A New Generation Keeps It Reel on 16mm

Local Cineastes Discover Pratt's 16mm Film Archives



This Friday at 9 p.m., the Windup Space in Station North is hosting an evening of experimental film classics culled from the Sights and Sounds Department of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. The hour-long screening, entitled "Sights & Sounds from the Vaults," features short films by Jordan Belson, Stan Brakhage, Denys Columb Daunant, Amy Kravitz, Claude Lelouch, Pat O'Neill, D.A. Pennebaker, Lillian Schwartz & Chick Strand. The programmers are Meg Rorison, Lorenzo Gattorna, and Kate Ewald, who are also the principles behind the upcoming "Sight Unseen" experimental cinema series; supported in part by by a MICA Launch Artists in Baltimore (LAB) grant award, this film series will officially launch July 7th at the Windup Space with a screening of "The Films of Mary Helena Clarke." (More on that later.)

"Sights & Sounds from the Vault" is the latest film screening or film series to feature films from the Enoch Pratt Central Library's outstanding collection of over 2,100 16mm films. Though the collection reflects the general scope of most subject areas and genres, it is highlighted by a concentration in independently produced narrative and documentary films (including many Baltimore Film Festival entries), and experimental shorts.

A number of local cineastes have previously scoured the Pratt's 16mm film collection to find obscure or rarely seen films to screen at their performance event venues. One of the main attractions to these curators? All of the Pratt's 16mm film titles come with built-in public performance rights. In other words, they're free to screen without worrying about copyright infringement/intellectual property rights issues!

Early fans of Pratt's collection include former Maryland Film Festival program director Skizz Cyzyk (who frequently borrowed 16mm films from the Pratt for his Mansion Theatre film series) and Laure Drogoul, who continues to borrow 16mm films for 14Karat Cabaret multi-media events.

Then, in 2009, Miguel Sabogol started the Hexagon Free 16mm Film Series/Magic Eye Cinema Events in conjunction with Mary Helena Clarke at the Hexagon gallery/performance space in Station North (one of the reasons City Paper named the Hexagon Baltimore's "Best Multipurpose Space" in 2009). Around the same time period, Martin Johnson started screening obscure non-theatrical 16mm films from Pratt's collection as part of his NINETEEN23 (named for the year the 16mm film gauge came into existence) film series at the 14Karat Cabaret. (See also the NINETEEN23 Facebook page.) As Johnson told Urbanite writer David Dudley, when talking about Pratt's 2,100-film resources, "I've calculated that I've got ten years of material. Easily."

The material's certainly there for the taking - and free of charge, to boot.

For the record, this is the lineup for tonight's Windup Space "Sights & Sounds from the vault" screening:

PIXILLATION
By Lillian Schwartz
1971, 3 minutes
“With computer-produced images and Moog-synthesized sound, Pixillation is in a sense an introduction to the electronics lab. Its forms are handsome, its colors bright and appealing, its rhythms complex and inventive." - Roger Greenspun, N. Y. Times. Moog sound by Gershon Kingsley. Pixillation won the Red Ribbon Award for Special Effects from The National Academy of Television, Arts & Sciences in 1971.

MOTHLIGHT
By Stan Brakhage
1963, 3 minutes
A "found foliage" film composed of insects, leaves, and other detritus sandwiched between two strips of perforated tape. This handmade and optically printed masterpiece still holds mesmerizing pull years after its initial release.

DAYBREAK EXPRESS
By D.A. Pennebaker
1953, 5 minutes
Silhouettes at dawn set to a score by Duke Ellington capture the beautiful freneticism of 1950s New York City in this early example of cinéma-verité. Pennebaker writes, “I wanted to make a film about this filthy, noisy train and its packed-in passengers that would look beautiful.”

RIVER LETHE
By Amy Kravitz
1985, 7 minutes
In this film named after the river of forgetfulness leading to the underworld, drawings are created from non-traditional animation media including rubbed and erased graphite, pigment, and aluminum powders to make a surface of unusual richness.

7362
By Pat O’Neill
1967, 9 minutes
Incorporating footage of oil derricks in Venice, California and nude models filmed in the artist’s studio, this colorful, optically printed animation features kaleidoscopic shapes reminiscent of a Rorschach test. Synthesizer score by Joseph Byrd.

