F47 ProductionsI have a film title. A subject. And a complete concept. Now, just to put it into action.
Going to be cautious in not revealing the idea or the title until I have some more solidified – so going to be a bit cryptic about it for now. But I am really excited about this direction and feel it has the potential for a must larger project.
In 2000 I completed a research project. Now I’m going back to that same place 22 years later to document what has changed. This time with Super 8 film camera in hand.
#straight82022
I recently attended the ‘friends, family, and movie-people’ premiere of This May Be The Last Time, a documentary produced by Matt Leach, Sterlin Harjo, and Christina D. King and directed by Harjo. This was the first feature-length film backed by This Land Films a section of This Land Press based in Tulsa, OK. The premiere took place at Circle Cinema in Tulsa on the heels of a successful debut at Sundance Film Festival in January 2014. Here is the posting about the film on the Sundance site.
I was hired to work on the film last year. I worked with the director and producer and other members of the cast and crew to capture re-created historical events that took place decades. Though, there was some original home movie footage of other stuff they could not unearth any archived footage from this particular significant event. So the goal was to re-create several scenes in a manner that might pass for film footage captured in the early 1960s. Super 8 film shot in a hand-held ‘man-on-the-scene’ type way was used to create a stylized, authentic appearance.
Coming into the picture I had seen a rough cut of the film and I understood the scenes and what they wanted to capture.
The shoot was a memorable one for me as many of the shots took place with me standing in the North Canadian River with a camera in my hand. All told we shot 7 rolls of film that day at 24 fps which amounted to about 17 minutes of film. The film stock was Agfachrome 200D Color Reversal film and shot on a Canon 814 XLS.
The intention was to use about 5 minutes of the footage. I was happy to see that every roll of film turned out wonderfully; good light, good focus, and framing. Plenty of the footage made it into the final film and the trailer.
I was happy to have been given the opportunity to share in this experience. The documentary is beautiful, heartbreaking, and uplifting, all at the same time…it’s a story worth watching.
Posted below is the official trailer for the film:
I added a new film to my Vimeo channel last night. This one is from the Oklahoma State Fair this year and features my fam at the livestock barns and at the midway. This was the first time I used my “nicer” camera at the fair. I used my Canon 814 XLS 
to shoot the footage. I shot on Kodak 500T Color Negative film. The soundtrack is from live recording at the fair using my Edirol R-09.
Taking my Super 8 camera and filming a roll or two has become a new tradition for me. I have been doing this for 7 or 8 years now and it makes me wish that I’d been doing it since my first visit there. I think the color and movement of film really captures the authenticity of being there.
This was also the first footage I’ve edited using Final Cut Pro X. I just downloaded the trial version yesterday and was able to quickly cut together the footage and the soundtrack without any real problems – which was great. I was a little hesitant about the interface to begin with but it turns out it was more intuitive than I originally thought. I didn’t search any help documents, just went right to work. Granted, there were no real edits within the film as I like to keep the film “whole” and as uncut as possible. But I did add titles, credits, and a layered audio track. Looking froward to playing around with FCP-X some more. Migration from FCP-7 looks imminent.
Oklahoma State Fair 2013 from Aaron Gibson on Vimeo.
I’ve got a new Super 8 film to share. I expect this will be a multi-part film series which may culminate into a full film. If you like it please share it and pass it around. Thanks.
Art On the Mother Road from Aaron Gibson on Vimeo.
This is a short film that I shot sometime in Fall 2012. It takes place in El Reno, Oklahoma at the site of Rick Sinnett’s mural titled Guardian of the Mother Road. One of the projects Rick has been working on is painting a series of murals along Oklahoma’s Route 66 – known as the Mother Road. Each mural draws in components of the Oklahoma landscape and Rick’s representations of native symbolism and presents them in a symmetrical and colorful array. This short (one cartridge/50 ft reel) highlights Rick’s presence and pride in his work and how his art is positioned in relation to Route 66 and the open fields surrounding it.
I shot this film with a Canon 814 XL-S on Kodak 500T Negative film. Edited in Final Cut Pro 7. The music was a lucky find (creative commons licensed). Intro sound effect is my own recording of me putting a Super 8 cartridge in the camera and pulling the trigger.
Processing and telecine was performed by my friends at Yale Film & Video in Burbank, CA.
Thanks for watching.
More about Rick Sinnett (aka Mothman) and his current projects can be found online at:
http://siloartproject.com
http://mothcollection.com
and of course on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
http://instagr.am/p/R_b_hLsGEM/
For the past few months I have been assisting Rick Sinnett (mothman333, mothmancollection.com) on the Silo Art Project. Mainly, I’ve been helping out by shooting video for a documentary for the project . Yesterday we went to El Reno, OK to shoot some footage for an upcoming Kickstarter campaign which he’ll be lauching in the coming days. A few weeks ago we visited Digital Media Warehouse in OKC where Rick printed a number of fine-art prints in order to raise money for the project. OETA was there (along with myself, whom you may catch a glimpse of here and there) to capture the process.
I am excited to be involved with this project. It’s always refreshing to find someone passionate about their work, especially when it comes to bettering the environment, the community and making a positive social impact – that’s what this public art project is really focusing on. Furthermore, Rick is incredibly driven to see this project through. It’s been more than a year of work – lots of behind-the-scenes stuff and still we are inching closer and closer to making “This Land” a reality.
You can keep tabs on the progress on the Silo Art Project twitter feed.
Following Rick (mothman333) on Instagram. Check out the Silo Art Project Facebook page. Watch for the upcoming Kickstarter page. And buy some of Rick’s art in various forms on MothmanCollection.com to support the project.