Small Gauge Wonders: the films of Sandy McLennan
Sunday, November 12th
Club SAW, 67 Nicholas Street
Doors open: 7:30
Screening: 8:00
Tickets: $10 on Eventbrite or at the door (cash only)
Presented by the Lightproof Film Collective / www.lightproof.ca
As part of the Lightproof Film Collective's Film Encounter series, Small Gauge Wonders presents the work of Muskoka-based filmmaker Sandy McLennan. Utilizing 8mm and 16mm film and hand processing techniques, these short films are each in themselves odes to a forever disappearing world, both man-made and natural, as seen through the lens of a vanishing technology.
Prior to the screening, Sandy will be giving an Intro to Regular/Double 8mm Shoot/Process/ Project Workshop. More info here (link to website listing).
Artist bio:
A graduate of Sheridan College (1981) and based in Port Sydney, Ontario, Sandy McLennan loves wandering just outside his home darkroom door with cameras and sound recorders. Processing Double 8/super 8/16mm film and pinhole-camera paper negatives reveals memory of personal and state-of-the-world emotions. He improvises with audio from shoot-location field recordings and sound associated with work/creation. With the support of a Canada Council grant, Sandy recently embarked on a project to shoot Regular/Double 8mm film on South-North (off the main line) passenger train routes in Canada.
Programme of work:
Time Exposure, 1981, 3:00, colour 16mm, optical sound, English
At the Public Beach, 2016, 2:21, hand-processed black and white Regular 8mm, no sound
Line in the Sand, 2017, 4:55, hand-processed black & white Double 8mm, English
The Last Skate, 2018, 4:50, hand-processed black & white Regular 8mm, black & white, stereo.
Moving, parts one and two, 2021, 7:38, hand-processed black & white/colour Regular 8mm, Double 8mm, 16mm, English
Going Out, 2022, 2:15, hand-processed colour 16mm, silent, 18fps
Pockets of Sadness 2023, 6:43, hand-processed Double 8mm black & white, English/French
My Canada Train Journey, 2023 work in progress, 3:00, hand-processed Double 8mm
Available for viewing/handling on entry and after the film screening:
1. Hand-cranked projector operated by viewers, with 16mm loop.
2. Maybe Next Year (2023), hand-processed colour 16mm clips on light table with magnifier operated by viewers.
The Lightproof Film Collective formed in early 2020 with the mandate to encourage experimental film practices in Ottawa through the creation and presentation of works on film stock. In coming together as a collective, we seek to foster community, exchange knowledge, and observe the largely invisible practice of experimental filmmaking in Ottawa.
Sponsored by SAW Gallery and funded by the City of Ottawa
A collection of Super 8 and 16mm films created by experimental filmmaker Brian Virostek. The artist will be in attendance.
October 19, 2023 @ CLUB SAW, 67 Nicholas Street, Arts Court
Doors: 7:00 PM
Showtime: 7:30 PM
Duration: 48:15 minutes
Admission:$10 (cash only at door) - Tickets
Cash bar
- Presented by the Lightproof Film Collective - Event sponsored by SAW Gallery -
ARTIST BIO:
Brian Virostek is an experimental filmmaker, performer, and archivist. He attended BealArt in his hometown of London, Ontario and obtained an MFA in film production from Concordia University in Montreal. While at Concordia, he carried out several film preservation projects at Visual Collections Repository. This work grew into the video mixing performance Holiday Native Land (co-created with Nicolas Renaud, 2022). At the Cinémathèque Québécoise, he worked as an archival assistant, participating in the project Savoirs Communs du Cinéma, an initiative that aims to make the data of cinema freely accessible and usable. Brian Virostek now works as an audio-visual archivist in the Cultural Archives Division at Library and Archives Canada.
The Lightproof Film Collective* formed in early 2020 with the mandate to encourage experimental film practices in Ottawa through the creation and presentation of works on film stock. In coming together as a collective, we seek to foster community, exchange knowledge, and observe the largely invisible practice of experimental filmmaking in Ottawa. www.lightproof.ca
*Funded by the City of Ottawa.
