Persistence of Vision

On my Mac's hard drive, there is a folder entitled 'List of projects, real, imaginary and some that will never ever see the light of day'. It's exactly that - a long list of titles for film projects, sourced from old scrapbooks, diaries and random scribblings, all the ideas that I can remember having, no matter how bizarre, stupid, crazy, smutty or downright morally reprehensible they might be.

The reason?

Well, one day not so long back I felt the need to compile this list of potential projects to remind myself of the ideas I've had over the years and hopefully kick start a much needed period of creativity. Now that I have decided to dedicate myself to writing, some of these former ideas are proving useful (for example, a story in the works that I've provisionally titled The Boy Of My Dreams is based on a film idea I had in the mid '80s).

Please don't get the wrong impression - I was never a professional 'film-maker'! True, I used to tinker about making little animated doodlings and such on Super 8 stock, but I was no Derek Jarman. (Or Michael Winner, thank the lord). I was interested in film from a young age - or perhaps more specifically the cinematic experience. The sheer spectacle of the original Star Wars and Superman blew me away in the late seventies and I think I've seen Superman II  more times than any other film at the cinema to date. The criminally under-rated Dragonslayer and technically stunning Poltergeist scared the hell out of me. And then, when puberty hit, I expanded my cinematic horizons to include gay themed dramas: Another Country, My Beautiful Laundrette, Caravaggio and RW Fassbinder's sweatily erotic and intellectually baffling Querelle were among the many titles I greedily consumed.

In the mid to late 80s I frequented the twin centres of filmic goodness, the Penultimate Picture Palace and Not The Moulin Rouge in Oxford, both showing crazily eclectic double bills in their shabby interiors; sheer bliss for a young cinephile. (By the way, the Penultimate still exists as the Ultimate Picture Palace, but sadly Not The Moulin Rouge was demolished in the early 90s to make flats - it was indeed a sad day. Here is a good site about the former cinema). On heavy rotation in these palaces of flickering wonderment were such classics as Midnight Cowboy, Annie Hall, The Seven Samurai, Harold and Maude, anything by Fellini, Pasolini and Visconti and of course, the queen of cult movies, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I was fascinated by the film medium, not only as a storytelling tool, but also the technical aspects of creating movies. Lighting, camera angles, sound, music (separate blog entry for this subject in the works) and especially editing all interested me. Then I finally got my hands on a Fuji Single-8 camera in the late 80s, which gave me the opportunity to create my own mini-masterpieces. While I loved the shooting of film, the editing process was the aspect that truly fascinated me; how raw footage could be put together in a way that could create an impression and yet cut in a different way could create something quite different. (This is me doing just that). And of course, the role that special effects played in creating illusions; needless to say mine were extremely low-tech smoke and mirrors stuff usually involving - well, literally smoke and mirrors.

But it was a pricey hobby and one that I couldn't sustain, especially after I left home. However, once I moved to Wales I succumbed to video as a cheap means of creating movies and I made some little visual experiments. They still exist on numerous Hi-8 tapes, which, now I have iMovie on the Mac, I intend to digitise and use in future filmic creations. Coming soon to a YouTube near you!

As far as the cinema goes, I still go as often as I can and supplement it with old, new and rare titles rented from LoveFilm.

And of course the list mentioned above will continue to inspire my written efforts. On the subject of which, I re-read the vampire story I hastily wrote in the early hours of Sunday morning today. It's totally obscene. I consider it my best ever work*.



*It's actually neither, but I feel it has potential, albeit with a fair bit of revision!