Docu on Leacock @ Cinequest

[Rafael Rivera]

On Saturday I saw a documentary @ Cinequest by Jane Weiner titled La Camera passe-partout in which she had scanned archival Super 8mm B/W film shot by her on a Kinetta scanner for some of the segments of the film. The subject of her work is Richard Leacock who did documentary films in the 60's using handheld techniques and synch sound.

 

Jane was present at the screening and mentioned that by coincidence a shop had open in her Paris neighborhood where she saw the Kinetta Scanner by the window. It turns out that she had 15 hours of Super 8mm material she wanted to scan for her documentary, and as luck would have it, the Paris shop gave her a great deal on the scanning since she personally knew Jeff Kreines but not only that, Jeff had actually done some of the sound recording when Jane was filming Leacock on S8. There was a brief scene during the film where you could actually see the Kinetta in action.

 

The B/W S8 looked very good on screen. It was a bit underexposed and so a bit grainy. It was very interesting and fun to watch, not to mention the story around Leacock is also great.