Grateful

Yesterday I received confirmation that my short film, Hidden Depths - Poetry for Science, is to be screened 'in full' at next month's International Polar Year Science Conference in Oslo. This makes me deeply happy. The PolarCINEMA event will showcase films from twenty-three countries. Each production will have environmental advocacy at its core, with a special focus on our Polar regions; there will be documentaries, cautionary environmental tales, feature films, etc... Gulp. This is a slightly 'whelming first for me and I'm going to have to trust that my 13 min 12:08 sec experimental arts film will cope with being projected onto a full-sized cinema screen. (My sons reassure me that the resolution I used will be plenty high enough for this, but still... I have only ever made this one film and have only ever watched it on my little black lapdog!)

I blogged about the making of Hidden Depths way back in February (gosh, February seems like a hundred years ago). It was a huge learning curve for me and very nearly fell into the 'give it up/it's too hard' basket.. Circumstances around its production felt spectacularly stressful. It occurred to me this morning that were I to try and pick up this same project again today, chances are I'd find I no longer have a clue where to start? Technically at least, I feel sure I'd have to start again from scratch.

How can this be so, one has to wonder? Well, I imagine it has something to do with the fact that every now and then our obstacle courses really do become our opportunities. We somehow find what we must in order to manage - or even rise above - the knots and hindrances; this seems especially true when a situation comes along that requires 'more' than we feel we are qualified, or able, to give. A short film might come across as a rather prosaic illustration of this point, especially in light of the The Big Picture, but I suspect the same principle of grace holds true for many of life's challenges?

Looking back, it is clearer to me now that the wrestling I was engaged with back in February might stand as a metaphor for so much more than 'just that'. At the time, just about everything felt impossible and I was sure I wouldn't be able to bring the project through to completion. And then something almost magical happened; there was a kind of 'declaratory moment', a point at which something shifted and the 'way in' made itself apparent. It ended up becoming one of the most exhausting and exhilarating creative adventures I've been on. Those who know me well would add that a good dollop of stubbornness helped - which seemed amusingly incongruous at the time, given the content of the film and the fact I think of it as a meditation piece?

Stubbornness and meditation - can the two go hand-in-hand? Apparently, yes. Whew. However this came about, I am ever so grateful.

DVD cover for Hidden Depths - 2010

Here's the short background blurb that will accompany the film:

"HIDDEN DEPTHS presents a chapter of ArtScience collaboration between Claire Beynon (New Zealand artist & writer) and Samuel Bowser (New York-based polar biologist).

Audiences will embark on a lyrical under-ice voyage in the company of a science diver, a pteropod, a flotilla of silver & white bamboo boats and an ancient giant of the uni-cellular world – tree foraminiferan, Notodendrodes antarctikos. Painterly and metaphorical in its approach, this short film addresses polar themes in a novel and thought-provoking way. HIDDEN DEPTHS is - as its subtitle suggests – ‘poetry for science.’

*

I won't be anywhere near Oslo in June, of course. . . why, it's half a world away from wonderful old Dunedin. Somehow this matters not and is right the way it is. In some inexplicable way, the fact I can't be there seems integral to this story's overall unfolding. Besides, I have good reason to stay close to home and I will be able to go to Tasmania with it for the Antarctica Imagined conference at the end of that same month. Yay. ; )

Learning curves

I've been tottering along on one - a learning curve, that is - which explains why I've been a bit off the wires lately. What can I say about this latest little adventure? For one, it's not been plain sailing. It's been stormy. There were unseen rocks and reefs. I nearly ran aground. Several times. My boat threatened to capsize, but didn't. We took on a fair bit of water, though; thankfully, I tend not to mind getting wet and discovered I had buckets and stamina enough to stay up all night (or two, as was required) and scoop, scoop, scooooop!

I've been immersed in my film-making project lately; it's titled Hidden Depths - Poetry for Science. The cast includes a science diver, a pteropod (I'll find my pics of this exquisite small wonder and post them here soon), an ancient giant of the uni-cellular world, foraminiferan Notodendrodes antarctikos - and the flotilla of bamboo boats that I posted a week ago. I'd initially visualized this film as a collaborative endeavour but after a series of twists, turns and odd disjunctions, I realized it was something I really had to give shape and voice to on my own. This was nobody's fault. It was simply 'one of those things.'

Apparently there are times when - for reasons both obvious and subtle - it's just not possible to articulate the images and atmospheres that occupy the space of one's head into language and shapes that others can take away and work with. Even though this is stating the obvious, it almost always takes me by surprise. I'm by nature The Eternal Optimist, and accede to feeling momentarily bruised and bewildered at the realization that ideas and dreams I'm excited by are not necessarily all that captivating to others! We're all differently wired - and 'tis good so. For all the upheaval of this past week, it's been reassuring to realize - again - that most, if not all, of the time, these sorts of experiences are thoroughly worthwhile in terms of The Overhaul (yes) Picture.

I've been wrestling with language recently. Does this happen to you? Speech has not been coming easily; as though my mouth and tongue are having to deal with a foreign alphabet. Then again, life does at times take on a wordless (or is it word-free?) shape.

Sometimes, I wonder whether in fact it's primarily in and about the silent conversations.

Anyway, the exciting news is that my first film 'proper' is wrapped up (all 13 mins, 08.22 secs of it!) and on its way to Oslo where it will enter the stream of other films being considered for Norway's International Polar Year's PolarCINEMA screening at the end of June; this is an adjunct event to the 2010 Polar Science Conference I submitted a paper to some weeks back (haven't heard anything re; the outcome of that yet; it can't be long now till we're all notified.).

Cadence, The Intertidal Zone & I went for a pounding walk along St.Clair and St.Kilda beaches on Friday evening. The light was dramatic, portentous almost - in an illuminating way. When we started out, I was feeling stressed and gruntled by the unforeseen challenges of what seemed (just days ago) to be an ailing project - standing on a knife-edge between letting the whole thing go and stubbornly trying to find a constructive way forward.

We were talking about learning curves. The beach must have overheard our conversation; it offered up some stunners -

Kelp drawings - in the first, a boundary, threshold space, line of music; in the second, a vessel, horseshoe, effervescing hull?

Every time I look at this small sand stage, another dancer emerges. What - or who - might come forward to meet you...?

There's no telling the scale of this form from a photograph. Might it be a child's dropped lollipop? A sculptor's mallet? A burnt-out torch, tympanist's drumstick or broken chunk of quay?

Come to think of it, the film's a bit like this --- it, too, plays with concepts of scale and is more about questions than answers. A meditation on wonder. My wish is that it will s l o w us down (for at least 13 mins 08.22 secs!), encourage a fresh sense of connection with the natural world, each other and our small-large selves.