Sally Cloninger
From mediaartiststudio
[edit] Personal Archives | Excavating the Future
During the next two quarters I will be dividing my time between two very different projects.
Red Rocks/Open Window is a narrative film about aging, memory, gender, friendship, homosocial community, and alternative pasts as well as futures. Drawing upon the lives, writing, and artistic work of D.H. Lawrence, Frieda Lawrence, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Georgia O’Keefe, and Dorothy Brett, I will construct a fictional memoir that takes its inspiration from the home movies shot one afternoon in 1929 on a ranch somewhere in the West. Wait a moment, these are reconstructed home movies that I shot in 1982. Interviews and staged events with the actors (who have aged twenty six years since the “fake” home movie footage was collected) will comprise much of the content of the film. These characters are based both on these American 20th Century icons who met and interacted in Taos, New Mexico in the 1920s as well as the real-life experiences of my cast (a psychiatrist, a visual artist, an anthropologist, and an acupuncturist).
Essentially, this film is also an autobiography albeit one that steps between the worlds of fiction and nonfiction. Last summer I was very inspired by a writing workshop that I took with Lynda Barry called “Writing the Unthinkable” (at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY) and learned from her this new term, autobiofictionology. I understand more simply and clearly that what I am attempting to do is to draw together the images from my life history in this piece as well. Part of my work now is the development of a script for the project, a point that I neglected when I first started working on the film. The historicial/fictional/nonfictional characters are still central. Their answers to my questions about their life work, their attempts at self-study, their communities, their process of aging, their memories, and their dreams will ultimately form the basis of the film. I am even constructing the western location of the film has: it has been or will be shot in Tenino and Olympia, Washington, Taos, New Mexico, Borrego Springs, California and Baja California, Mexico.
Formats: 16mm negative, S-8 negative, and digital video. The film will be edited in Final Cut Pro and then output to DVD. Navigate to my website for a little more detail and a clip from the project. Current Work
During winter and spring I will complete all of the landscape cinematography (in Borrego Springs during December, and on Navajo land in late winter/early spring), develop a continuity script for the contemporary reenactment, complete some direct animation sequences using petroglyph and landscape motifs, shoot some tests for time lapse portraits, and will have begun to film the improvised interviews with the main characters in the film.
The second project involves the coordination of the Evergreen Visual History Archive project (Visual History Archive). In addition to the supervision of interns and collaboration with staff and faculty on this large-scale endeavor I have agreed to finish three short documentation projects for the archives. These are: 1. Wild Water Women, 2. Drawing from the Landscape, and 3. Gender Images. All involve post-production and some contextual work. Wild Water Women requires additional editing of some new material and final contextual material developed in collaboration with Llyn De Danaan. Drawing from the Landscape involves supervision of the sound sweetening and indexing of still images. Gender Images involves collaboration with faculty member, Rita Pougiales on a new piece that will combine interviews, archival records of a faculty institute on television production and a collection of production stills. This project will be completed in one month during winter quarter. I also will be collaborating with Brian Mathis and Susan Bustetter on the development of a web presence for the EVHA project.
Tentative Calendar
December 21-31: S-8 cinematography in Borrego Springs
January: additional reading, work on continuity script; begin consultation about EVHA website
February: complete projects 1 and 2 for EVHA; begin design of Gender Images with Rita
Late February/early March? More location work on landscapes; direct animation
April-May: finalize continuity script; work on a series of edit tests to share with MAS
Skill Development
I expect to spend considerable time refining my skills in direct animation-tape lifts (Devon Damonte has volunteered to give me a little extra tutorial). I am considering an HD version of the Red Rocks project and do want to produce a 5.1 mix. So I have some work to do with post-production techniques after I make these decisions. I am committed to doing all of the sound design myself but know I will need some consultation with the incredibly talented Mr. Randlette. I will be supervising the film transfers at Flying Spot in Seattle after I finish the S-8 and 16mm cinematography. I need to learn Color so that I can do the colorization myself.
Contact: cloninsj@evergreen.edu
360-754-4736
Animated Landscape test Borrego
Sally's new production blog Sally Cloninger: Media|Time Arts|Education
