Inside:

Distribution on the edge:

Canadian cinema carves an ‘erotic weirdness’ niche – p. B3

Canadian screenwriting:

‘A low-percentage proposition’ – p. B4

Shorts getting longer shrift:

Garnering more slots and more money – p. B20

Film diaries:

Production chronicles from conception to completion – begin p. B7

Features:

The Hanging Garden – p. B7

Shopping for Fangs – p. B11

Gerrie & Louise – p. B14

Pitch – p. B17

Hayseed – p. B19

Shorts:

Guy Maddin: Waiting for Twilight – p. B22

Permission – p. B24

Linear Dreams – p. B26

Director/animator/producer: Richard Reeves * Diary by: Teressa Iezzi

January 1994: Animator/filmmaker Richard Reeves begins work on Linear Dreams, a seven-minute scratch animation film which turns the filmmaker’s manipulation of film stock into a progression of lines, shapes and explosions of color and form set to a rhythmic pulsing soundtrack.

The cameraless process of creating the visuals accompanied by a handmade soundtrack is a lengthy and exacting one. It will be about two years before the seven-minute film is completed.

Reeves, who lives on Pender Island, b.c., receives a grant from the Canada Council to produce the film and also gets funding from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the National Film Board. Hard costs for the film will total about $4,000.

Reeves first completes the handmade soundtrack on the thin black stripe on 35mm film stock, so later he can discern exactly which frame contains which sounds and create visuals accordingly. It takes almost a year to complete a work print for sound and another year to compile images to be in sync with the audio.

Sound is created with a series of scratches or drawings on the film, the shape of which determines the audio effect. Reeves uses a number of techniques to produce sounds and develops his own library of sound on videotape whereby sounds are numbered and are repeated in a guidebook so specific sounds can be chosen and reproduced.

Linear Dreams is an amalgamation of all the techniques Reeves had learned and employed in past projects, including previous films Zig Zag and Garbanzo (‘kind of a test to see what inks would stick to film,’ says Reeves), which aired in a documentary on Canadian animators on wtn.

1995: Reeves begins working at Calgary’s Quick Draw Animation Society as a production coordinator. Quick Draw was formed in 1984 as a resource for the study and production of animation in Alberta. The non-profit center, which receives support from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Canada Council, the Calgary Region Arts Foundation and the nfb, provides access to production facilities – including 2D and 3D camera rooms and an Oxberry animation stand – as well as courses, a resource library and film screenings. ‘It’s a one-of-a-kind place in Canada,’ says Reeves.

Reeves had long been a fan and practitioner of the art of animation – ‘It was just something I did,’ he says – but began to apply his skills seriously after joining Quick Draw in 1990.

Work continues on Linear Dreams, with Reeves creating images using numerous techniques, like airbrushing, scratching colored film, and layering of colors on film and an equal number of inspirational sources for the film’s look. ‘With this technique your mind is like the camera,’ he says.

Spring 1997: Linear Dreams is released in April and has its first screening at the Victoria International Film Festival where it is honored as best animated film, a prize it also captured at the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association Awards in April. The film has also played the Images Festival in Toronto and is scheduled to screen at animation festivals in Switzerland and Germany.

‘Cameraless films aren’t new but I’m trying to revive the process a bit,’ says Reeves, who also conducts workshops on cameraless techniques.

August 1997: With another Canada Council grant Reeves begins work on his next project, Sea Song, a four-minute film accompanied by a handmade Celtic rhythm.

For this film, Reeves says his sound library has been computerized, so composing will be a more time-efficient cut-and-paste process. ‘I won’t have to spend another year scratching sounds out to look identical to the last one,’ he says. ‘There’s a fine line between that and insanity and I don’t want to cross it.’

September 1997: Linear Dreams screens in the Toronto International Film Festival’s Perspective Canada program.

Reeves will look at broadcast distribution opportunities after the film’s festival life.