Seeking film rights to Canadian landscape paintings
Stephen Arthur (new)
Canada Council for the Arts film production (awarded July 2002)
Widescreen DVD - working title: "Tran Scan" (a celebration and a memorial)
combining:
(1) a unique method of travelling time-lapse of distant landscape
reconstructed frame-by-frame, crossing Canada in ten minutes of screen time
at 6,000 kilometres per hour (phase completed - 9 months)
with:
(2) brief morphing sequences of CANADIAN LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS from
realist to abstract, historical to contemporary (phase now starting).
Hello,
I was the film director for the National Film Board of Canada's
"Transfigured" (1998), which animated the paintings of Jack Shadbolt. For
part of my current film I must initiate a massive undertaking to obtain
rights for potential use of at least 400 landscape paintings from across
Canada, through history, from which only about 20 will be finally used.
Why? The choices depend on affinities of both colour and form between
paintings, so the images used must be drawn from a set of available ones at
least twenty times larger in number. This tested approach is an integral
part of the proposal for which the Canada Council awarded the grant. I hope
to obtain blanket permissions from many artists across Canada for the
landscape-painting images in their body of work, for potential use.
I am hoping that galleries will be willing to contact the artists and
estates they represent to obtain image permissions. Could you help me?
--- Could you recommend this project to appropriate artists, or artists'
estates? (not public domain)
--- Could you distribute copies of this letter and the attached RELEASE
FORM to sign and return to me? (These are attached to this email as doc
files for printing out, and are also available on my web page)
--- Could you donate available digital images for those chosen if
requested? (physical photos not needed)
Please forgive this mass approach. This is a very low-budget,
time-limited, independent production. I hope to be able to work with the
potential images collected within two months time. Most likely, only one
painting from any given artist can be used, and these will likely be from a
minority of the participating artists or estates. So, in the end, the
permissions given are greatly more restricted than it may at first appear.
The text of the detailed proposal can be read at the private-viewing
web page given below, along with movie clips illustrating the
painting-sequence morphing approach, the landscape-animation practice, and
"Transfigured"--
"I wish to convey as strongly as possible my support for the brilliant
animated work which Stephen Arthur has done... I have seen [Transfigured] in
the company of other viewers of broad and sophisticated cultural experience
and critical capability who declare themselves "knocked out," amazed, etc.,
by the originality and vitality of the film... I am convinced that any
encouragement and support you can give this young man will be amply returned
in his future contributions to the achievement of Canadian animated film
production." --- Doris Shadbolt, letter to NFB (former Associate Director
of the Vancouver Art Gallery; recipient of the Governor General's Award in
Visual and Media Arts - Voluntarism; co-founder of the Vancouver Institute
for the Visual Arts; author of "The Art of Emily Carr" and "Bill Reid")
Your gracious participation is invaluable. I will follow up by telephone in
one week's time.
With much thanks,
Stephen Arthur,
Vancouver
SEE: http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/TranScan.html
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[text of release form as doc file found on website]
RELEASE FORM: Painting images offered for use in experimental-animation film
funded by Canada Council for the Arts Production Grant to Senior Film Artist
GUARANTEE OF ARTISTIC INTEGRITY:
Images will appear on DVD in a charged atmosphere, totally focusing on each
painting when it briefly appears as one of about 20 during the ten-minute
film. The DVD viewer can pause and hold on the painting indefinitely. Every
effort will be made to avoid cropping or stretching to fit the 1.78:1 (16:9)
aspect ratio. The film is not a means of selling something. The painting
images are incorporated into a new work that in no way violates the artists'
integrity. The film contains only time-lapse and paintings --- no
narration, text, or people; it is a "primary document," not intended to
illustrate any
pre-existing concept, not ironic or aesthetically distancing. The film aims
to add the dimension of time to everyday perception, a kind of "cosmic-zoom"
exploring how we are shaped by the land as well as being shapers of it.
Social, historical, and psychological interpretations are wide open. The
traveling landscape animation may be seen as "painting with motion" to
portray regional character, attempting to emulate the artists in the
historical, progressively-abstracted, painting sequences that break into the
film (or we "travel into") at different points for the major regions: Rocky
Mountains, Prairies, Canadian Shield, and Atlantic. May also be seen as an
"experimental documentary." Full credits at the end, in the sequence shown.
This film is not interactive; probable market is educational, festival,
home-video, and rare broadcast, intended for maximum international exposure.
See the filmmaker's web page for demonstration movie clips, detailed
proposal text, C.V., and clips of his NFB film Transfigured -"[Arthur's]
sensitive empathy to its true character makes this of lasting relevance to
those filmmakers who deal interpretively with the work of artists." -- Jack
Shadbolt
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Dear Stephen Arthur (Vancouver),
I grant you permission to use any landscape painting in my (or named
artist's) published body of work (or as restricted to titles listed) to
appear in Tran Scan (working title) as part of a morphing sequence described
in the invitation/outreach letter, in the web-posted proposal text and
demonstration videos, and above. I expressly release you and your agents or
representatives or any institution transmitting, exhibiting, or selling the
film from any claims arising from such use or distribution. I confirm to
you that I am the artist or the artist's-estate legal representative. I hold
you harmless from any liability, loss, or expense arising from use of these
images as specifically proposed for this film.
[ ] (initial here if applicable) Permission is restricted to specific
titles only, as listed on the back of this page. [please include the
published sources where reproductions can be seen (or lend photos if
unpublished)]
[ ] (initial here if applicable) I will endeavour to lend you reference
images. [i.e., photographs ("snapshot" size is fine), slides, negatives,
reproductions, digital-camera or scanned digital files (jpeg preferred, on
diskette, ZIPdisk, CD-R, website address, or email attachment for dialup
download).
[ ] (initial here if applicable) I can help to provide useable digital
images if requested. [resolution needed is only 800 pixels in width, i.e.
much less than photographic resolutions, but much more than typical website
display. Higher resolutions, i.e. larger sizes, are fine].
BY: (Signed) _______________________
Print name:_________________________________
Print artist's name if representing
estate:_______________________________________________
Address:_____________________________________________
Telephone, fax, email,
web:_________________________________________________
Date: ___________
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WANTED: large scale views, all styles (including assemblage and collage),
especially First Nations art and highly abstract if clearly grounded in an
identifiable region. NOT SEEKING: highly linear or transparent, vertical,
totally non-objective, aerial views, far north, winter, or primarily water,
human presence, close trees/vegetation. Please include, if possible, a
reference list of publications where reproductions of artist's landscape
paintings might be viewed in Vancouver. Notes on colour correction for
reproductions are welcomed. If possible, please FAX the signed release
before MAILING it to: Stephen Arthur, 373 - 1755 Robson Street, Vancouver,
BC, V6G 3B7. Fax 604-421-5046. Questions or to talk: tel 604-421-5046,
email sar...@look.ca Read detailed proposal text and play demonstration
clips at: http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/TranScan.html. Those credited in
the film will receive a copy of the DVD.