Reel Families by Zimmermann

Reel Families: A Social History of Amateur Film by Patricia R. Zimmermann, 1995.

Chapter 1 is great. Has analysis and summary of evolution of 19th century professionals versus amateurs.
Page 12, "in his America by Design, David Noble has noted that technology can function as a powerful instrument of corporate consolidation and protection from competition"
Page 14, Kodak patents and monopoly.
Page 15-16, origin of Bell and Howell in 1906, eliminating flicker and standardized 24 fps.
Page 21, 1923 Kodak started reversal process.
Page 23, "amateur film became the domain where one mastered and controlled technology, in contradiction to work where technology and technocracy controlled the worker.
Page 23, "A 1910 Scientific American article explained how to build a 35mm motion picture camera.
Page 33, "The cultural and, by this time, common sensical distinctions between the amateur as spontaneous and the professional as disciplined emerged in amateur photography from 1888 to 1923, most pervasively on the level of content".
Page 36, "The relationship between amateur and art photography was grounded in idealist conceptions of the artist as being removed and protected from corrupting external influences like society or money".
Page 43, Susan Sontag book "On Photography" discusses amateurs.
Page 46, "Writers in both popular technical journals and mass-market magazines directed amateurs toward crafting narrative spectacles of idealized family life".
Page 64-65, Compare amateur with Hollywood.
Page 67, "Professional touted tripods to stabilize technique"
Page 82, Cecil B. DeMille using 16mm aesthetic in Ten Commandments and "Zeppelin Square in Madame Satan".
Page 85, "[Bertolt] Brecht argued for a redefinition of 'folk' or 'popular' culture in his sessay "The Popular and the Realistic", published in the 1930s."
Page 91-92, in 1944 Hollywood cinematographer James Howe observes artificial Hollywood vs realistic 16mm newsreel.
Page 109, Hopi Horizons by Mary L. DeGive and Margaret Cussler for Kiath.
Page 117, "consumption compensated for lack of control and creativity at work"
Page 127, "Narrative organization and common sense united to stave off chaotic confusing and incomprehensibility"
Pge 129, Maya Deren writing on amateur film.
Page 134, "parenting as a leisure time hobby"
Page 146, Experimental film using home movies.
Page 152, George Kuchar on video.
Page 154, Gay and Lesbian filmmakers. Sadie Benning with FIsher Price camera.
Page 157, Rodney King beating on tape. 

Amateur Film by Nicholson

Amateur Film: meaning and practice, 1927-77 by Heather Norris Nicholson, 2012

British book, primarily historical on the changes in the use of small gage cameras in England over this fifty years. Book can be a bit repetitive but each chapter ends with philosophical (although not particularly theoretical or critical) summaries and observations.

Chapter 1 is an introduction.
Page 6, "Typically, Britain's early hobby enthusiasts were affluent, white, middle-class and male"
Page 8, for some cine users, being there, witnessing and personal filmmaking was an antidote to the tide of visual factual and fictive narratives now washing through many people's lives and localities. For others, trying their hand at fictional storytelling brought pleasure and companionship"

Chapter 2 - clubs, membership trends discussed. Notable is how class boundaries are broken.
Page 53 "Clubs responded differently to developments in sound and tape-slide production. Some critics saw the latter, which involved projecting slides with accompanying music or spoken commentary, as a hybrid visual distraction from film production, even though it gained its own dedicated competition in 1970.

Page 67, "The Russian director Pudovkin provided an inspiration, 'Amateurs organize yourselves' for the first national conference of amateur cinematograph society of Great Britain in Ireland (1927).
Page 79, [Watson writes] "start imitating the professionals ... and you're the worst kind of amateur because you will have been doing a clog dance where angels fear to tread"

Chapter 4 is worthwhile (family life as fact and fiction)
Page 92, Rachel (aged 2 and a bit) Discovers England (1937) by Charles Chislett: "rehearsed many of the apparently carefree scenes". "accompanied by a carefully scripted commentary".
Page 99, "Family memories on film are about making good times last. ... Remembering is also about forgetting".
Page 103, non-seqitor about shipping film in northern Canada: "In remote regions in Canada, for instance, months might elapse before films returned on one of the supply or hospital ships that linked scattered Inuit settlements in the High Arctic"
Page 108, "The on-screen presence of family members no longer alive connected past to present, and th living to the dead. Home screenings accustomed children to loss and change over time too. Young children possibly grew to recognize relations whom they visited rarely via their screen identities. Watching films sent from relations living elsewhere maintained families spatially fragmented by war, migration or education and occupation.
"Being in charge of the camera changed the social dynamics too as one person was out of the picture framing others. Thus camerawork, for all its selectivity, also discloses subtleties about family narratives, identities and memory-shaping."

