“What is Life? or Vaat iss Leif”

AN UNFINISHED FILM BY TIM SMITH

 CONSERVATION & CAPTURE

Grant year: 2024

Grant category: Al Larvick National Grant

Grant recipient: Tim Smith

Collection title: The Tim Smith Moving Image Collection (link to more films by Tim Smith)

Project title: What is Life? or Vaat iss Leif

Primary maker(s):  Tim Smith

Original format: 16m, black & white, silent

Circa: 1981

Collection size: 2.5 hours of narratives show on videotape, 8mm and 16mm film

Grant support: Cleaning and repair and digital capture of approximately 800 feet of film

Digital capture format: Scanned to 4K resolution

Lab: A/V Geeks

Status: In progress

Online Access: Coming soon

Creative Commons License: Coming soon

GRANTEE/FILMMAKER

“While growing up, I was completely fascinated with anything media related. As a kid I remember appearing on the Dr. Zoom show (KPTV) at about 1964 or so. I appeared on numerous shows and became sort of a regular. However, I do remember how I and my siblings would perform satirical acts based on tv commercials or scenes from films like, A Streetcar named Desire. We even had a talent show once and invited the neighbors to attend.

My interest in film making started as early as 1967. I remember when my father bought a super 8 film camera and directed an early version of Beau Geste at the beach. But things really didn’t take off until he bought a hand spring wound Bolex H16 in 1968. This would be the camera along with an assortment of lenses that became the principal tool for filming all of my short films.

The process for creating a film usually started with an idea satirizing a type of film or an idea about a joke someone heard. The early films, starting with Salmon St. Saga (1970) came from a ‘concept’ that was related to a type of show currently broadcast on early morning Sunday television. For example This is Portland was derived from a travelogue series entitled Don and Edwina. The film Drugs: Killers or Dillers? was Matt Groening’s and Jaime Angel’s idea to satirize anti drug films that we had to watch in a high school health class. So the concept, of course, was the most important aspect of the film –the execution or production of a film adhering to that particular idea was the challenging part. I don’t think I ever produced a film that was not in some way humorous.

When I look back at these early films, I oftenwonder: “What was I thinking?” Though I am glad I produced these films; however, my career in film was short lived. I haven’t produced anything since 1999.” ~ Tim Smith

COLLECTION

“I have over 2.5 hours of videos, short films and other attempts at cinematic creativity, the last project I worked on was in 1998 a video series called the Jesse Files, a spoof of the right wing with two idiots high on God. The original film [supported by this grant] What is Life? or Vaat iss Leif shot on 16mm depicts scenes of a three actors in a satirical story depicting scenes from a fictional film produced by a unknown Swedish Filmmaker about finding love in all the wrong places, it is a satire of Ingmar Bergman's 7th Seal, or a loosely based parody of this genre, or an Angst film similar to Carl Dreyer as well. It is somewhat derivative of a spoof of Bergman, short comedy called De Duva, appeared in Cinemas around the ‘70s, I remember watching it and my friend Eric May, the other director / producer of the film both agreed this would be funny. Three actors appear - myself Tim Smith as Lars Larson and the co actor Mailille Nordnand who plays the love goddess. The actor who plays the Grim Reaper is unknown at present. The co producer Eric May who at that time was a producer for KGW News in Portland Oregon. ~ Tim Smith

The films in the Tim Smith Moving Image Collection capture a period of American culture that ran parallel with innovations in personal filmmaking. As equipment became more accessible and affordable to consumers – including 16mm film stock, cameras, at home editing systems, titlers, microphones, etc. – it allowed for a teenager in Portland to make (or strive for) well edited examples of amateur cinema. The films themselves capture not only a time capsule of the local people and neighborhoods but also show off a pre-videotape mode of personal cinema. In the decades to follow videotape and eventually digital filmmaking would go on to supplant the hands on nature of analog filmmaking. Smith - using razor blades and tape – would shoot, edit, promote and screen the films himself. Smith’s films perfectly capture that DIY zeitgeist of the 1970s – teenagers running around with cameras and cars and making with the end goal of a semi-coherent piece of narrative cinema. Read more about the collection here.