From one source all things depend

I shot this on Kodak TXR-464 Tri-X Reversal B&W silent Super 8 stock which expired at some point during the eighties. Reversal film is really cool because after it's been processed, the film comes out as a positive meaning it has the correct color and contrast for projection. As opposed to negative film, which you could project but the images would be inverted, color wise. The downside of reversal film is that your original camera negative -- the film that came out of the camera -- is the film you look at, and by doing so, you're inevitably going to introduce dust and scratches, possibly real damage if not projected carefully. This is why negative film is used, so that duplicates can be made and the original doesn't get damaged.

This film was processed but hasn't yet been scanned so here's what it looks like when it's being projected on a wall then shot on my phone. This increased limitations in editing so I decided to add the music I was listening to while editing in the final cut -- but once I have them digitally scanned I'm hoping to do some wackier things with it and it'll be silent and most likely shorter. Thinking about adding scratch on "animations"/writing overlayed on top of the footage as well?

This was my first time using a Super 8 camera and I absolutely adored using it, it's like a toy. It's really simple to use but with that being said, about 20% of my shots came back out of focus 😁 I'm keeping most of them in anyways. I could only get my hands on B&W film at such short notice which made for a fun game to play while shooting -- do the things I'm looking at just look nice because of the colors or is it actually visually interesting?

I didn't know what I was shooting when I got there. I tried to come up with a theme in one word, "innocence" which informs some of it, but not all. While I was shooting my niece I was thinking a lot about Miyazaki's notes on animating a character running from his book Starting Point:

"We create the kind of running that is demanded by the scene or that we want to express: whether it is serious or slapstick, normal or unusual; whether the character's posture is heavy or light, fun or desperate, pursuing or being pursued; how old he is; how coordinated he is; and so on. If this is done well, the basic form ties it all together and gives the images cohesion. Yet the reality is that in many cases the depiction of running is formulaic. It is pity that so many animators assume that there is one set pattern for running."

What makes her run, her run? What does her run tell me about her personality? Life and joy and excitement and triumph, a thirst for fun, all in the way she steps on her toes, the way she maneuvers around corners. I met my newborn nephew for the first time on this trip at just ten days old. The newborn jaundice being an excuse to take him outside and lay down in the back of my brother's pickup truck and expose him to the heavenly rays to which he opened his arms as wide as he could as if to invite the natural world to his aid--I am HERE and ready to connect with nature! Life! Ahh! So my niece and brand new nephew make their screen debut. I still don't know how I feel about it, but my niece is so comfortable and natural in front of a camera it seemed a shame to leave it out.

"Innocence" does prompt the film but truthfully most of it was just what I liked looking at on my walks and how I see my own private Laie. Roosters with limps who I can guarantee were crippled from the long standing (and accepted) tradition of cockfighting on the island, dilapidated houses decorated with tawdry stone busts (of family members? historical Hawaiian figures?), the paniolo's at Foodland, school buses driven by drunk Filipino men that move 20mph over the speed limit on Kamehameha Highway.

There's a darkness to this place but it's powerfully overcome by the sensational beauty of the land, the 'Aina.  You see the ocean and you just want to surrender to it, the high and lofty mountains that live amongst the clouds and put you in your place, shadows of palm trees that remind you of the life that they've provided in every form imaginable (food, shelter, clothing, fire) for indigenous people. The abstracted water bits are absolutely stolen from Ralph Steiner's H20 and the sound of a gentle piano over images of crashing waves is dramatic as hell but I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.

With all that said, and motherhood on my mind here's the first draft of this little doc: