Richard Reeves’ Optical Orchestra
At the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers $100 Film Festival March 13, 2003
By Andrew Jaremko
Cinema means watching pictures and sound in a prepared presentation that’s been committed to a recording medium, the same every time you see it… or maybe not. Maybe anything else isn’t cinema, and we have to invent a new, elegant word for the son-et-lumière shows that are different every time. Or maybe more than one word, for all the variations people are trying.
Richard Reeves has been doing “public performance things for a number of years”, starting on the West Coast. The Optical Orchestra is the current incarnation of his synthesis of performed sound and moving image.
Richard invited me to bring StopMotion Station and my electronic projector to the CSIF $100 film festival, where the Optical Orchestra was the first of two groups performing on opening night. My images joined those from two 16mm projectors in the projection booth. One showed a prepared eight and a half minute reel featuring hand processed film and animation by Richard, Melissa Heffernan, Chris Melnychuk, and Jean-François Côté. On the other, Julia Burns drew, scratched, and painted on a film loop while it was running through the projector. Megann Reid was also in the booth to keep Richard’s 335mm “lava slides” going; unfortunately, that projector was plugged into the house lights so it shut off when the show started. I had organized about 20,000 frames from Richard’s movies “Sea Song” and “1:1”, Cam Melin’s current Animation Jam, and films of mine that had been shown over the years at the $100 festival.
Richard stayed in the booth to keep an eye on things. Unfortunately, nobody in the booth could hear the soundtrack being created live on stage.
With a 16mm projector running a “scratch sound” loop to provide a rhythm, Melissa Heffernan, Clement Yeh, Johë Mclelland, and Chris Melnychuk improvised the sound while the movies played.
Richard says, “It’s really interesting to keep (the sound) really kind of raw … using only the equipment used in filmmaking.” Melissa played Richard’s “16mm violin” (worth an article of its own) and Clement, Johë, and Chris played the soundtracks from pieces of 35mm film on optical sound readers.
The audience liked it, and it was fun to do. Richard looks forward to longer performances at places where we have more control over the setup. “I think people’s interest could be maintained easily for 30 minutes. There’s no set rules or guidelines. It could be as simple as two people or as many people and as much equipment as we can find.”
Cam Melin videotaped the … show? performance? event? and I’ve edited it, with some of Richard’s comments, into a 5 minute videotape that you can see down at Quickdraw. I look forward to doing more Optical Orchestra performances and seeing where Richard takes the idea.
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