Programme:
1.1 Équipe Libre (2000, 2021, 2:30)
Super 8, printed to 16 mm, hand processed, scanned to digital with sound
1.2 Site of Conflict (2000, 5:30)
16 mm, digital sound
1.3 Leaving Us to Answer Hunger with an Open Hand (South Korea 2002-2007, Quebec 2014, 4:45)
16 mm, digital sound
2.1 Early Figure (2013, 9:45)
Shot on 16mm, printed to 35 mm
2.2 Island (2013, 7:30)
Shot on Super 8, hand processed, printed to 16 mm, machine processed, silent 16 mm
3.1 Summer Echo (2017)
Shot on 16 mm, scanned to digital
3.2 Self Aside (2022)
Shot on 16 mm
A memorable summer evening of experimental film projections and performance at Club SAW. Collective members will present 8 newly commissioned films under the night sky in the SAW Courtyard. In Club SAW, Matthieu Hallé will present his film performance The Waterfall with musician Linsey Wellman (baritone saxophone).
Programme:
The Waterfall – Matthieu Hallé and Linsey Wellman
Performance for custom-modified 16mm film projector, candles, broken crystal | approx. 45 minutes | 2017
A 16mm film loop of a waterfall plays continuously on a custom-modified 16mm film projector that uses a live video feed of candles focused with hand-held pieces of glass as the light source that illuminates the film. Matthieu has presented this performance only once before in Ottawa in 2017 at General Assembly. The Waterfall was last presented in August 2022 at the San Francisco Cinematheque’s Crossroads Festival.
Under the stars in SAW’s Courtyard will screen the recent films of the Lightproof Film Collective, representing a symphony of analogue film technique, from hand-processing, bipacking, optical printing, bleaching, multiple exposures, and hand painting. A true celebration of DIY filmmaking!
Good Grief - Nicole Blundell (3:15/16mm to digital/2022)
Passage - Pixie Cram (4:31/16mm to digital/2023)
Rise - Bridget Farr ( 2:00/16mm to digital/2023)
Adventures in Perception - Dave Johnson (2:43/16mm/2023)
River - Penny McCann (2:57/16mm/2023)
Transmission - Nicole Blundell (2:03/16mm/2023)
Moviedome - Matthieu Hallé (1:02/16mm/2023)
With the Grain - Cooper (5:00/16mm/2023)
Generously supported by:
LIGHT LEAKS: Seven new films by LFC members
Streaming online June - July 2023
Here at the Lightproof Film Collective, we’ve been busy at work creating short films on film. Every two weeks throughout June and July, you can see the fruits of our labour online on our website, on Facebook @The Lightproof Film Collective, and on Instagram. Get ready for an analogue symphony of film techniques from hand-processing, mattes, optical printing, contact printing, and hand painting that celebrate experimentation and the materiality of celluloid.
The films will be projected (yes, on film) in Ottawa in August. Many thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts for supporting our work.
JUNE 4 - JUNE 17:
Penny McCann 
River / 2:57
Nicole Blundell 
Transmission / 2:03
This work explores the space between message transmission, reception and perception. Developed and painted by hand, this commission from the Lightproof Film collective a proof of concept for an eventual longer exploration of the themes and techniques produced directly on film.
JUNE 18 - JULY 1ST:
Matthieu Hallé 
Moviedome/1:02
Synopsis: An experimental film that uses bipack film in a Bolex and hand-processed, expired colour stock, as means of revisiting footage of “moviedome”, a cypress dome in the Everglades.
Pixie Cram 
Passage/4:31
Synopsis: I began filming my daughter in the summer of 2020 when she was 15 months old. I filmed her toys, household objects, and the changing seasons. It was my way of marking the passage of time. As she grew, she developed the desire to be the one behind the camera and began to participate in the filming. Most of the stock was short-ends from previous projects, hand-processed.
JULY 2nd - JULY 15TH:
Bridget Farr 
Rise/2:00
Synopsis: Filmed during an artist’s residency in the Puntarenas region of Costa Rica, Rise flows to the rhythm of dreams. A woman’s soul is awakened by the jungle and begins a journey guided by the wisdom of nature and her soul.
