My first Film..Farewell to Anne

There is so much more that I could say about Amanda but mostly it is the in jokes the camaraderie and even some loss. Regardless somewhere in this period I made my very first film.. Farewell to Anne.
My wife HATES this movie and I don’t blame her. Anne was an old girlfriend who was leaving town to go to acting school in Berkeley. As a parting gift I made film of all her friends and family here in Seattle saying goodbye and good luck. It was icky gooey lovey Dovey. And when my wife and I were first dating I stupidly made her sit through it. She was a trooper and I was just being ignorant but years later she made it clear that she never wanted to see it again. I watch it on occasion and it is amusing to see me at 26 getting all mooshey. We Shot it pretty much interview style on a CP 16 with color reversal and the audio was on a Nagra. It was really an exercise in ‘Can I do it?’ and it actually turned out OK. Not great but OK. Cutting on a sync block with a guillotine splicer and 16 mm mag film and adding music and voice over was really rather fun.
Mark Schapiro was the camera guy and we had a lot of fun with her friends shooting the sync stuff. I used a Bolex to get exteriors and establishing shots and we used it on an animation stand to shoot titles. Little trick for shooting titles on an animation stand. Light a bounce card to 2.8 beneath the stand and have the titles printed in plastic. Black with clear lettering, sans serif. Then set your focus to the bounce card not the plastic and viola. Also when using a Bolex there is a variable shutter and if you have it set incorrectly the shutter will be closed. Lost a lot of footage and potential sale to the City of Bellevue that some guy asked me to shoot since I was there. Oh well. Also a good lesson in what you say and do on camera today will haunt you in 20 years.

Actually the first was some super 8 my friend and I shot in 9th grade animating each other up and down stairs. I still have that around somewhere.