Notes

snaggle

During my time at the Handmade Film Institute’s Wilderness Film Expedition in 2017, I was exploring pacing and breath; I found myself drawn to the cycle of life, decay, rebirth. Trees at various stages in their life processes and one particular snaggle toothed marmot, not for long in this world. One long tooth protruded upwards from its bottom jaw that would soon grow into its nose and seal its mouth shut or grow back into its skull. This marmot seemed to be ostracized by the others but also friendlier with the humans – perhaps it learned humans would feed it, if it moved closer and gave them time to reflect upon its plight. I offer you these reflections in this film. snaggle was filmed developed, hand edited, and spliced with presstapes at 10,000 feet. It had its premier screening on a starry night at our basecamp on a hand cranked projector also at 10,0000 feet above sea level.

Dendrology Dreams for Big Agnes

Dendrology Dreams for Big Agnes is a 2022 digital re-visit/edit from the 16mm silent film entitled snaggle. Dendrology Dreams for Big Agnes is more hallucinatory than the original film and incorporates the audio pareidolia I experienced during the expedition. In the mountains, we didn’t have contact with other humans or civilization for nearly the entire 11-day expedition. The only sounds I experienced were made by the other people in the expedition or the ones that nature was making – for example the conifers blowing in the wind, the occasional rock falling, and always in the background the constant, steady rush of a mountain stream. Audio pareidolia (also known as musical ear syndrome) is a phenomenon where the brain attempts to find a pattern of the sound it is hearing and attempts to fit this pattern with one that is already in its memory. After about the sixth day, I began to hear the faint sound of a marching band embedded in the mountain stream. I thought it might be nice to share that experience in a film.