From: Philip Solomon (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Jan 22 2004 - 13:40:31 PST
There is definitely a relationship between Stan and Downey in one way
or another. I was never sure exactly what happened, but here's what I
remember from our conversations:
1. Stan did work on commercials in his early career (and he used to
frequently tell stories about working with the great Boris Kaufman on
some of these)
2. He did mention that he was responsible for a famous commercial use
of slow motion (like the Downey effect of "billowing" that you
mention), but if memory serves, I thought he said it was a Scott
tissue commercial that he worked on - but I may be getting this
confused with Downey ( and I'm reminded of the opening credits of Garp,
which also references this effect, with a baby "falling" in slo-mo in
front of a downy fluffy sky backdrop...)
3. I can't tell you whether he directed these, shot these, or both (on
the ones with Kaufman, he was assisting, I believe, or acting as a
camera operator or AC to Kaufman's DP)
4. I'm not sure whether the Downey/Scott thing was a rip-off of an
effect that he did on a local commercial, or if he actually worked on
those nationally broadcast projects - I believe it was the latter. He
was quite proud of this work in a way, and admired the people that he
worked with who shot/DP'd commercials, as they were expert and
painstaking, and could work miracles with light on objects.
5. I'm not sure where these were done (Denver? South
Dakota?Princeton?). If they were done locally, most likely Western Cine
might still have records of this part of his commercial career.
6. I seem to remember seeing a resume or a complete works list, which
listed some commercial work and certainly some of science films and
industrials that he shot or directed (like a film made at CU with
George Gamow called Mr.Tompkins Inside Himself). Some of this material
worked its way into Dog Star Man (shooting blood circulation inside a
bat's wing or an operation of a dog -and the solar flares, which I'm
not sure if he shot or borrowed).
This is where I will leave it to Fred or Marilyn to fill in the blanks.
Phil Solomon
On Thursday, January 22, 2004, at 11:34 AM, jarrod whaley. wrote:
> this is one of those "settle a bet" questions: i seem to remember
> reading
> somewhere (possibly here) a while back that stan brakhage made the
> commercial in which we see the famous image of a bottle of downey
> falling in
> slow-motion into a billowy blue (or was it pink?) towel. i told a
> friend of
> mine about this a while back, and now an acquaintance of his is
> questioning
> the veracity of this claim.
>
> could someone (mr. camper?) please corroborate or deny this story? and
> if
> brakhage was not the director of the commercial in question, does
> anyone
> know which commercials he did make? i'm very curious about this.
>
> jarrod whaley.
> www.oakstreetfilms.com
> www.freefilmclub.com
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.