Gin Jenny 959 Pearl, Eugene doted Mondays Ode to fay M Opens 7 Morin 7 JO-9 JO SIDDIIAKTHA is an exquisite movie. —REX REED, Syndicated Columnist A NOVEL BY HERMANN HESSE ( A FILM BY - CONRAD ROOKS m HELD OVER! Open 7 Movie 7; 30-9.-30 DAILY MATINEE Thru Tuesday The film makers who brought you A TASTE OF HONEY and TOM JONES now take pride in presenting... PETER FINCH RITA TUSHINGHAM «, GIRL WITH GREEN EYES A WOODFALL FILM distributed by LOPERT PICTURES CORPORATION Doors open: 1:00 p.m. Show: 1:30 All seats: $1 MATINEES-COMING Oct. 24-30 DASSIN'S “Phaedra” Oct. 31-Nov.6 SCHLESINGER'S “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” VALLEY RIVER TWIN 686-6633 Now Showing THE NAKED APE phis LOVE A OTHER STRANGERS Phone for show time VALLEY RIVER TWIN 686-8633 Now Showing AMERICAN GRAFFITI Phone for show time EUGENE DRIVE-IN 776-7412 CHARLES BRONSON THE STONE KILLER PLUS THE LOVE MACHINE free car heaters WEST 11th TWIN DRIVE-IN 342-4142 THE HARRAD EXPERIMENT plus BOB. CAROL, TED, A ALICE _Free Car Heaters
