Film Format: Super 8

  • John Porter Sampler

    John Porter uses film as visual art, much like painting or sculpture,. Most of his 300 films are silent, very short and made in series, such aas landscapes, cityscapes, popular rituals, crowd documentaries, local histories, toy stories and “Camera Dances” in which he performs for the camera. Unlike most filmmakers, John shows his original films (no copies) and incorporates performance into the exhibition by miming in front of the screen, moving a hand-held projector around the room, and talking with the audience during the his films. He has been invited to many university film production classes to demonstrate a different…

  • Ball in California, A

    I took along a beach ball on my trip to California; it is bounced, rolled, tossed, kicked and carried by a motley collection of complete strangers who express a great range of attitudes towards the camera, the ball and me. This film incorporates an unusual improvised soundtrack for solo bassoon.

  • Made in Japan

    Made in Japan (2.5 min.,1985): North American portrayals of Japan perpetuate the myths of Americanized culture, distorting and misrepresenting traditional values. Part of the triptych “Three Short Films.”

  • Desert

    “A desert vision of heat and haze; of aqua mirage, city lights and the slowly melting sun.” – M.J.

  • Bathers, The

    Three naked bathers gather at the river on a warm day in September. The film was a commission from Ladyfest Ottawa and the Independent Filmmakers Cooperative of Ottawa. Eight women were given the theme of sexuality and two rolls of Super-8 film. I wanted to capture something wild and free, unfettered by society – human sexuality in nature.

  • Dream, N.Y.C., The Return, The Flower, The

    “These are four individual films which together make an autobiographical travel narrative, question the aesthetic separation of ‘great’ and ‘ordinary’ experience, and propose an aesthetic which might contain, within a single work, a diversity of styles – from complex formal construction, to ‘home movie’, to single framing in a greenhouse. The second of these films presents the sometimes terrifying power and majesty of New York City in a clear precursor to the later ‘Unconscious London Strata’ (1981).” – M.J.

  • Ville – Quelle Ville?

    “Ville – Quelle Ville?” reflects a satirical view of city life, commonplace and redundant. Urban life is portrayed as a series of rituals: coming of age in an environment shaped by generations, obscured by the constant barrage of everyday life. The film randomly touches upon key events familiar to everyone in North America, a melting pot of human experiences. As in any city there is an aspect of alienation, here displayed through the eyes of a young woman caught in the web of her own daily existence. “Ville – Quelle Ville?” (4 min.,1984): While Onodera’s earlier work explored the possibility…

  • Dead Zone

    Dead Zone (2.5 min.,1985): Images, repetitive in visual completion, combine with a popular music track and self-acknowledging voice-over to form a void of numbed loneliness and dissatisfaction. Part of the triptych “Three Short Films.”

  • Bakersfield,Earth

    Guy tries to join an anti-evolution protest group because he thinks his alien race created humans.

  • Steherrennen

    Cyclists race around a velodrome in circles. The images are layered and elide the figures moving in varying directions and at different speeds, giving an effect of movement that propels forward yet remains fixed all at once. “For when you’re running in circles you don’t get far.” —   60th  International Short  Film Festival Oberhausen