DEAD TIME

Synopsis

DEAD TIME is a story about two sisters, Wendy and Julie and their attempts at survival in spite of sexual abuse, excessive drug use and consequently, desperate criminal behaviour.

The story begins as Wendy and Mark come together in the world. We follow them through their first marriage at age 16 and the subsequent tragedy that befalls their four-month-old baby. Early on we learn that both Wendy and Mark are sexual abuse survivors who don’t have the support or resources to effectively deal with their traumas and so turn to a daily ration of potent drug abuse (cocaine, heroin, alcohol, etc.) to ward off their psychological turmoil.

Inevitably their marriage falls apart. Broken from the experience they both cling to their steady diet of drugs, pharmaceuticals and alcohol. Shortly after her divorce Wendy meets Reg who is a convicted criminal living a “shooters’ lifestyle by dealing large quantities of cocaine, hash and heroin. They buy cars, boats, jewelry and take weekend vacations to drug rich countries importing high-grade product.

Wendy’s sister Julie, on the other hand, describes herself as 120 lbs. of post psychedelic drugs surfing on the border of clarity and functioning. She has lived her life by delving into areas considered taboo by many (prostitution, the porn industry, excessive LSD use). Her life choices grew out of a need to escape her destructive childhood experiences and explore all things forbidden. Julie’s understanding of the world is constructed within the realms of her drug experiences. Her insights, although unconventional, challenge traditional stereotypes and shed new light on art, sexual politics and power.

All four players are one careless step away from death through suicide, overdose or criminal prosecution. Like a house of cards verging on self-destruction, their lives play out through a series of revolutions in an effort to regain control over their inner worlds.

Treatment-hand colouring film

Since I started making diary based films over twenty five years ago, I have attempted to do almost everything on the film from writing the original idea to shooting, editing, composing music, final mixing, even negative cutting. To further develop this working method, I have continued exploring one element in filmmaking that is often taken for granted - the application of colour. In DEAD TIME I am using hand developed and hand coloured stocks as well as the normally processed black and white and colour negative stocks. Hand colouring is a process where chemical tints and toners are applied directly to the surface of the film and are absorbed into the film's base and emulsion. The result is a coloured negative that, when printed, reproduces primarily as its complementary colour (yellow prints as blue, green as magenta, etc.).

I first began hand colouring film about eight years ago in SMACK in an effort to portray moments of difficulty or catastrophe - the death of a friend or the break-up of a relationship. In the past I've used various means to convey this emotion (montage, superimposition, optical manipulation, etc.) but am increasingly interested in the nature of hand colouring to portray emotion. Since DEAD TIME's trajectory follows the psychological struggle and evolution of two sisters, I will incorporate the hand-coloured images with the protagonists' internal struggle. The physical metamorphosis of the film stock acts as a metaphor for their struggle. Hand colouring makes this process explicit as it allows these qualities of decay and destruction to surface and acts as a mediation on reconstruction. It brings out not only the colour and texture of a subject, but allows me to evoke its spirit as well. It is this presence, this detail that I would like to address in my work.

As a painter would make their own pigments or a photographer would print their own prints, I am creating my own colour palette by applying colour to the film's emulsion. The intensely felt subjective realities in my work lend themselves well to this treatment. What underlies this process is the notion that we all see differently, that my eyes are like dogs, always returning to the same places, and it is in order to undo the habits of my vision, in order to see seeing more clearly, that I have undertaken this work. ---- Steve Sanguedolce