From: Niklas Vollmer (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Feb 09 2006 - 01:56:22 PST
I am new to this lively list and write to respond to email suppressed's question about the competing demands of mediamaking and parenting.
I am trying to avoid the "distant dad" phenomenon by following in the footsteps of others who have made experimental "home movies" (not to say that this is route for everyone, or that working at home necessarily makes one more present). In an attempt (out of necessity) to combine (nascent and addled) family and professional life (academentia), I shot and edited my last work ("Happy Crying Nursing Home" ... wink to SB) at home. There were times when my newborn son was screaming on the editing monitor and in the next room * a stereophonic wall-of-distraction that intensified, elevated, and informed the experimental doc's chaotic aesthetic and structure. In a sense, the work "lived", breathed and began to walk in step with my son.
This being said, the shooting allowed me to be more engaged and present as a partner than the editing, as it is difficult to hand-hold an edit station...
Niklas Vollmer
Georgia State University
>>> email suppressed 02/08/06 7:01 PM >>>
It is possible to have children without having children. There are children
all over the world who have already been born and badly need homes. Adopt.
Sorry, I realize this has nothing to do with experimental film.
But on a related note, I would love to know how those of you filmmakers who
do have children, manage to keep making films in addition to working and
parenting. This is something I am continually trying to work out.
In response to the other related discussion, I do think it is much harder to
get academic film departments to recognize the importance of renting and
buying film prints as opposed to DVDs, than people think. Many film
departments are barely managing to keep 16mm in the curriculum at all.
>From: Doug vanderHoof <email suppressed>
>Reply-To: Experimental Film Discussion List <email suppressed>
>To: email suppressed
>Subject: Re: David Tetzlaff's rant /ranting replies
>Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 17:07:20 -0600
>
>On 2/8/06 4:32 PM, "Sam Wells" <email suppressed> wrote:
>
> > The problem is, everyone who says that is an ex-child.....
> >(yes I agree we have population issues etc)
>
>Sam
> Couldn't agree with you more that we have population problems.
>
> Again I don't know how it's a problem for an ex-child to think we're
>over-populated and it would be good if people were happy not to have
>children. I think we're missing some shared assumption here, which I will
>be happy to have made clear.
> I have the feeling you mean some variation on, "What if your parents
>had
>felt the way you do?" If that's it, in the alternate universe where my
>parents didn't have me, I promise not to bug you about population or
>breeding. That's fair, no?
> Meanwhile, it's reasonable for someone whose parents had one attitude
>to
>have another. Right? And it's reasonable for someone whose parents lived
>in a triply-overpopulated world to not want any more children in a
>quintuply-overpopulated world, kay?
>
>Disclaimer, or is this a claimer:
> I think children are a great treasure and should get all the best we
>have to offer. We should love them, feed them the best from the table,
>spend a lot on their education, hope that they make good citizens. Parents
>should take their job as serious as a heart attack and be held responsible
>everything their children do until the children are emancipated. I'm just
>in favor of making people happy not to have children.
> I'm adding this because when I was working with Stacy Simpson in
>Seattle
>on an ArtSpot about population reduction, we eventually got to calling it
>the Baby Killing spot. Calumny.
>
>Cordially,
>Dv
>
>Doug vanderHoof
>Producer/Owner
>Modern Media
>Bucktown, Chicago
>(773)394-0029
>
>
>__________________________________________________________________
>For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.