My best friend, or at least he told my parents he was my best friend, liked the film, but thought it should’ve been called Room for Improvement instead of the title I committed to: Room Four Memory
His suggestion came from someone who’d never seriously attempted filmmaking at the time, though we both grew up in middle-class families with 8mm or Super 8mm cameras that were routinely whipped out for birthdays and holidays. As teens, and young adults we repurposed them for more creative pursuits.
He once said he’d only make a film when he could match the quality of his idol, Steven Spielberg. Eventually, I coaxed him into making a short, animated piece, but that’s another story. If you’ve seen Spielberg’s Super 8, you’ll get the idea of what my friends and I we were up to back then… minus the zombies and aliens.
I’ve always been a DIY filmmaker, willing to dive in, clueless or not. One day, while eating mall pizza at my government film library job, seated beside a film inspection machine, I thought: enough of the Super 8 film format Time to aim higher, plus I was passionate about movie film gear in general at the time.
So, I began searching for a used 16mm camera to make my first “serious” film. In the late ’70s, camera shops were common, and many carried professional gear such as Bolex, Beaulieu, and more. The prices were out of reach for my modest salary, but eventually I found a hand-wound Bolex with a zoom lens via mail from the U.S. The seller threw in two movie lights and a leather case. Total cost: around $600. Sweet.
I shot Room Four Memory over a weekend at my uncle’s farm. My dad played the lead. I was inspired by Truffaut’s Day for Night and the French New Wave, so I filmed under existing light, pushing the Kodak Ektachrome stock to its limits. It looked great projected in a theatre, but didn’t transfer well to video formats that came later. Today, it feels strangely vintage.
The film earned a bronze honorable mention at the Photographic Society of America’s annual festival in Utah and aired several times on Canadian television. Some viewers compared it to Polanski’s work; others saw it as an anti-war piece. You can decide.
I haven’t seen my ex-best friend in nearly thirty years. Attempts to reconnect with old film community contacts through Facebook and other platforms yielded mixed results, some replied, some didn’t, some I couldn’t find, and others had passed on.
You can access Room Four Memory, along with my other video, publishing, and sound art content — here.
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