Cinema Canada (Aug 1979)

throughout its run, but exhibitors reported, with vague traces of astonishment, that large numbers of people were asking very knowledgeable questions. Exhibitors included Bell & Howell, Adams and Associates, Octagon Cine Equipment, Magnetone Industries, Halmar Enterprises and Elmo. There was little that was new at this year’s trade show, notable exceptions being the extreme wide angle, non-distorting lenses made by Century Precision and a Beaulieu projector with a reverse pressure-plate, an 11 to 30 zoom lens and 2400ft. reels. Older equipment that attracted a lot of interest included the Elmo GS800 stereo projector that allows for a 100 per cent, 70 per cent or 30 per cent mix of new to old sound, and the Elmo 612R and 1018R double system cameras. People not upgrading their technical knowledge at the trade fair were doing it in the craft workshops, which were devoted to lighting, animation, Rotoscoping, Cinemascope and handholding. At one point in his workshop on sound recording, Douglas Berry of Sheridan College held up a microphone cable and said, “Most of your problems with location sound come from here.’’ Someone interrupted with a can-wefix-it-in-the-mix question, but few of the notetakers bothered to jot down the answer. They looked as if they already knew it. Eldon Garnett sees the move toward funded S8 filmmaking as something to be shunned. His contribution to the panel discussion on funding was to warn the audience away from it. Attempting to get grants from an art bureaucracy could lead to a filmmaker abandoning the films he wants to make for the films he thinks they want to see. He had practical, personal complaints as well. He claimed that the Canada Council took his work with his application and sat on it for three months. This, he said, deprived him of opportunities for exhibition and any money that it might bring in. Picard replied that things didn’t usually take that long and that the Council could look at his work and have it back to him in a week or two. Mr. Garnett greeted this dubiously and opined that it didn’t matter anyway, since the Council stood no chance of appreciating his particular artistic vision, which involves shaky camera, scratches and what he describes as “truly bad films.” He said he’s given up on grants and now funds his productions by saving up a couple of hundred dollars and then goes out to shoot. He loses money, but it’s a _ price he’s willing to pay. He urged the audience to pay for keeping S8 filmmaking wholly independent. This might, just possibly, be the “ghetto mentality” mentioned by Gunther Hoos. If it is, then Eldon Garnett is not alone. After the funding discussion, Francoyse Picard took James Blue, Ed Hugetz, director of the Southwestern Alternate Media Project, who gave a seminar on the community uses of S8 and some others to visit the Funnel. The Funnel is an art and experimental film theatre and loose equipment co-op funded by the Canada Council. Work by Funnel members was noticeably absent from the festival. One of the Funnel members present was Ross McLaren who founded and ran the first Toronto S8 Festival, four years ago. After the introductions, James Blue asked for a screening. When it was over, James Blue and Ed Hugetz were ecstatic. The work was wonderful and the energy and atmosphere of the Funnel were like the early days of the Godard, Truffaut and Bazin group. James Blue immediately began to set up deals for showing the Funnel work on his sixteen-week, PBS, photo: Vivienne Kugler Venezuelian Super 8 feature filmmaker Julio Neri: in South America, Super 8 is not a hobby but a political weapon S8 showcase series. He offered $5.00 per minute of screen time. Funnel members responded eagerly. Then somebody asked why this amazing work wasn’t in the festival. The chill descended. Individually and collectively, the Funnel members were not happy about the festival. There were vague, dark mutterings that Richard and Sheila Hill had somehow pirated the festival away from Ross McLaren. Someone said that the festival had been set up for artists working in S8 and pointed to the fewer number of art films in this year’s festival as proof that the judges “don’t understand and would rather see something in focus.” The trade fair, the prescreening and the prizes all added up to a commercial sellout and a competitive spirit that had nothing to do with art. James Blue, a veteran of sixties radicalism, pointed out that the festival was shaped by those who entered it and suggested that next year the Funnel group do a little lobbying for their kind of festival. He mentioned the thin edge of the wedge. The Funnel members did not respond eagerly and the discussion of James Blue’s TV series was resumed. Sheila Hill was this year’s, and last year’s, festival director. She is the woman against whom much of this criticism was directed. A short recital of the grievances from the Funnel wiped out the lethargy induced by two days of festival management and replaced it with fury. She said she has nothing to say a Cinema Canada/23