Of the Earth
I’m so excited! I sent two short films I made in 1998 in Super 8mm format to Lost in Light, and they transferred them to digital video format free of charge. All I had to do was pay for shipping and a miniDV tape. My film and the DV version are on their way back home to me, and will arrive tomorrow. I am thrilled. I thought I would have to send these off to a transfer facility and pay 25 cents per foot (in this case, 700 feet at a cost of $175, plus an additional telecine fee, plus the cost of shipping). As much as these short films matter to me, it has never been worth the expense of having them transferred. I’ve always had a bill to pay, or some other reason to postpone. Lost in Light saved my films from the oblivion of the storage closet.
So here’s a silent version of Of the Earth, a short documentary of the Fresh Water Prayer to Eshu in the Ifa spiritual tradition. The prayer ceremony was shot twice: once with two stationary cameras, and the second time with a hand held camera to get closeup and motion shots. The edited result shows the actual sequence of events, but not in real-time. Rather, each action is repeated several times - time enough for a narrator to provide the words of the prayer and their translation. In silence, the result is a peaceful meditation. Enjoy.
