Sunshine City (Albie Thoms, 1973) experimental
A structured diary film which investigates the process of living in Sydney. Uses a repeating light modulation to intensify experience of light, heat, color. Filmmakers Co-operatives Catalogue of Independent Film 1975-1976, The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (IMDb)
In Marinetti I adopted the Futurist notion of minimalisation of plot and characterization, while employing blank verse voice-over narration as part of a sound montage. I later developed this notion of narrative through sound montage in my post-Ubu films, Sunshine City and Palm Beach. Albie Thoms (IMDb)
... interview-filled 'diary film'. Ultimately more involving than Marinetti, it uses a highly structured system of inter-cutting white frames with exposed footage: one white frame per frame of footage; then three white frames per three frames of footage; then six and six; twelve and twelve; back to six and six; three and three; one and one. The technique reflects the film's theme as a 'flickering of consciousness', but it also illuminates a notion about which Thoms would write, two years later, in FilmNews. In 'A Shot is a Sentence - Three Frames are a Word', Thoms addresses structuralist cinema and the writings of Christian Metz. He writes, 'the persistence of vision phenomena, in which the film medium is based, precludes the perception of single frames in the conventional film viewing process of the cinema' ... Thoms may have been thinking in terms of 'units of film' when he used the multiples-of-three editing technique in Sunshine City. He also stages each of its interviews in a highly structured and unconventional manner, shooting single continuous takes and ending when the film in the camera has run out. The interviewees include fellow filmmakers Mick Glasheen and Aggy Read, as well as Brett Whiteley and Germaine Greer. The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia Journal, Vol 3 No 1 (2008) (IMDb)
Garry Gillard | New: 20 January, 2013 | Now: 29 June, 2020