Friday, 1-4pm @ SOVA (3rd and Queen)
Master Class with Deco Dawson
Redirecting: Film History as Contemporary Cinematic Inspiration
In this master class, Deco Dawson will present a number of clips from film history that he has found inspirational, cutting edge and timeless. In many instances very courageous, imaginative and unique pieces of work have been created out of synch with contemporary movie making of the time. These hidden gems, often snippets, scenes or characters are forgotten and buried away only to be rediscovered by new filmmakers scouring the cinematic archives. Deco will discuss how merely discovering these troves can lead to the reimagining of current projects and injecting them with a new life.
Examples include the works of Norman McLaren, Arthur Lipsett, Busby Berkeley, Michel Gondry as well as oft overlooked techniques such as multiple exposures, optical printing, day for night photography and everything the film noir filmmakers ever attempted.
Deco Dawson Bio
Named one of the top 25 young independent filmmakers in North America by New York’s Filmmaker Magazine in 2002, and one of the top 10 Canadian Industry Trailblazers by The Reel World Film Festival, Deco Dawson has been achieving international acclaim for his body of short film work for a number of years.
Having directed and produced ten short films, including Film(dzama) the winner of the Toronto International Film Festival’s 2001 Best Short Film Award and The Ann Arbor Film Festival’s 2002 Best Technical Innovation Award, Dawson has screened his films in festivals across the globe. Of late, Dawson has received seven survey retrospectives of his films in Canada, at the Cinematheque Ontario, the Metro Cinema, the Pacific Cinematheque, the Canadian Film Institute, the Plaza Theatre in Calgary and the Calgary International Film Festival, Internationally at La Enana Marron in Madrid, Spain, La Club Pipa in Barcelona, Spain, Le Collectif Jeune Cinema in Paris, France and a complete 15 film retrospective hosted by the Northwest Film Forum in Seattle, Washington.
Most recently Dawson completed his most stunning and accomplished film to date The Last Moment, a 29 minute short film chronicling the last moments of a man’s life, as told through five styles of film history. This film will be screened at the 2009 Dawson City International Short Film Festival.
www.decodawson.com
Presented in association with the Yukon Film Society.
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