A young destitute fellow has sat down upon a bench in the grounds of the Palais-Royal, not far from the ornamental lake. And so begins his daily ritual. He has dug a hole in the ground with a piece of pointed wood, and then filled the hollow of his hand with earth. He has run about - then - rushing headlong towards the bench, thrust his legs into the air. But as this funambulistic posture is beyond the laws of weight that govern the centre of gravity, he has fallen back heavily on to the planks, legs flailing.

Over by the median, northern entrance our hero's arm rests against the railing, and he perceives - in the middle of the park grounds - a man doing lurching gymnastics at a bench on which he struggles to steady himself. He has headed towards the madman, has kindly helped him replace his dignity in a normal position, has proffered his hand and sat down beside him. He observes that the madness is only intermittent - the fit has passed. His interlocutor replies logically to all the questions. And the sincerity of his statements blends wonderfully with the viewer's credulity...... The listener inwardly approves of this new example brought to support his disgusting theories. As if, because of one man once the worse for wine, you had the right to blame all humanity. He comforts the madman with feigned compassion and takes him to a restaurant where they eat at the same table.

They go to a fashionable tailor, and the protege is dressed like a prince. They knock for the concierge at a great mansion, and the madman is installed in a sumptuous third floor suite. At your slightest summons I shall come running, your highness. Draw lavishly on my resources; body and soul I belong to you. The three Marguerites shall live again in me, not to mention that I'll be your mother. Gratitude like a poison had entered the crowned madman's heart! He wanted to speak and his tongue faltered to a halt. The man with lips of bronze withdraws. What was his purpose? To gain a foolproof friend, naive enough to obey his least command. He whom he found lying on the bench no longer knows, since a boyhood incident, how to tell good from evil. Aghone is the very one he needs.

 

Filmography:

Why the Canary Sings No More (Super 8, 14mins, 1999) Live action and animation treatment of an episode from Lautréamont¹s 1868 anti-novel ŒMaldoror¹. Part of an Anglo-German feature length collaboration.
Last Night Meant Nothing (Super 8, 20.5 mins, 1998/9) Experimental narrative journeying through the good and bad dreams of an otherwise indifferent night.
Eratosthenes at Home (Super 8/performance, 5.5 mins, 1998) Time-lapse film and live performance piece - fake biography and illustrated lecture on how the Earth¹s circumference was calculated.
Signs of Life (Super 8, 5.5 mins, 1997) Found footage, offcuts and extraneous sequences reassemblage - a gesture to the pleasures of images that move.
Human Error in the Mechanical Age (Super 8, 11.5 mins, 1997) More live action and animation, described in the Whitechapel Open screening notes by Andrew Kötting as: ŒGlorious dreamscape and a dog connection, reminiscent of a bygone era at the dawning of the age of the answer machine¹.
Volcano Meets the Press (Super 8, 5 mins, 1996) The film of the Press action - kinetic reworking of a publicity ploy for the Volcano Film Festival.
Stay in a Friendly Country (Super/Single 8, 14 mins, 1995) Formally eclectic but heartfelt tribute to the holiday home movie heritage of low gauge formats.
Paint Sale (Super 8, 3.5 mins, 1994) A documentary - of sorts - retinted, toned, sped up, slowed down.
Their Time Had Come (Super 8, 5.5 mins, 1993) A documentary on animal mortality - live action and hand treated footage (bleach + inks).
Notebook (Super 8, 13.5 mins, 1993) A tribute to Marie Menken¹s film of the same name - literally a notebook spanning several tomes worth of self-devised techniques - narrative, formal and attacking and sticking things to the film-wise.
Requiem for an Ice Baby (Super 8, 6.5 mins, 1992) The fleeting memories of a melting infant - live action, animation and rephotography (through ice).
Home Town Reel (Standard 8, 5.5 mins, 1992) Multiply exposed passage through local urban and domestic spaces.
Life And How To (16mm, 11 mins, 1990) Experimental narrative exploring a therapist¹s relationship with her kleptomaniac patient.

 

 

 

Aged 15: given Super 8 camera for birthday. Camera malfunctions with second reel. Put it to back of cupboard + forget about it for quite a while.
Aged 26: go back to college as a postgraduate to learn the impractical art of making films beyond one's financial means.
Present day: Super 8 camera functions just fine.

I've been making films with decidedly minimal budgets for the past fourteen years - performing all tasks (from camera operation to sound recording to final edit) myself. I've shown most recently at the New York Underground Film Festival, the Lux, and De Balie in Amsterdam - a flurry of activity saw me popping up at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Yale Center for British Art, and the Xeno International Film Festival (in their programme Cinema from the New Europe) shortly before that, and I was invited to show at the last Chicago Underground Film Festival. One of my films also features on the recent LUX touring package Animal Magic.

Despite the North American bias of this list I am in fact (south) London-based, and for the past seven years have combined my filmmaking with my activities as a member of the Exploding Cinema - a film and video maker run collective dedicated to originating alternative methods of exhibition. Otherwise I spend my time - and earn my living - in the time honoured filmmakerly tradition with a couple of teaching contracts supplemented by various bits of dull dull temp work inbetween.

And what are my films like? Spanning several tomes worth of techniques - narrative, formal and attacking and sticking things to the film-wise - they've ranged through travelogues, dramas involving an ice baby and a wheely dog, document(ary), animated performances, cinematic sketchbooks and re-constructed reveries. Realising quite early on that economics and an inscrutable funding structure precluded the pursuit of 'production values' and all the trimmings of higher gauge cinematography - or at least pushed them way down my list of priorities - my Super 8 work has developed an aesthetic born of pragmatics (e.g. a needed link shot of a raft ride becomes a thimble sized plastic baby on a bed of pencils floating in a bath overseen by cotton wool clouds). This is a visual shorthand of sufficience (and not of kitsch).

All the way along I've attempted to refine a method of filmmaking that combines experimental practice with familiar forms in an effort to engage with diverse audiences.... these are no rarefied dips into avant garde waters, but impassioned stabs at making that celluloid sing - a few more tugs on the leash of film language.

mistralstudios@hotmail.com