RENDEZVOUS
By Claude Lelouch
1976, 9 minutes
A single travelling shot through France in the early morning. This cinéma-verité classic is hypnotic, finding beauty in the monotonous forward momentum of the road.

DREAM OF THE WILD HORSES
By Denys Columb Daunant
1960, 9 minutes
Wild horses fight, gallop through water, and run through raging fire in slow motion set to a dreamy synth score.

GUACAMOLE
By Chick Strand
1976, 10 minutes
An experimental ethnographic film featuring Venezuela distinctive for its complex layering of sound and image and the juxtaposition of found footage and sound with original images.

ALLURES
By Jordan Belson
1961, 8 minutes
Belson, a visual musician, creates an abstract film richly woven with cosmological imagery, exploring consciousness, transcendence, and the nature of light itself. “I think of Allures as a combination of molecular structures and astronomical events mixed with subconscious and subjective phenomena – all happening simultaneously. The beginning is almost purely sensual, the end perhaps totally nonmaterial. It seems to move from matter to spirit in some way.” - Belson

OK, now back to the details about how this exciting new experimental film series came about...As Cara Ober wrote in her May 22, 2012 profile for Urbanite magazine, the award was designed by MICA trustee Steve Boesel to encourage MICA graduates to stay in town after graduation and create meaningful projects that enrich Baltimore's communities. "MICA realizes now, more than ever, talent alone will not necessarily lead to career success," says Boesel. "But talent combined with an entrepreneurial, business-oriented focus multiplies those chances."

The LAB program budgets $100,000 for five annual awards of $10,000 each to five MICA graduate students. One of those recipients was 2001 graduate Meg Rorison (Photographic & Electronic Media), who won a grant for her "Sight Unseen" project. As Rorison told Urbanite, "This grant gives me more motivation and opportunity to push for ideas and collaborations that I wouldn’t be able to pursue otherwise. With regards to the future, I am not sure how long I will stay here, but I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon. I love this city and feel very connected to the community here."

Baltimore's better for her commitment; let's hope she, and this series, stay around for a long time.

Related Links:
"Sights & Sounds from the Vaults" (Facebook page)
"Launch Lab" (Cara Ober, Urbanite)
"The Great Ecstacy of the 16mm Film Series" (Hexagon film series)
"Baltimore Hostel's Free Fall Film Series" (HI-Baltimore Hostel series)
NINETEEN23 (14Karat Cabaret film series)
"In Search of Buried 16mm Treasures" (Hexagon film series review)
NINETEEN23's "Future Shock" screening (Urbanite review)

Shorts Circuit

Some of the Best Shorts from Pratt's 16mm Film Archives


Saturday, February 18, 2012 @ 2 P.M.
Enoch Pratt Central Library
400 Cathedral St.
(410) 396-4616

Starting this weekend, the Charles Theatre will be screening "Oscar Shorts" - a two-part program featuring the 2012 Oscar-nominees for best live action, documentary and animated shorts - continuing the annual Academy Award-nominated shorts roadshow started by ShortsHD (a cable TV network specializing in short films) seven years ago. Among this year’s nominees are Pixar’s longest theatrical short, a live action film by Hotel Rwanda director Terry George, and a documentary about Japan's tragic tsunami disaster of 2011. I highly recommend taking advantage of this rare opportunity to see some of the best short films in their ideal environment - a movie theater (as opposed to viewing them on TV or YouTube) - in this, the appropriately "shortest" of months, February.

For those who long to see even more shorts - or who simply don't want to pay to see the ones at The Charles - I recommend checking out the free "Shorts Circuit" film program next Saturday at the Enoch Pratt Central Library. This 82-minute program features nine of the best live-action and animated shorts from Pratt's extensive 16mm film archives and includes four Oscar-nominated shorts and two Oscar-winners in Norman McLaren's Neighbors (Best Documentary, Short Subjects, 1952) and Chuck Workman's Precious Images (Best Live Action Short Film, 1987). All of the films featured at this free screening are available for loan from Pratt’s Sights & Sounds Department; call (410)396-4616 or check Pratt’s Web site at www.prattlibrary.org for more information.