JULY 16TH - JULY 29TH:
Dave Johnson
Adventures in Perception/2:43
Synopsis: This film is a collision of images combining a visual and auditory adventure while talking about being an artist and the process of making this film…Or any film! As a filmmaker you are going through various adventures trying to assemble a unique and intriguing combination of visual and auditory stimulation. Sometimes the process of creating the film becomes flawed and your original intent inevitably becomes something new.
In the end, does the film become a success or “the dream I tried for that couldn’t be realized”?
Is a “print film” using bi-packing and multiple exposures of found images and sounds. The found images and sound are sourced from previously existed films “Adventures in Perception” based on an educational film about M.C. Escher. The second film is an educational film based on sound “Frequencies and Vibration.”
Cooper
With the Grain/5:00
Synopsis: With the Grain is a reincarnation of Cooper’s 2012 16mm film Against the Grain, with new images, added sound clips, and colour With the Grain re-examines the creative process. The film’s original black and white images have been baked in molasses and dried leaves, bleached, hand painted, optically printed, contact printed and hand-processed.
The Lightproof Film Collective was formed in early 2020 with the mandate to foster experimental film practices in Ottawa through the creation and presentation of works on film stock. The collective consists of eight practicing filmmakers from Ottawa. In coming together as a collective, the filmmakers seek to foster community, exchange knowledge, and observe the largely invisible practice of experimental filmmaking in Ottawa.
On www.vucavu.com Nov. 23rd - December 7th, 2022
Experimental filmmakers tend to toil in isolation, creating works that exist on the fringe of moving image making. In recent years, the decline of film labs, production centres, and film’s increasing expense has been accompanied by a rise of interest in DIY analogue filmmaking, spurring the creation of community-based informal support structures. This online screening of twelve experimental short films celebrates the output of two recently formed Canadian film collectives, one in Ottawa and one in the Maritimes, each of which seeks to support experimental analogue film practices.
Presented by the Lightproof Film Collective and funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
IMMANENT UNION | 2021
Super 8 | B+W & Colour
Generative Sound
September 15, 2022 @ CLUB SAW, 67 Nicholas Street, Arts Court
Doors: 7:30 PM
Showtime: 8:00 PM
Duration: 58 minutes
Admission is Pay-What-You-Can (*suggested donation of $10)
Cash bar
- Presented by the Lightproof Film Collective - Event sponsored by SAW Gallery -
IMMANENT UNION is a retrograde attempt at resolving a personal archive and index, confronting the inexorable passage of time into memory and memory into echo. It was spliced together live over the course of six performances in Mexico, the United Kingdom and Canada – these Drafts for a Scenario facilitating an aleatory approach to the global composition of disparate memories, fleeting images of recorded time that have no story to tell. The film is performative in essence, a justification of an immanent plane as an act of pastoral simplicity. A divine presence.
ARTIST BIO: Kyle Whitehead is Canadian artist who works with material film to create experimental and expanded cinema projects. His handmade films, moving image installations and projection performances trade in material self-consciousness, the artists labours and elastic treatments of space, light and time. These works in film have exhibited internationally in numerous festivals, galleries and museums including the Museo Tamayo (Mexico City, Mexico), Alchemy Film and Arts (Hawick, Scotland), the San Francisco Cinematheque (SF, USA) the Canadian Film Institute’s Café EX (Ottawa, Canada), and TRUCK Contemporary Art (Calgary, Canada).
The Lightproof Film Collective* formed in early 2020 with the mandate to encourage experimental film practices in Ottawa through the creation and presentation of works on film stock. The collective consists of nine practicing filmmakers living in Ottawa. In coming together as a collective, we seek to foster community, exchange knowledge, and observe the largely invisible practice of experimental filmmaking in Ottawa. www.lightproof.ca
*Funded by the City of Ottawa.
