Saturday, September 5, 2009

restored

Today I finally finished restoring "Daytona: A Happening", a film by Jean Oser that was accidentally cannibalized for found footage sometime last year. Luckily most of the parts were intact. I accidentally destroyed a six inch part in the process and have another six inch part that part that I could not locate a home for. There are a couple other gaps but overall it is there.
Jean Oser was a film editor and a great filmmaker in his own right. He made quite a few short commissioned films in the fifties and sixties (industrials when such things were still pretty cool). He then came to teach at the UofR where he became one of the most influential people in the creation of a film community and film industry in Saskatchewan. The films he made are housed at the Saskatchewan Filmpool and are unlikely to be housed collectively anywhere else in the world. While many of them likely exist in other collections or in the archives of their commissioning companies, no one else has them collected as "Jean Oser" films. This one in particular is a fast paced short about motorcycle racing. Made in the 60s, it is filled with odd bits of slang. At one point the narrator points out that when the race is over, the action hasn't stopped and we see the rider necking with a sexy girl. It was commissioned by the Triumph Motorcycle company.
It was Paul's birthday today: HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL. We had pizza and cake. His brother Mike came to town and surprised him half way through supper. Then we went to the opening at the Dunlop. William was doing a number of drawings and had them laid out on the floor. Two people, including one person who is a programmer at another local art gallery, walked by just as he'd finished them and stepped directly on them. What kind of people go to art galleries these days?

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