Many of Pratt's 16mm film shorts are commercially unavailable (or extremely hard to find) elsewhere, including Muppets-creator Jim Henson's early live-action student film Time Piece (1965), Stan VanDerBeek's influential but rarely seen collage-montage Breath Death (1964), and Workman's Precious Images (1986). Part of the explanation why has to do as much with the nature of the format as with the market for such films; unlike Hollywood feature films (which are typically produced by a single studio), short films come from various sources and are rarely compiled into anthologies, though Pixar has released a few over the years.

"SHORTS CIRCUIT" Program Guide

SNOOKLES
(Juliet Stroud, 1980, 2 minutes, color animation, 16mm)


We open our program with macabre humor in the vein of Godzilla Meets Bambi in this unlikely encounter between a baby dragon and a baby bird.

TIME PIECE
(Jim Henson, 1965, 8 minutes, color, 16mm)

UNAVAILABLE ANYWHERE ELSE. This early live-action film produced by and starring Jim Hensen (of Muppets fame) documents a day in the live of one man in the urban rat race. While he is in a hospital bed, the typical day of a young executive flashes before his eyes. Realistic scenes cut to wild dream sequences that comment on the reality they interpret. Anticipates the free-form editing style Bob Rafelson would later employ in his Monkees cult film Head (1968). Nominated for an Oscar (Best Short Subject – Live Action) in 1966. Produced by Jim Henson, photographed by Ted Nemeth with music by Don Sebesky.

BREATH DEATH
(Stan VanDerBeek, 1964, 15 minutes, b&w, 16mm)


UNAVAILABLE ANYWHERE ELSE. Stan VanDerBeek, an early experimenter with collage-animation, creates a surrealistic fantasy based on 15th century woodcuts of “the dance of the dead” by cutting up photos and newsreel footage to produce images that are "a mixture of unexplainable fact ... with inexplicable act”; he dedicated the results “to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton." Artist/director Terry Gilliam has cited this film as an early influence on his collage-style animation with Monty Python. In 1975, VanDerBeek became an instructor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), where he founded the digital media center. He died in 1984.

NEIGHBORS
(Norman McLaren, 1952, 8 minutes, color, from 16mm)

In 1952, Norman McLaren was credited with introducing the technique of pixilation with this ground-breaking film that won a 1953 Oscar for “Best Documentary, Short Subjects.” Described as “the most eloquent plea for peace ever filmed,” it’s an anti-war parable that shows how a dispute over which neighbor owns a flower escalates into territorialism, war, and genocide. The film’s climax, in which the men’s wives and children are killed, was originally cut from prints (including the one shown at the 1953 Academy Awards ceremony) because the sequence was considered too shocking to the sensibilities of the time. Animator Grant Munro also acts in the film (he’s the neighbor on the right side of the picket fence.)

PRECIOUS IMAGES
(Chuck Workman, 1986, 8 minutes, b&w/color, from 16mm)

UNAVAILABLE ANYWHERE ELSE. No one captures "the moment" - iconographic images that define a film, an emotion or an era - better than montage master Chuck Workman (pictured at left), the Eisenstein of celluloid flashcards. In this Academy Award-winning film (Best Short Film, Live Action, 1987), Workman presents the greatest scenes from 50 years of film - from Citizen Kane to Star Wars – in eight breakneck minutes of skillful editing. Over 500 images appear in rapid-fire cuts of roughly a second each, presenting the “defining moments” of great films of half a century. Precious Images went on to become the most widely-viewed short appearing in schools, museums, film festivals and movie theaters worldwide. Precious Images is one of five Workman films in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York.


Rosebud is just one of Workman's "Precious Images"

Workman’s montages of Hollywood films are visual highlights of each year's Academy Awards telecast and his 100 Years at the Movies (1994) is frequently shown on cable TV’s Turner Classic Movies channel. Though editing dozens of images a minute became his trademark, Workman ironically also made a feature-length documentary on Andy Warhol (1987’s Andy Warhol: Portrait of An Artist), a man whose own specialty was using only a few images and keeping them there for up to eight hours. He also directed a feature-length documentary on the Beat Generation, 1999’s The Source, and has created movie trailers for Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Paris, Texas.