***
IMMANENT UNION | 2021
Super 8 | N+B & Couleur
Sons génératifs
15 septembre, 2022 @ CLUB SAW, 67, rue Nicholas, Cour des Arts
Ouverture de la salle : 19h30
Heure du spectacle : 20h00
Durée du spectacle: 58 minutes
Admission: Contribution volontaire (*don suggéré de 10 $)
Bar payant
- Présenté par le Lightproof Film Collective - Événement parrainé par le SAW Gallery -
Synopsis: Ce film Super 8 sur deux bobines est une tentative rétrograde de résoudre une archive et un index personnels, confrontant l'inexorable passage du temps de la mémoire à l'écho. IMMANENT UNION a été assemblée en direct au cours de six performances au Mexique, au Royaume-Uni et au Canada. Ces ébauches de scénario facilitent une approche aléatoire de la composition globale de souvenirs disparates, d'images fugaces du temps enregistré et de l'environnement qui n'ont aucune histoire à raconter. Le film est par essence performatif, une justification d'un plan immanent comme un acte de simplicité pastorale. Une présence divine.
Biographie de l'artiste: Kyle Whitehead est un artiste canadien qui travaille avec des films matériels pour créer des projets de cinéma expérimental et élargi. Ses films faits à la main, ses installations d'images en mouvement et ses performances de projection traitent de l'auto-conscience matérielle, du travail des artistes et des traitements élastiques de l'espace, de la lumière et du temps. Ces œuvres cinématographiques ont été exposées au niveau international dans de nombreux festivals, galeries et musées, notamment au
Museo Tamayo (Mexico City, Mexique), Alchemy Film and Arts (Hawick, Écosse), la San Francisco
Cinematheque (SF, USA), le Café EX de l'Institut canadien du film (Ottawa, Canada), et TRUCK Contemporary Art (Calgary, Canada).
Le Lightproof Film Collective* à été fondé en 2020 avec le mandat d'encourager les pratiques cinématographiques expérimentales à Ottawa en créant un environnement de partage qui favorise la création et la présentation d'œuvres sur pellicule. Le collectif est composé de neuf cinéastes pratiquants vivant à Ottawa qui se sont réunis dans le but de créer et encourager un sens de communauté entre artistes ayant des pratiques similaires. En plus de favoriser le partage de diverses techniques et de savoir-faire, le collectif vise à donner une plus grande visibilité à la pratique largement invisible du cinéma expérimental à Ottawa. www.lightproof.ca
* Fondé par la Ville d'Ottawa.
At First Light: An evening of experimental film
Sunday, November 21, 2021
Club SAW, 67 Nicholas Street, Ottawa
Doors open at 7pm / Screening at 7:30pm
$5 suggested donation
The Lightproof Film Collective (LFC) is holding their first ever public screening and you are invited. Come join us on Sunday, November 21, 2021, for an evening of new experimental films created on Super 8, 16mm and 35mm film stock by LFC members. This screening is being held in collaboration with Halifax’s Handmade Film Collective and will also feature experimental works by these east coast creators.
Doors open at 7:00pm with the film screening starting at 7:30pm sharp.
A short Q&A with local filmmakers will happen after the 90-minute screening. Cash bar available.
We ask all attendees to arrive for 7:15pm in order to prepare for COVID-19 screening questions and double vaccination check-in. Please be sure to bring your proof of vaccination and a piece of ID.
COVID-19 precaution details:
Please note that due to COVID-19 safety precautions, the capacity will be limited and we will have safety protocols in place. Please register on Eventbrite to secure your spot. www.eventbrite.ca/e/at-first-light-an-evening-of-experimental-film-tickets-193576992997
Any questions regarding the screening may be sent to: admin@lightproof.ca
Background:
The Lightproof Film Collective (LFC) formed in early 2020 with the mandate to foster experimental film practices in Ottawa through the creation and presentation of works on film stock. The collective consists of eight founding members, all practicing filmmakers living in Ottawa. In coming together as a collective, the filmmakers seek to foster community, exchange knowledge, and observe the largely invisible practice of experimental filmmaking in Ottawa. LFC members include Greg Boa, Pixie Cram, Bridget Farr, Paul Gordon, Matthieu Hallé, Dave Johnson, Penny McCann and Cooper.
The Handmade Film Collective is a group of practicing, enthusiastic, analogue, handmade filmmakers (Dawn George, Rena Thomas, Todd Fraser, and Herb Theriault) who have come together to showcase experimental analogue handmade films and support other filmmakers working in this specialized genre.