Page 154-155, Sam Hanna docs on disappearing traditional craft practices filmed for posterity. Find some?

Page 181-182, in 1939, filming from window of car was common.
Page 189, voyeurism and exoticism in travel films "conferred status upon filmmakers who ventured into alien spaces" ... "wilst also being problematic in terms of appropriation and objectification"
Page 199, woman filmmaker Lucy Fairbank (for Kyath)
Page 211, 1933 films by Harold and Sidney Preston at Stockport Infirmary - "children wearing underwear and goggles receive 'sunlight treatments' from portable x-ray equipment in the violet ray department"
Page 215, "a mouche que veux-tu" abouit alcoholic waging war on flies.
Page 231, Filmmakers who produced films with a message represent a social group that, in many cases, felt that their right to look was unquestionable. Concerns over authority and the politics of representation were not preoccupations for the bulk of these filmmakers.
Page 245 - media archaeology discussed.

Silent Topics: essays on undocumented areas of silent film

Silent Topics: essays on undocumented areas of silent film by Anthony Slide, 2005  

Book is generally historical. Critical analysis takes back seat to lists and dates. 

Page 2. "...film historian Terry Ramsaye, who wrote on December 27, 1929 to E.B.Derr of Pathe, "May I, at this time, observe that I consider all British pictures makers lousy -- and, that the art of photography is practically unknown in Great Britain, so far as the motion picture is concerned"

Page 8-9, "British producers and distributors knew their films were inferior to American product, but rather than improve them, they felt it more important to stress the bond of friendship between the two nations and to emphasize that Americans should want to see British films in order to become better acquainted with their wartime allies".

Page 27, break down of each dollar spent of a film

Page 32, Lord's Prayer as a Hollywood satire: 

Our father who art in Hollywood

hallowed be DeMille

Thy kingdom come but fun is fun on earth as it is in Hollywood

Give us this day our daily break

And forgive us our wise cracks

As we forgive those who wisecrack against us,

Lead us not into von Stroheim

And deliver us from Jim Tully,

For Thine is the income, 

What Price Glory, 

For ever and ever,

yes, yes!

Page 44-45, Muybridge wrestlers gay? Plates 345-346 (according to Francis Bacon)

Page 55-57, Green carnation and red neckties were gay codes. See Betty Boop "Any Rags" from 1932. 

Page 59, Margerie Benner, a minor silent actress and sister of Priscilla who married to alcoholic author Malcolm Lowry (Under the Volcano). 

Chapter 7, interview with early film composer David Mendoza (COPY)

Page 78, Roy Pomeroy, early SFX engineer, did first Ten Commandments; made Red Sea out of gelatin. Also a major sound designer. 

Page 99-100, worst silent actress was Beulah Poynter, especially in the worst silent film ever made: "Lena Rivers". 

Pop Off: the regular 8 faction

Small booklet (program?) from Archer library: Pop Off: The Regular 8 Faction, curated/edited by Milanda Kovacova, YYZ, 1998.

Short essays by Milanda Kovacova, John Porter, and Lisa Steele plus one page film descriptions (writer not indicated but likely Kovacova) for 8 films.

Scan this booklet.

Notes:
Page 13 (Robert Cowan) "It was not until I saw ... most of my films shown together than I realized that there definitely was common ground in all of them. It is nice to see that, but it is also a good idea to ignore it, otherwise you start to work in formula to remain safe. I hope I am still growing."

Page 19 (Linda Feesey), "At the time, I believed the elements of my films were pregnant with meaning. Now, I do not believe in meaning, per say. Meaning is an unnecessary and frivolous imposition upon my filmmaking".

Page 29 (John Kneller), "The hermetically sealed film cartridge is a design that takes into account the sensitive material nature of the film within. ... The simple irony is that while the films celebrate the visual splendor of architecture and landscape, they are equated entirely within a hermetic space. The filmmaker is thus dis-engaged from the experience and the process itself takes precedence."