THE TELL-TALE HEART
(Ted Parmelee, 1953, 8 minutes, color animation, 16mm)

Director Ted Parmelee’s animated adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's classic horror tale of a man who is driven by an old man's "vulture eye" to kill him (only to be forced to confess his crime by the loud, insistent beating of the dead man's heart) comes from UPA, the studio most associated with Mr. Magoo, Gerald McBoing-Boing and Woody Woodpecker. It’s considered a classic in the development of the animated film because of its unusual subject matter, its use of dramatic visual techniques (created by Paul Julian and clearly indebted to the German Expressionist style featured in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), and the effectiveness of its soundtrack, which includes narration by the great James Mason – reason enough to see this film. Incredibly, it was the first cartoon to be X-rated (adults only) in Great Britain under the British Board of Film Censors classification system! Oscar-nominated in 1954 (Best Short Subject, Cartoons) and added to National Film Registry in 2001. For some reason, this short was included on the 2-disc edition Hellboy DVD.

LOVE LETTER TO EDIE
(Robert Maier, 1975, 14 minutes, color, from 16mm)

"I like being a star," says Edith Massey, in this tongue-in-cheek film "biography" which traces her life from a foster home, to a career as a B girl on the Block, a barmaid at Pete's Hotel in Fells Point, owner of the "Miss Edith's Shopping Bag" thrift shop at 726 S. Broadway and to the career which has made her famous across the U.S. - as the "glamorous" star of John Waters' underground films. Written, produced and directed by Robert Maier (line producer of Waters’ Desperate Living, Polyester and Hairspray), it won an award at the 1975 Baltimore Film Festival. Great period footage of 1970s Baltimore shops, bars, and people (including John Waters, Pat Moran, Mink Stole, Mary Vivian Pearce, Vincent Peranio, and LA showgirl Delores Delux).

We end our program with two psychedelic experimental films from the ‘60s...

OFFON
(Scott Bartlett, 1967, 9 minutes, color, from 16mm)


From Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde: “OffOn is a landmark avant-garde film, the first to fully merge video with film. Scott Bartlett’s goal was to ‘marry the technologies’ so that neither would ’show up separately from the whole.’” Made by feeding film loops into a color television channel and filming the results off a TV monitor (at 30 frames a second to eliminate flicker), Bartlett then optically printed much of the footage frame by frame, adding additional complimentary images solely on film. Then, to intensify the weaker colors of video, he dyed the film strips with food coloring.

Bartlett later commented, “There’s a pattern in my film work that could be the pattern of a hundred thousand movies. It is simply to repeat and purify, repeat and synthesize, abstract, abstract, abstract.” Significantly, OffOn opens with a close-up of an eye as if to suggest a new way of seeing. Interesting both for its technique and the implication "of the reality behind the reality we normally perceive",” this film is part of the National Film Registry.

7362 (1967)
(Patrick O’Neill, 1967, 10 minutes, color, from 16mm)


“I was interested in making something that was neither a negative nor a positive but an amalgam of both,” says filmmaker Patrick O’Neill of 7362, which takes its name from the stock number of the high-contrast black-and-white Kodak film commonly used for titles and mattes; this stock became the building block for the film’s special effects, which start with machine-like imagery and gradually merge into abstracted forms of the human anatomy. From Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde: “As they swing to the electronic throb of the sound track, the shapes grow more complex, refracting the oil pump and a dancer into mirrored patterns as they divide and mutate with strobe-light urgency...eventually the line between human and machine becomes impossible to determine. Black/white, negative/positive, man/machine, yin/yang – neither can exist without the other. In 7362, the unity of opposites enters the psychedelic age.” The soundtrack features music by Joseph Byrd and Michael Moore (no, not that Michael Moore!).

