Il y a longtemps que je n’ai pas écrit ici. En fait j’ai beaucoup écrit et travaillé sur des textes beaucoup plus longs que des entrées de blog. Dans ce travail de longue haleine, j’arrive non pas à la fin, loin de là, mais certainement à une étape. Il y a quelques jours, j’ai mis en ligne deux nouveaux textes assez longs que j’ai écrits depuis ma relecture des écrits d’André Martin en juillet dernier. Le plus important est un texte commencé pendant la tournée européenne que j’ai faite entre le 20 janvier et le 8 février et que j’ai continué lors de mon retour ici. Il s’agit de L’idée de l’animation et l’expression instrumentale. C’est une sorte de manifeste.
Documentaire
Hier après midi, j’ai participé à une rencontre pour la préparation d’un atelier sur le thème animation et documentaire qui se tiendra le 14 novembre dans le cadre des Rencontres internationalles du documentaire de Montréal (RIDM). Il y avait là André Paquet du RIDM, Marcel Jean qui animera l’atelier, Lucie Lambert, Serge Giguère, Martine Chartrand et moi-même. La rencontre a été amicale et fort intéressante. Les discussions que nous avons eus m’ont beaucoup aidé à terminer un texte sur lequel je peinais depuis longtemps pour présenter le projet d’atelier (5 jours celui-là) que je vais donner à l’Atelier Graphoui à la fin du mois de janvier prochain. On ne me demandait pas grand chose, mais je me compliquais la vie et je m’étais embarqué dans quelque chose de trop ambitieux pour les circonstances. Bref le texte est terminé et envoyé.
Herqueville, a documentary?
JI had real problems writing this blog in English as I first decided to do. It was becomming an obstacle to the continuation of the blog. So, from now on, I will write in French and, when possible, I will add a more or less complete English translation.
This week I had quite a surprise looking up the Rendez vous du cinéma québécois site to check the programming of my film Herqueville. I first look in the “Art and experimentation” section where I believe it was originally submitted and could not find it. I finally found it in the “documentary” section.
Herqueville completed
I have not been writing in this blog for a long time but a lot have been happening over the last month and a half or so.
The main thing is that Herqueville is finished. I got the HD and Betacam transfers on tuesday this week. I must say it was a happy ending. The work with Claude Beaugrand on the sound was intense like all the previous time we worked together (La Plante humaine, the 50th anniversary clip for the Montreal Art Council). I think I mentioned it, but Claude had to face a situation similar to what I myself experienced when I started working on the animation. His judgment was that Fred Frith’s music was totally doing the job and that he could not see what he could add to it. The music track seemed enough.
Sound editing of Herqueville – 1
Last Monday, I went to Claude Beaugrand’s studio in Bedford to listen to what he had been doing during the week after our first meeting. Editing sound over the noise music of Fred Frith was quite a challenge. Dramatically, Fred’s music was absolutely doing the job. Actually, in the first place, the film was constructed according to the music so it was no surprise that there was a very strong organic connection between the music and the images and that it seemed that maybe nothing else was needed.
Herqueville – notes
Herqueville is simply a meditation on a place. It is a village in Normandy lost along the littoral of the La Hague peninsula. It is hanging … Read More
New version of Herqueville
The Herqueville project went through significant changes over the last weeks. Tentatively, it now has a new title Herqueville ou l’éblouissement d’Icare. I translated it by Herqueville or Icarius Dazzled. This is not a very good translation I think but a better one will come soon. When I resumed working on the film after my week and a half of holidays, I did a number of small detailed adjustments and additions to the animation, mostly without big consequences other then improved, more balanced fluidity. But there was one major development that has to do with the change of title. The more I had progressed in the making of the film, the more I was interested by one verse of one poem that referred to the fall of Icarus.
Taking a rest from Herqueville
Last week it took until Thursday to get a proprer DVD version of Herqueville done. The passage from the HD 720p24 original version to a standard defenition NTSC 30 fr/sec version proved very laborious. I had a hard time finding the correct path to do it, finally first doing a conversion to the Apple HD 720p30 intermediary codec was a good idea, then going to 640×420 30 fr/sec was easy. But the first operation was finally hasardous because there seems to be a bug in it or I did not do it correctly (it was not doing the complete section I was asking and at times it would freeze part od the segments I was trying to convert, finally I wad to do it in sections). This took days. Getting a PAL version of it was easier. So I could quickly send a PAL DVD to Serge and Michelle in Brussels. I know they received the package yesterday and I am now waiting for their comments. So it was not until Thursday afternoon that I could stop thinking to Herqueville for a week and try to be in holiday. I have succeeded so far not to open my desk top computer which I use for editing and compositing.
Herqueville, first tour of animation completed
This morning I animated a small little segment which completed the first tour of animation for Herqueville. I am going through the steps to make a DVD of it and send it around to get some opinions about this new phase of the film. I am strongly convinced that the animation layer that I created during the last month and a half is going to remain in the film. I don’t have much distance yet but I think it is very balanced. Most of it remains very discrete just filling the interstices of the previous version of the film made of live action, photographs and prints. I really enjoyed doing this very delicate work made of very small and short interventions but it needed to lead somewhere, to something that would be specific to the thread of animation.
Follow up on Herqueville
There were several difficulties concerning the animation for Herqueville. The original idea was to continue what I had started to do in the two early exploratory performances that I did at the very beginning of the project. This was a while ago and it seemed hard to connect with what I did then. The momentum was lost. But the central idea sort of remain intact, the objective was to animate fire from within the rocks. Other objectives became apparent : creating a relationship between the live action shooting, the photographs and the prints, which means trying to work at the point of transition between those three, and creating more direct sync relationship with the music. Both of these objectives have to do with using the animated segments not as foreground elements but as much less noticeable interventions that would have mostly a relational role between other things. So that the animation would not be there for itself but for how it affects other things. It was somehow the contrary of what the animation is actually used for that is more or less for its spectacular character and for the production value it adds to the film.