Fuller follow-up

Marsha Orgeron with Christa Fuller, 3/29/08.
+
Sam's 16mm Bell & Howell.


One of the animating presences at Orphans 6 was Christa Lang Fuller, widow of director Sam Fuller. Thanks to the Academy Film Archive, we were able to screen the newly preserved film Sam Fuller entitled V-E+1, May 9, 1945. Preservationist Mark Toscano also brought along a newly printed color reel shot by the future filmmaker sometime in 1945 (one Kodachrome camera roll, one Agfa).

Christa brought with her the very 16mm camera that Sam used to film these. It was a popular object. After the presentation, lots of fans got their pictures taken holding the apparatus.

It's over! (wah)

(Orphans 6 + 1)


Such a party.

Dennis James plays the grand at an Orphans 6 reception. (Yes, that's the Empire State Building in the background.) Photo: walkingoffthebigapple.com

The consensus is that the 6th Orphan Film Symposium was a success, if the words and smiles of 300+ people from the archival, academic, artistic, curatorial, creative, industrial, technologic, museological, and collecting collective are any evidence.

From the concluding film of the symposium (Helen Hill's Tunnel of Love) to the pies in the face bestowed upon the symposium director/blogger, there was an abundance of love. Much more on events of the symposium/conference/festival of March 26-29 day by day.

Tomorrow we can discuss the possible interpretations of Melinda Stone's newly-penned Orphans anthem "Everyone Needs a Hoe."

A dozen grad. students at the event kept a 'live blog' flowing. Look for it to grow.

blogs.NYU.edu/OrphanFilm

James Bond preps projection prints.
Photo: Priya Sen

It's here!

(o days left til O.)

Here's the tech run-down for the opening program.


Tribute to Helen Hill
8:00 pm • Wednesday • March 26, 2008 • Cantor Film Center

Formats: 35mm (2x), 16mm (13x), DigiBeta (3x), audio CD (1x)
all films = Academy aspect ratio

mic: Welcome, Dan Streible

(1v) Orphans 6 Trailer by Bill Morrison [DigiBeta 3 MINS., sound]

mic: Dan Streible
(2) Interview outtake, Orphan Ist. 16mm, sound, 3 MINS.
(3) Madame Winger Makes a Film 16mm, sound, 10 MINS.

mic: John Canemaker

mic : Bill Brand, Sorensen and/or Resnick
(4) Rain Dance 16mm, sound, 4 MINS.

mic: Peter Limburg
(5) Helen La Belle 35mm, sound, 14 MINS.
go straight to
(6) Vessel 16mm, sound, 6 MINS.

mic: John Porter
(7) Phil’s Film Farm 16mm, SILENT, 10 MINS.

mic: Award presentations Kissel, Courtney
Uman (8) Removed (1999, Naomi Uman) 16mm, sound, 6 MINS.
Kinder (9) Grandfather (2008, Jimmy Kinder) 16mm sd, 3 MINS.

mic: Haden Guest
(10) Mouseholes 16mm, sound, 8 MINS.

mic: Courtney Egan
(11) Termite Light 16mm, SILENT, 3 MINS.
(12v) Cleveland Street Gap DigiBeta, sound, 3 MINS.

mic: Kelli Hix: * Keep mic open for autoharp accompaniment
(13) Home Movie Day New Orleans 16mm, SILENT, 4 MINS.


2 mics: Pistol Pete & Rayna sing two songs (with 1 guitar)
MIC STAND (stage or by piano?)

mic: Kara Van Malssen & Dwight Swanson
(14) [Helen Hill’s Home Movies] 16mm, silent, 5-7 MINS.
(18-24fps, all OK speeds)

mic: George Ingmire
(15) Think of Me First as a Person 35mm, sound, 10 MINS.


#16 is a MAYBE.

(16) [blowup of flood-damaged film] 16mm, silent, 4 MINS.
* PLAY WITH audio CD (Helen’s voice, 2006) 4 MINS.


mic: Kevin & Becky Lewis
(17v) Quacks (1981) DigiBeta, sound, 3 MINS.

* LEAVE HOUSE DARK 15-20 SECONDS, NO IMAGE or SOUND.
Then go straight to


(18) Scratch and Crow 16mm, sound, 4 MINS.

mic: Dan Streible

about the Cantor Film Center

(only 3 days left....)


All of the sessions of the 6th Orphan Film Symposium convene in the Cantor Film Center.


Like most everyone else, in the 1990s the university took this 600-seat art house cinema and subdivided it into smaller auditoria. Orphans 6 meets upstairs (room 200, technically). We will have 309 seats (and the fire marshal will not let person #310 into the room).

The large projection booth will offer us 35mm changeover projectors + the imported Eastman 52 model 16mm projector (the latter courtesy of James Bond and Full Aperture Systems of Chicago). The symposium also will show DigiBeta and BetaSP video (with a swell new Christie video projector), as well as DVDs and lots of computer projection.

We'll even host a live video iChat with orphanistas in The Exploratorium in San Francisco. Apple has loaned us some very nice new Mac technology.

the great Canemaker

(27 days 'til . . . )

As you can glean from this news item -->
John Canemaker has had an amazingly accomplished career in animation, with his 2005 Academy Award, 2006 Emmy Award, 2007 Jean Mitry Award from le Giornate del Cinema Muto, and now a Winsor McCay Award being just the most recent distinctions.

John Canemaker will offer remarks in praise of Helen Hill's animated films at the Orphan Film Symposium's opening night tribute to her work.

Milestone Film and Video distributes a compilation of his work.

Who are the Onondagas and why are they using half-inch open-reel video?

(31 days left 'til projectors roll)

Jason Livingston is a film and video maker teaching at Ithaca College. He found a 16mm film in his parent's closet (how many times have we heard that before?). It turned out to be short a documentary from 1972 called Onondagas v. NYS. This documentary was an early effort of the Ithaca Video Project, which used black-and-white, 1/2-inch, open-reel videotape.


So why does this work only survive (apparently) as a 16mm projection print? Why was it in the Livingstons' closet?

the assassination of Pancho Villa

sábado, 22/2 (32 días mas)

Gregorio Rocha sends this photograph, taken in El Paso Heights, Texas, ca. 1932. The two-camera, six-rifle crew was there to film a re-enactment of the assassination of Pancho Villa. The footage was then added to the extraordinary compilation film La Venganza de Pancho Villa, made by Edmundo and Felix Padilla. The Padillas collected all kinds of films related to the life of Villa -- features, serials, newsreels.

Between 1930 and 1934 they revised the film many times. Their screenings used music from their phonograph record collection as accompaniment.

The Padillas' story is told in two documentaries by Gregorio Rocha, an independent filmmaker based in Mexico City: The Lost Reels of Pancho Villa (2003) and Acme & Co. (2006).

After Gregorio identified the Padillas' lost reels in rusted cans at the University of Texas El Paso library, the Padilla family and UTEP began a process of restoration for La Venganza. The project was first announced at Orphans 2 (2001) by a breathless Gregorio, fresh from the discovery. It culminates on March 27, with the first screening of the restored 35mm film print of the Padilla production. The American Film Institute [Kim Tomadjoglou] has been working on the restoration with the fab labs of Cineteca di Bologna [Davide Pozzi], with the aid of the UNAM Film Archive in Mexico.

For this first projection, a team of students in the NYU Film Scoring Program is preparing a compilation score based on recordings found in the Padilla collection.