Natty Boh Film Festival

Saturday, July 30 2011 @ Fraziers on the Avenue
919 W. 36th Street, Baltimore, MD. (410) 662-4914
fraziersonthe avenue.com

The inaugural 2011 Natty Boh Film Festival was held this past Saturday night at Fraziers on The Avenue in Hampden and featured 16mm prints of vintage Natty Boh commercials (courtesy of Sam Fitzsimmons) - not to mention some Natty Boh DVD rarities from Atomic TV and the excellent documentary Mr. Boh's Brewery by Alex Castro, Harry Connelly and Lyle Hein - as well as live music about Natty Boh (and other quality-of-life essentials in the Land of Pleasant Living) by The Motor Morons, TT Tucker, The Beatoes (a special reunion for the former Baltimore eccentrics whose leader Chris Dennstaedt now resides up I-95 in Philadelphia), Mongolodian Glow, and some related songs by guest artists (at least I suppose so - I wasn't able to hang around for the full night's festivities because my girlfriend Amy had to get up at 5 in the morning for work!).



Although many troubadours took the stage on this night, I didn't hear anybody sing my favorite vintage jingle, the one once belted out in a Boh ad by a cartoon Lord Baltimore: “National Beer, National Beer, you’ll like the taste of National beer.” Though most people associate National Bohemian with the one-eyed Mr. Boh, there was a whole cast of characters in the Land of Pleasant Living and they were all given a shout-out in this song: “There’s Chincoteague oysters and crabs and clams, and fried chicken and Virginia hams, and while we’re singing, we’re proud to say, it’s brewed on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.”

Likewise there was quite a cast of local characters on hand for the evening's festivities because in the Land of Pleasant Living and National Beer, "good things happen when you put the two together." I spotted Skizz Cyzyk, Bob Wagner, Teresa Dugan, Liz Abeth, John Ellsberry and even Ellsberry's erstwhile Dork Brothers (and former City Paper and New York Press art director) pal Michael Gentile, who was back in town from NYC for the occasion.


DORK BROS: John Ellsberry and Michael Gentile

But before the films came the tunes...

Down the Beatoe Path: Chris D. Returns to Charm City


The Beatoes open their tab at the Natty Boh Film Festival

First up were The Beatoes, featuring Chris Dennstaedt (Poverty & Spit) on guitar and vocals...


Chris Dennstaedt

...Charleigh Chadwick (The Livers, Pornflakes) on guitar...


Charleigh sez: "Love my Good 'n' Plenty!"

...Chris "Batworth" Ciattei (Go Pills, etc.) on drums and Mike Kiker (of Philly's St. James and the Apostles) on bass.

I really liked Chris D.'s t-shirt that said "Big Man Music," a reference to his dearly departed friend (and former Beatoe) Mark Harp (Mark "Harpo" Linthicum); my girlfriend Amy Linthicum (Mark Harp's former wife) certainly got a "big" kick out of it as well!


Big Man musician Chris and little music lover Amy

It was the first of two shout-outs this night to The King of Peru (who passed away before his time in 2004), as Sam Fitzsimmons ended his Motor Morons set by crying out his name and holding up Mark's guitar. It made sense on this night of remembrance of good things past, for Harp was every bit a part of Baltimore lore and legend as Mr. Boh (whose namesake libation is now brewed out of town by Pabst).

The Beatoes opened with "Beer Drinkin' Woman," an obvious homage to Mrs. Boh, aka "Natalie Boh" (doh! - if only Amy had remembered to wear her Natalie Boh t-shirt this night!).


Mrs. Boh: Beer Drinkin' Woman

Watch the Beatoes play "Beer Drinkin' Woman."


Next up was "Polyester" and "12-Bar Blooze" and probably some other tunes I should know (but the sound mix at Fraziers was a little, how should I say, funky?).

Watch the Beatoes play "Polyester" and "12-Bar Blooze."


Anyway, following are some Beatoes pix I took before running to the back bar for a Boh (oddly priced at $2.20 a can - obviously feeling the effect of the new city beverage tax hike). Oh, I also made a quick stop in the Men's Room, where I had to agree with this thought-provoking graffiti:



OK, back to the Beatoes...


"Hey Charleigh, how do ya hold this stringy thing???"


"Like this???"


"How about like this???"


"I see...ya lift it upright like this!" Chris D. says as a disgusted Charleigh Chadwick turns his back on him


"I see - you sling this thing over your hips!"


"Got it! Under control now! Ready to rock!"


