Declaring a world first for the South African film industry, Reflex Films and DV8 have announced that Aryan Kaganof will direct the first 35mm film to be shot on a mobile cell phone camera. Entitled SMS Sugarman, the story (by Kaganof) is a kind of Xmas tale: set on Christmas eve in Johannesburg, it’s about a local pimp, who ferries his four doxies around town to service clients. Kaganof describes it as “a feel good story on a dark evening, for the modern urban viewer.”
Kaganof pioneered the use of blown-up DV to 35mm in his rave culture movie called Wasted; but I found it hard to imagine what cell phone resolution (VGA?) would look like when raised to 35mm. Shouldn’t Kaganof just call the movie “Pixelation”?
Kaganof’s answer (by email) was:
yes but that is only a problem if you want the image to look like
conventional 35mm
the point is that the image in this film will look like itself
in other words
a new direction, a new possibility
for cinema
perhaps only a tangent
perhaps not
but we’re following it anyway

I suspect that the cellphone footage will be used within 35mm - sort of picture within picture edits to show the parallel communication channels which are running through the narrative. but . . . knowing Kaganof’s fondness for radical aesthetics . . . it may well be entirely shot on cell phone camera. One pity though - viewers will lose detail from the very photogenic Leigh Graves, who is playing one of the hookers in the movie.

We’ve reached the end of the 2005 programme. I think the many people who have attended would agree that this has been a rich and varied programme of presentations and screenings. Stay tuned, because we’ve got an even better line up planned for 2006!

This week we feature a focus on new work in animation, both internationally and South African.
18 November 2005
15:00 - 16:30
The WSOA Convent Seminar Room
All Welcome!

RYAN - Animation as Expressionist Documentary

RYAN - a ground-breaking animated documentary about Ryan Larkin, one of the most influential figures in Canadian animation who now lives as a homeless derelict in Montreal. In Ryan we hear the voice of Ryan Larkin and people who have known him, but these voices speak through strange, twisted, broken and disembodied 3D generated characters… people whose appearances are bizarre, humorous or disturbing. Although incredibly realistic and detailed, Ryan was created and animated without the use of live action footage, rotoscoping or motion capture…but instead from an original, personal, hand animated three-dimensional world which the director, Chris Landreth calls ´psychological realism´.

Chris Landreth is one of the few undisputed “auteurs” in 3D animation. “Bingo”, on of his experimental works in 3D set the bench-mark for what was possible with Maya, and was used to promote the software. Now he turns his imaginative and technical genius to a project that had particular resonance for him as a professional animator – the story of Ryan Larkin. (Thanks to Phil Boltt for the loan of this short film.)

Also: Animation and Special Effects by AFDA Animation students (work produced under Richard Penn)

Animated Music Video by University of JHB Multimedia students (work produced under Mocke Van Veuren).

The UK Guardian has a story which suggests that the showdown which was expected at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis has been averted. Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Internet battle ends in stalemate