Holy Ghost by Chief N’ Council – Music Video

In early 2019 I had the opportunity to work with the rad guys who make up Chief N' Council, a rock band from Siksika Nation. We were paired up for the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmaker's "Film Music Explosion!" series for the 2019 Artifact Film Festival, where a filmmaker and a band pair up to shoot a film to a song all on Super8mm film, get it developed and cut, then play the track live with the film being projected. I was very lucky to team up with Lance and Sully! We got to hang out, eat dim sum, and do a trip out to Siksika to shoot a few rolls of film.

The idea for the project was to talk about the land, and loss, and the ghosts of people you care about. Technically, I was interested in animating text, and overlaying through a double-exposure process onto the shot film. The animation in this piece was all done digitally, using Toon Boom Harmony, timed out to the .mp3 the band sent me. The original plan was to time out all the shots, rewind the film back in each core to the beginning, then shoot the animation overtop of it. However, apparently Super8mm cartridges can't rewind all the way back??? I'm used to working with a 16mm Bolex camera I guess, where that wouldn't have been an issue. But I persevered and, after getting the footage-only bits back from the lab, I scanned them, edited it together into the final cut, did all the animation compositing and effects, then made a sort-of "work print" for the festival to project. I had to basically film the piece, colour inverted, on a computer screen then hand-develop a "negative" myself. (The computer monitor's colours were inverted so I wouldn't have to muck around with bleach to make a proper positive print!) The film print turned out OK! But the timing was a little off. Looks good run through the projector though!

Film is becoming more relevant to my practice lately. This is probably the first full project I personally shot on film, but having to support motion film at my job at Quickdraw has been giving me some cool opportunities to make small experiments. "Speed projects" like these, responding to an opportunity and having a short period of time to turn over a smaller-scale project, is a great way to expand the horizons. Very grateful to Chief N' Council, CSIF, and QAS for all the fun times, supplies, and support!