Screening: Four Films by Nathaniel Dorsky

[Satsuki Murashige]

Hi all,

 

My friend Nathaniel is showing four new films at the Pacific Film Archive on the UC Berkeley campus tomorrow night at 7:30pm. It should be an great show, come check it out!

 

http://m.happenstand.com/sanfrancisco/even...ic-film-archive.

 

For those who are unfamiliar with his work, Nick shoots and edits in regular 16mm with his Bolex and a moviola. He used to shoot Kodachrome exclusively until it was discontinued. These are his first films shot on color negative. His films are silent, 16fps, and run about 20 minutes. They are pure visual poems, emotional and meditative. You will not be disappointed!

[Freya Black]

Hi all,

 

My friend Nathaniel is showing four new films at the Pacific Film Archive on the UC Berkeley campus tomorrow night at 7:30pm. It should be an great show, come check it out!

 

http://m.happenstand.com/sanfrancisco/even...ic-film-archive.

 

For those who are unfamiliar with his work, Nick shoots and edits in regular 16mm with his Bolex and a moviola. He used to shoot Kodachrome exclusively until it was discontinued. These are his first films shot on color negative. His films are silent, 16fps, and run about 20 minutes. They are pure visual poems, emotional and meditative. You will not be disappointed!

 

Wow you are friends with Nathaniel Dorsky! :)

 

I think it's quite exciting that he has now shot some films on colour neg. It will be really intresting to see what he does with such a change of medium. Can you find out what stocks he is using for the new films do you think? Has he been using Vision 2 or something?

 

I can't be at the screening but look forward to catching this somewhere nearer sometime!

 

love

 

Freya

[Satsuki Murashige]

Wow you are friends with Nathaniel Dorsky! :)

Yes, he happens to live a few blocks from my parents' ice cream shop. He would come in every so often for a cone while I was working there, and we would geek out about Kodachrome, John Ford, and Ozu films. I didn't know who he was at all, just that he was a cool older guy that I enjoyed talking to! He encouraged me to keep shooting and showed me some of his work, so he was and is a big inspiration for me. :)

 

He said he will be going next to New York to show at the MOMA, then to Paris. Don't know if he will show in London at some point, but I'll ask him.

 

Can you find out what stocks he is using for the new films do you think?

Kodak 7201 50D. He said he wanted to try Fuji Velvia from Spectra in LA but I don't know if he ever did. His favorite stock was the K25, which he shot exclusively for many years. And his last few films were shot on K40. He kept dozens of rolls under his basement floorboards, and said that he liked to let them 'mature' for about a year and half - he felt the image from fresh stock was too cold and crisp and the 'aging process' helped mellow that a bit. I think there's definitely something to that also.

 

I think the reason he uses such slow stock is for the look - projected Kodachrome has that surreal, eye-popping clarity and lack of grain which makes it seem less like you're looking at an image and more like looking through a window, and 7201 is now the closest you can get to that.