INDIE Chair

IFCO's TECHNICAL DIRECTOR INTERVIEWS FILMMAKER JOHN PRICE

Roger Wilson: Where did your interest in filmmaking develop from? Did your parents make films or shoot home movies while you were growing up?

John Price: I think my main influence while growing up is with my parents, where my mother, whose been a painter all her life and my father, whose been an engineer, a scientist all his life. Combining art with technology, film is the perfect medium... My father had given me a cheap little plastic still camera when I was about thirteen years old and that was my first introduction to photography and he bought me a little darkroom starter kit as well. Although he wasn't into that sort of stuff and he didn't have any idea that I would be interested in it he just sort of took a shot in to the dark and gave me the stuff and it started me on my way.

RW: When did you start to work with motion picture film?

JP: I did a lot of still photography in high school so I decided to go to Ryerson which had a still photography department but by the time I had gotten to Ryerson I had discovered film. I made my first film in 1968 on Super 8.

RW: Why do you make films?

JP: I guess as a form of expression. I had decided when I was doing still photography that I wanted to express myself. Once again inspired by my mother's paintings I wanted to do some sort of art form. Filmmaking just seem to be so much more fun and exciting then still photography. I would say that most of the things I choose to do, the main driving force is to have fun with my life. That is one reason why I have chosen Super 8 to keep things simple, if you keep things simple you have more fun.

RW: What was your first film about?

JP: Well I had gotten the inspiration from this National Film Board short, I think it was called Toys. It was a film against war toys, I remember it had plastic toy soldiers burning in it. My film was another anti war toy film. I got a friend of mine and a bunch of kids in the near by vacant lot and I wrote a little narrative script. It was about these children using their toy guns to hunt down this real adult soldier in the desert and they end up killing him with these toy guns. It was basically a statement against toy guns. The film was called Sandbox.

RW: Why do you use Super 8 film?

JP: Well Super 8 is cheaper, that's the main reason, you can make more films and make them more quickly and easier if they don't cost as much. Super 8 allows you to be more personal, your able to express yourself more like and artist, more like a painter or a writer who use very inexpensive tools to produce their work. I also like Super 8 because of the political issue, I find larger formats to be decalent, they're reflective of the whole capitalistic materialistic society, you know bigger is better. So early on at Ryerson I decided that smaller is better that Super 8 is better then 16mm and 35mm. I also recognized that nobody else thought that, no one took Super 8 seriously and that's still the case. Super 8 is sort of the underdog of film formats and thats one thing I love about it, I love a good fight and I have been fighting that fight ever since 1968 and I am still fighting it today at the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center which won't distribute Super 8. It's a huge political issue.

RW: What is your favorite Super 8 film stock?

JP: It changes over the years as stocks disappear and others get introduced or re-introduced or if I am shooting a different way which requires different stocks. Of course though kodachrome was clearly a much better stock then ektachrome. The kodachrome colours are more richer and more archival, kodachrome films shot in the thirties still look brand new today, they last a lot longer. Right now though I'm getting more interested in B&W, one reason is because I don't like the new Ektachrome but also because I have been long interested in hand processing. I have done a little bit and have even taught it some. B&W is the easiest and cheapest way to hand process and again hand processing reduces your budgeting more and that's another reason I like it. I am always looking for the cheapest way to make a film and hand processing B&W is the ultimate.

RW: How many films have you made?

JP: 300

RW: Is there a genre of films or a style of filmmaking you enjoy more?

JP: I prefer silent films and abstract films mainly because they are so rare. And so few people are use to seeing any silent films or abstract films, even though they are among the oldest genres of film they're still quite shocking to a lot of people in some ways. Its really a challenge to the audience to watch silent or abstract films and that's what I like about them.

RW: Where do you draw your inspiration from when developing a new film idea?

JP: Generally just watching and observing the world. That starts right back when I was a still photographer, to be a good photographer or cinematographer you have to train yourself to see things that other people don't see, look around you and see a frame around things and spot details that other people would not think is interesting at all. Even watching television can be inspiring because your watching the world. I think the most inspiring situation for me is sitting in the window seat of a restaurant or cafe or even better a moving vehicle where you can just sit and watch the moving images going by. I don't necessary get an idea from landscapes going by but things are just happening in front of me and it gets my brain percolating.

Visit John Price's Website