Stories are the most important aspect of being human. Stories are how we understand our history, our culture, ourselves and each other. Folk Stories, fairy tales, legends, myths and fables all have their roots somewhere, and that ‘where’ was originally in a community; beginning with a single storyteller and then morphing and shifting with each telling and with each storyteller who tells it.
Stories are alive.
For Bowen Fables we selected several stories from the Bowen Island Museum and Archives and used them as a - once upon a time - for our short films. All of the stories in the Bowen Fables collection have a kernel of truth in them; they are all based on events that happened, right here on Bowen Island. But, like fairy tales and myths, over the course of the workshops and with the various community members who dropped in to contribute time, ideas and expertise they have spun off into the fantastic.
It didn’t matter what you put in front of the camera obscura, just the context of it made it seem like something you might call art. I think it is the mechanics of making it. There is something crazy about poking a hole in a sealed cardboard box, taping a dollar store magnifying glass on it and then seeing an image of the world appear from a small ray of light.
I built several increasingly larger models. Each time it was like magic, on the screen would appear the world, upside down, but so vivid, so familiar but not real, dreamlike.
"How to Tame a Man: Origins of Beauty and the Beast" traces the popular fairytale Beauty and the Beast to its origins through mythology, folklore, and literature. This video essay examines the symbolism of the "animal bridegroom" motif and how stories of taming the masculine have been woven into our collective unconscious for centuries. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Disney's modern adaptations, this essay examines how these narratives reflect shifting social and gender dynamics, while revealing the enduring fascination with transformation, love, and power.
My approach to production for COBD was not to shoot 'a video' but shoot content we could reuse over a number of productions at different stages of the Capital Campaign, for different audiences and across various platforms. This allowed for the maximum use of a small budget. This video is for use on social, under a minute and can be understood without sound, (or without picture).
Over a week the kids aged 8-11, and 12-14 years old, wrote, acted and directed the short films. This year in addition to Bowen Island, the project has grown to include camps in Sechelt and Squamish.
During the camp up to ten kids make two short films. The kids come up with story ideas and then, in teams, write a short film script.
“The kids choose if they want to be on camera or work off camera, we do two films so kids can try different roles.”
The kids dream up the characters, and scenes, create costumes, make fake blood, experiment with the camera and learn how to tell a story with editing. Participants also learn media awareness skills including identifying advertisements and marketing tactics, personal boundaries for screen time and the context of social media.
I have been musing on The Emperor and The Empress tarot cards, they have always been problematic for me.
First, in order to answer that question, I would need to define what magic is...
Three categories of reality in Dion Fortune’s Applied Magic
Collective enchantments & reality selection