Page 30 - Studio International - November 1973

MS: Yes, in a sense, although I thought of it as programme the camera movements but in fact a go ahead, it had taken so long, a couple of
being vaguely symphonic. There's a grand lot of the camera movements were operated by parts of the film were done with that system
statement of theme and then there's other dials. and the rest was done with this set of knobs,
themes and elaborations. You get it a little MS: That's information that doesn't really following a score that was written out, that
faster or you get it combined with this one or matter when you're watching the film — it's like would say, for example, horizontal three,
that. It's over such a long period that it doesn't the production. When you see and hear it there vertical five or fifty feet, then it would go
build in the same way as the first part of Back are connections between the sound and the horizontal four or something like that. And then
and Forth because it is really a gradual rise to a image but how you read that is another matter. when the film was done I had to post-sync
peak and a fall off. So that's what really counts. It is in sync. When the same kind of sound. It's not quite the same,
JDC: Although there is that very fast movement it moves horizontally there's a certain pitch of but it's the same kind of sound we'd be using
at the end that lifts you up. note. Those beeps are always the same, they're to try and programme it.
MS: That's another thing that's not going to always at 30o cycles or so. And the faster it goes JDC: You shot six hours of film. What sort of
happen in the new film. I've thought of the the more beeps there are. If it goes vertical decisions were involved in cutting it down to
other as having a kind of sexual form — because there's another pitch which is lower than that. three ?
they're orgasmic in a way. I think they're very So its horizontal, vertical, rotation and zoom: MS: There were parts that were repeated. I
sexy films myself. all have their pitch. shot the first section twice for instance. And
The new film doesn't have that kind of form. JDC: It was difficult for me to work out whether there were a couple of sections that just didn't
All of my films are progressions in the sense of it was just coincidental sync. work. One of the things that didn't work was
2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and this one isn't like that at all. It's MS: Well, it's a little shifty and it falls apart at that originally I planned a section about half an
more like 2, 5,1006, — very unequal, there's the end. There's a complete separation at the hour long with the people who were the crew

(Right)
Stills from La Region Centrale 1970
(Left)
Michael Snow by the camera
activating machine, during the
filming of La Region
Centrale 1970

no sense of symmetry. end, of what I thought of as a kind of nervous there and it's synchronized sound and various
JDC: So you're dealing with disjunctions. system and an optical thing. But that's my things happened. In a way I was a little
MS: It isn't totally disjunctive, but it interpretation of it. The fact is that you get hesitant about it, but it's really interesting in
doesn't rise. That's really been one of the things these synchronized beeps with certain types itself. But as you can imagine it was totally
that's interested me: it's not the same level, of movement. You don't have to trace them destructive to the whole thing of having that
they're all different levels, you never get the and connect them but they are synchronous. landscape to yourself. It just had to go, after I
same level again. So, okay, the production part of it was that saw the whole thing together.
JDC: In your earlier works you were dealing originally we planned, we worked on a system JDC: There seemed to be pieces in Region
with predictable structures from which a to programme the whole thing with sound Centrale, particularly near the end, where the
tremendous amount of unpredictable 'tapes so that we'd compose the sound first camera was being moved without the usual
spontaneous activity was generated. The and that would give instructions to the machine programming or dialling.
audience picks up on the structure fast and to move and then I was going to use that as the MS: Yes, when it holds on the sun for a while,
watches what it's generating. track. Which is interesting because it would and in the piece with the moon.
MS: Yes, whereas with this one that won't be have meant the visual part of it was composed JDC: It wasn't all a matter of letting the
possible, because it's very faceted. in terms of sound. And so there'd be this machine get on with what you'd originally
JDC: There's some confusion in my mind about reverse relationship, at least in the production. worked out.
how the soundtrack for Region Centrale was But it would have ended up pretty much the MS: It's just a rotation thing, with playing, so it
eventually put together. Your original intention way it is now. So anyway this sytem was not jerks around.
was to have the actual sound that was used to properly finished and when we were forced to JDC: Why the breaks, the X's in Region

178