Recover, Reclaim, & Render...

In 1965, Kodak revolutionized home movies with the release of its super 8 film cartridges. Simple to use, anyone could make a movie, even a kid! And when I was about twelve years old, in the early 1970s, I did just that, filming my first narrative silent film about a young girl who runs away from home. At that time, I had access to Kodak XL model super 8 movie cameras through the public schools in Rochester, NY. I had also attended a summer arts program at the junior high school, where we were taught the fundamentals of filmmaking and editing—cutting and splicing our films together using a small, hand-cranked viewer/editor. 

I had saved my footage from these early projects, about thirty minutes in total, and later had it digitized, and backed up on my computer’s hard drive. In the winter of 2022-23, I revisited this footage, and cut together a new narrative film, building a dream-like sequence set to music. The images include various shots of an electric substation, the waterfalls at Letchworth State Park, and two children playing a game of “prisoner and fugitive” in an attic. The film is titled Power Play, and I hope you enjoy watching.