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.

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Short history of Herqueville

I felt that the work I did on Herqueville last night was a turning point in the development of the film. First, a little background information about this project which has been going on and off for more than two years. It started when I met with my friends Serge Meurant and Michelle Corbisier, respectively poet and visual artist, in Brussels three years ago. A long time ago, I had a close collaboration with Serge for the film Etienne et Sara which basically was the result of our first encounter in 1983. We remained in contact for all those years but without any significant common work. That evening, they showed me poems by Serge and prints by Michelle that were inspired by their visit at Herqueville, at La Hague peninsula in Normandy in France. Serge had also taken photographs of this fierce and dramatic shoreline.

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June 26, 2007, St-Bernard

My site was finally put on line last night. Up to now there was only a static version of it with just a curiculum vitae that I could not edit myself.
I wrote a blog that remained unpublished while I was in Lebanon in March and April. This travel was special enough to find the energy to write about what was going on. But when I was back home, it seemed pointless to continue writing for an unpublished blog. Now is the day where it really starts. I should first briefly summarize what happened since the last entry. The following event was the performance at the San Francisco International Film Festival. This was quite important because it was the first major film festival that booked us and also because we were planed to perform in the SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) auditorium which is a prestigious venue. Of course we hope that other film festivals and other museum of modern art will book us.

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2007-04-15 St-Bernard

More than a week since I am back from Beirut. Last Monday, I prepared everything for redoing the performance in my studio and record it. I ran again into my video input problem and could not, as I have hoped, reproduce at least the settings I could get when I rehearsed at Masen’s the previous Monday. Things had gotten worse. I did the rehearsal but the result was very depressing. I sent a S.O.S. to Bob for any idea about how to approach the problem which absolutely had to be solved before the S.F. performance on May 4.

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2007-04-05 16H:00 Paris

Wonderful day in Paris, sunny, just cool enough to allow strolling around without sweating. I spent the day doing my usual bookstores itinerary, from the FNAC at Les Halles to the left bank Librairie Compagny, and La Hune and L’écume des pages at St-Germain-des-prés, with a coffee or a «demi» here and there on the way. My bag is now heavy with books.

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2007-04-01 9H:00 Beirut

My work at the university is finished. I will see the students again for a short period on Monday afternoon to see the final result of their work and give them DVD’s with what they did and my performance.

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2007-03-29 9H:45 Beirut

Yesterday, the practical exercises with the students went better, in a more focused way. It seems now realistic that we will get everything done by the Friday and that I will be able to edit and composite all of the segments so that we can screen this little film I was hoping for sometimes Monday or Tuesday.

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2007-03-27 10H:00 Beirut

Follow up to Bob’s saga with his passport. Yesterday, I had a meeting with Sharif and we quickly reached an agreement that we would forget about the small symbolic fee that was there for us and that they would put up all the money needed for Bob to come. We sent a e-mail right away telling Bob to proceed. Which he did but just to find out that the American passport system is totally clogged, nothing is workings and the fast track services even less.

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