Death of Film in the House of Silent Shadows

Death of Film in the House of Silent Shadows renders the birth and death of 35mm motion picture stock. A testimony regarding working with this material, and the transition from motion picture film to digital cinema, its story is told in part by a projectionist of a small older independent movie theater. Early manufacturing (Kodak), exhibition (The Little Theater), and archiving (The George Eastman House Film Archives), all of Rochester, NY, of this material float in the currents of its story. 35 mm motion picture film stock is loved for what it has done. It is sad that film is dying.

  • Sean Powers
    Director
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    32 minutes 25 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 12, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    1,200 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Sean Powers

Sean is a graduate of the Hunter College (CUNY) NYC Film Production program 1999. Death of Film in the House of Silent Shadows (2023 DFHSS) is his most recent project. Principal actor for Crunch Fitness No Judgements campaign; Preacher :60,:30, Kids :30, Meat :30 with Preacher airing in NYC and Los Angeles, CA in 1996 and 1997. These spots were reviewed in the Director's edition of Shoot magazine 1997. The commercial Preacher, director, and Sean Powers, were awarded a bronze medal in the NY Festivals 1996. Actor in the stage production Global Village 78th street Theater lab/The Drama League/Plawrights Horizons, NYC 1997. Life model 1993-2000 at the School of Visual Arts, NYC, and also for artists Peter Hristoff, Sherry Camey, Christopher Pugliesi, and the Jacob Collins studio NYC. An actor at the Cleveland Public Theater 1990-1993 role Jacque Roux in the stage production of Marat Sade, and and also in other productions. Close working relationships between playwrights, directors, and actors as well as an avant-guard and public sensibility at this theater was central to theatrical development. An apprentice, and performer for one production, with the Footpath Dance company in Cleveland, Ohio 1986-1988 provided the opportunity to learn and apply certain modern dance fundamentals. Sean currently works as a licensed mental health counselor for a regional health care provider in New York State working with kids and their families.

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Director Statement

This Dream Documentary (DFHSS) is linear in its progression; sequencing objective statements made by the subjects. The plot is intermittently interrupted with subjective notes. These subjective notes are rendered using signaling, similar to denoting but having direct psychological relevance for the individual. Signaling takes a visual or audio element naturally occurring in the plot, and extend it, magnify it, and allow it to either grow or decay in the realm of story. These subjective notes render motifs of threat, morbidity, and maladaptive/malvolent influence. Subject matter experts, briefly transformed to character as formal technique, allow these on screen persons to have impact on story outside the traditional expectations of the viewer. Two concurrent/parallel themes a major theme/over current (cessation of use of film stock), and a minor theme/undercurrent (self inflicted death of George Eastman) progress and combine allowing for the partial resolution of the plot/story. Creating states of forgetfulness for the viewer where the undercurrent passes out of consciousness is central to this project, and render the insidious nature of suicidal ideation. These forgetting states occur during the viewers wake state when the objective/major plot elements are present. Intermittent viewer sleep states/para conscious/hypnagogic/hypnopompic, occur where the viewer becomes aware of latent negative affect and morbid impressions which float in the undercurrent of the story. A static camera with little reframing, and simple cuts are the predominant stylistic elements. Some gross superimpositions/sustained cross dissolves occur to emphasize impact/relations. Both were employed as an acknowledgement to earlier filmmaking. The degraded image was employed as an impressionistic stylistic element, and a counter to high definition.