Alice Guy Blache: Cinema Pioneer

Alice Guy Blache: Cinema Pioneer edited by Joan Simon, Yale University Press, 2009.

The Great Adventure: Alice Guy Blache, CInema Pioneer by Joan Simon
Discusses Blache's biography with focus on her ability as a storyteller.
Page 11, Serpentine dance films
Page 13, "Madame a des envies or The Missus has her Cravings "Where a pregnat woman satisfies her food cravings ... [and] other sexual cravings..."
Page 15, "A Fool and His Money... made with an all black cast"

The Sage Femme of Early Cinema by Alan Williams
Page 41, "The Alcoholic or Drunken Mattress, or The Epileptic Mattress" best of her comedies -- deadpan performance of cross-dressed leading lady. "Guy had discovered a major truth of film comedy: things were much funnier if you don't laugh at your own jokes"
The Making of an American Citizen (1912) about immigrant experience and spousal abuse.

Madame Blache in America: Director, Producer, Studio Owner by Alison McMahan
Page 48, "Alice Guy directed more than 150 phonoscenes (as the sound films for the chronophone were called) between 1902 adn 1907" Audio was pre-recorded onto cylinders and performers would lip sync while filmed.
"As Alan Williams has noted, 'until vitaphone, in fact, the history of sound filmmaking is a history of repeated failure, not of technology, but of marketing'"

Madame Blache's Maternal Melodrama: New Love and the Old (1912) by Jane Gaines
no notes

The Wages of Feminism: Alice Guy Blache and Her Late Feature Films by Charles Musser
page 88-89, copy these pages, very interesting notes idealizing and vilifying the artist.

Wonderment -- Seeing the World Through the Eyes of Alice Guy Blache by Kim Tomadjoglou
Discusses restoration and archiving and the notes and remnants of her colourization.

Loop Collective, 1996-2013

 Loop Collective, 1996-2013, by Kelly Egan, Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof and others, 2013
Introductions by R.Bruce Elder and Kathy Elder. 

Part critique, part biography, part history, part artist statement, part manifesto, this book is a nice starting point to introduce one to this group and even, in a way, to lead others to the brave/foolish/necessary path of creating a mad little collective of their own 

Page 1. Mission statement. Concern with dialogue between film and other arts. 
Page 7, History of begining of group, reference to teh 1989 "notorious experimental film congress which shattered teh already tiny community of experimental filmmakers".
Page 8, Susan Oxtoby adn Independents Series in 1995.
Page 9-10, Group finally gels at Allan Ginsberg reading and reception they entered with Bruce Elder's ticket.
Page 80, Enka Loio poetic comparison of film to a book. 

Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales

Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales by Marie-Louise von Franz, revised edition, 1974, 1995.

Generally written with assumption that the reader is Christian (see especially page 111) and is frequently sexist (see page 82)

Page 34 "with the archetype of the great mother you have the witch, the devilish mother, the beautiful wise woman, and the goddess who represents fertility.
Page 61, Nose and smelling as metaphor, "smell a rat" etc.
Page 66, Latin prayer to Venus used a millennium later as an exorcism prayer.
Page 91, If people can do active imagination for hours, then it is wrong. If it is done rightly, one is exhausted after ten minutes, for it is a real effort and not a 'letting go'."
Page 102-103, Paradox (for Rania)
Page 107, frigidity in woman.
Page 126, Isis, light and dark side, witch and mother
"as Jung points out, the moment when the figure of the virgin Mary becomes more important was also the time of the witch persecutions. Since the symbol of the Great Mother was too one sided, the dark side got projected onto women"
Page 127, explains witches not attacking the king directly but through others. Also relates problems of the husband (Rania).
Page 180, "if a man is frightened of a woman he becomes impotent ... with women it is the other way around".
Page 214, "Jung also says ... one of the most wickedly destructive forces, psychologically speaking, is unused creative power".
Page 247, "absolutely ice-cold from rage"
Page 301, Magic is therefore the older form of spiritual and religious knowldge and activity which has been superseded by a new spiritual religious attitude" (old religious becomes "magic")
Page 320, Adler tree - useless, grows in bogs, devil uses it to beat grandmother, can be used to ward off evil.
Page 322, Sacrifice milk to underworld to subdue them but sacrifice wine to the gods.
Page 323, "The Devil is personified haste".

Glossary
Analysands
Freud: Id, Ego, Superego
Animus
Shadow
Projection
Affect
Libido