Language: No dialogue

  • Yarwood Trail, The

    Inspired by the artwork and sculptures of Walter Yarwood. This abstract film was created by carving stamps and applying the images directly onto the film using bleach. Frames were then hand painted and a soundtrack produced by drawing shapes along the optical sound area directly onto the film. Images represent the structure and design found in Walter Yarwood’s artworks, especially the colours of the acid washed bronze and patterns found in his paintings. Part of the TAIS Eleven in Motion program.

  • Importance of Hortense, The

    Hortense Gordon was a teacher as well as an artist, and studied abstract painting under one of the great teachers of that movement, Hans Hoffman. As an artist who makes figurative images, even in what is known as “experimental” animation, I had to do some research not only on Hortense, but on abstract painting. Also, researching Hortense turned up as much about her teachings (and, by extension, Hoffman’s) and philosophies as her work, so in the end I felt I was working through the film as a pupil. These are my exercises. Part of the TAIS Eleven in Motion program.

  • End is the Beginning, The

    “My opinion is … the modern painter cannot express his age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio in the old forms of the Renaissance … the modern artist is living in a mechanical age … working and expressing an inner world-in other words, expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces.” – Jackson Pollock Working from Pollock’s notion that the modern world of atom bombs and destruction obliterated the need for representational art and called forth a new, introspective form of art creation, Craig Marshall takes a Ray Mead painting as his starting point and moves backwards. Part…

  • little prayer (H-E-L-P), a

    “Images of Houdini bound in chains flicker and spin amid laceration marks created through hand-processing.” – Vanessa O’Neill, San Francisco Int. Film Festival The images of Houdini chained and attempting to free himself: the stop-and-start (interruption-repetition) of his actions; the high-contrast of the images; the stroboscopic effect created by the rhythm of the shutter; the gashes in the emulsion from the hand-processing – combined with the layers of sound, all evoke the violence of a tortured soul in search of escape. NB: View in total darkness to appreciate full flicker effect. Image description: A grainy, sepia-tinted image of Houdini hanging…

  • Afloat at Dawn

    A tiny baroque ode to fleeting darkness and pretty make-believes. Partly made in Fredericton with the support of the New Brunswick Film Co-op , the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec’s artist-in-residence Program, the National Film Board of Canada’s Filmmaker Assistance Program and TAIS, the Toronto Animated Image Society. Music arranged and recorded by Marc-André Simard. Selected screenings: Anim’ est International Animation Festival, Special Mendion of the Jury, 2010; Les rendez-vous du cinéma québécois (Montreal, QC) 2010; Festival du n nouveau cinéma (Montreal, QC), 2009; Interfilm Berlin, 2009

  • Traversée, La (The Crossing)

    Boy and Rabbit embark upon a voyage into the night. From a small paper boat, they watch the wooded shore and its special inhabitants… Selected screenings: Ottawa International Animation Festival, 2010; Les rendez-vous du cinéma québécoise, 2011; Melbourne International Animation Festival, 2011; London International Animation Festival, 2011

  • Keratin Reserve

    A film diary. 673 finger/toe nails saved, a large mess of 16mm rescued from darkroom garbage bins. The former adhered with nail polish topcoat to the latter, optically printed, and finished as a print.

  • Solar Sight

    “A question I had in mind was: what is the place of the human being in the cosmos? More and more we think about what is ‘beyond’. Less and less is art concerned. I don’t know why. The question may seem a bit grandiose, but I have approached it quite simply in the film. For one thing, I have never worked with color photography as primary background to cut-out animation before. I was surprised that the result was so powerful (helped by John Davis’ very resonant music). “It was liberating to release human figures into an apperception of suggested space,…

  • Fabric

    “Fabric” is an experimental narrative about a woman’s attempts to reconnect with her family. The film uses magical realism to visualize a physical process of grief, exploring both real and imagined spaces.

  • Color Study

    A humorous, digitally induced meditation on colors, motion and space from a few frames of road side fall panorama in upstate NY.