"I'm so happy to be here, I'm glowing!" Chris effuses.


"Is it just me, or did someone turn on the infra-red light? We really must be cooking tonight!"

On with the Boh Show

And now for a word from our sponsors...



After the Beatoes finished their set and broke down their gear, a big screen was set up and the film screening started. Although there were some technical difficulties with the 16mm films that came from Motor Morons bassist Sam Fitzsimmons' private collection (the projectors were provided by Hampden's own audio-visual specialists, the Falkenhan's Audio Visual Service over on 34th and Chestnut Avenue), everyone enjoyed the vintage National Bohemian commercials that were screened.


The Fraziers crowd is mesmerized by the Natty Boh films


"Hey, we're turning black and white like these Natty Boh ads!" Skizz observes, while Amy quips "In that case, I hope Liz and I turn into animated dancing clam shells - though I'd be tempted to eat myself!"

As a backup, someone called former Senator Theatre owner (and current candidate for Baltimore City Council President) Tom Kiefaber to give a hand with the the screening, and Tom brought along a DVD of ads taken from the Atomic TV public access television show's "Atomic Cocktail Hours" episode as well as from the Mr. Boh's Brewery documentary - some of which I had never seen (like the French chef cartoon with Frenchy serving Mr Boh the "wet, cold and delicious" brew from the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, a Preakness Stakes Boh ad, and the dancing clamshells of Maryland's capital, "Clamapolis"!).























I hope the Natty Boh documentary becomes available soon on DVD, because it promises to be chock-full of "extra feature" goodies like these vintage ads (the film transfers look beautiful!). Until then, this Atomic TV sampler will have to suffice:



Watch ATV's "Classic Natty Boh TV Commercials."


The Motor Morons

Next up were The Motor Morons - Jeff Bridges lookalike Sam Fitzsimmons on bass and vocals, "Wild Bill" Hagy lookalike Craig Stitchcombe (Judie's Fixation) on the skins, TT Tucker (Tom DiVenti, whose Baltimoronic pedigree goes back to late '70s punk rockers Da Moronics) on the guitar, Fred Collins on machines and vocals, Blade on vox and firestarter device (?) - who took to the stage in pitch darkness, all the better for the sparks to (literally) fly during their incendiary metallic K.O. set! Though the Morons have played just about every venue in Charm City over their long existence, I've most associated them with the annual SoWeBo Festival, where they've been absent the last several years; so it was good to see them back in a setting where their genius was once again fully appreciated.


Motor Morons make merry metallic music mayhem!

The Morons opened with "Another Girl."

Watch Motor Morons play "All You Want Is Another Girl."


I'm not as adept as Amy when it comes to discerning which Motor Moron song is which, but I'm pretty sure I heard "Urinal Cakes" and "No Brakes" in there, and probably "Big Truck."

Watch Motor Morons make more music mayhem.


Following are some Motor Moron pix I took.























Unfortunately, the Morons set was the last tune-age we would hear for the evening, as Amy had to get up early the next morning. But I'm glad Amy was there to hear Sam Fitzsimmons bid adieu to former Motor Moron Mark Harp (circa 1998-2004), holding up Harpo's 4-string guitar as he shouted "Mark Harp!"

Watch Motor Morons say goodnight @ Fraziers.


On the way out, we ran into Amy's friend Robyn Webb, who was playing pool in the adjacent room. We exchanged chit-chat about spotted dick and mushy pees - er, peas - since we all love British pub food (though Amy and I didn't discover spotted dick until we "spotted" it next to a packet of Asian "Cock Soup" in the Dundalk Giant's International food isle).


A blurry Robyn Webb and Amy Linthicum say goodnight as my camera battery runs out

What a fun night! But I have a question for the folks at Fraziers: since former milltown Hampden is becoming increasingly upscale and well-heeled, can we expect a National Premium Film Festival anytime soon? It was the "classy" beer of choice in this town for many years. Expensive? Yes. Extravagant? No.

Related Links:
Natty Boh Film Festival set on Flickr
Natty Boh Documentary
"Boh & Utz: A Love Story" (Smythe ad)
Atomic TV's "Classic Natty Boh Commercials"