Sweet Little Films

MovieMaker talks to Zola Mumford and Tom Hodges about their latest projects.

Tim Rhys & Kelly Hughes | Published January 1, 1994

It's hard for Zola Mumford to watch Hollywood movies. She says there's very little in them that a young, woman of color can relate to.

"I'm interested in the stories that don't get told," she told me recently over coffee at Bauhaus. "I was talking to an Asian-American woman who had just seen Sleepless in Seattle. She said 'That's no Seattle that I recognize.' Hollywood tends to stereotype. African-American women, for instance, are not always pregnant and on welfare. They're concerned with all the existential stuff that normal people worry about.

"I'm interested in these different realities. How can someone grow up in a neighborhood and not feel connected to it? How does gentrification happen? How do people react to crime in 'a neighborhood?

"My next project is a murder mystery. What do different types of people do when they heZola Mumford checks a shot using an Arriflex 16mm camera.ar a scream in the night? Would you do?

Zola's next film will be her third. She's currently in post-production on Dear Little Sweet Thang 'Nita, a 20minute short funded by the Seattle Arts Commission. Her previous effort was a six-minute film called Charm School, which was original, touching and funny, and succeeded in showing a black youth culture perspective not often seen even in independent, cinema.

Dear Little Sweet Thang 'Nita was the biggest project Zola had handled on her own and, logistically, the greatest challenge. She's happy with the film's progress, but getting it to post only happened because she was able to overcome a number of setbacks that would have caused some moviemakers to throw in the towel. Just before the shoot was to begin, for instance, the insurance she paid for failed to come through as promised. At another point she lost 785 feet of film because one of her crewmembers loaded the rented CP-16 Arriflex camera incorrectly. The lost scene was one she and the cast had worked six-and-a-half hours on perfecting.

Zola Mumford checks a shot using an Arriflex 16mm camera.

"That was really a nightmare," Zola recalls. "The financial toll was heavy." But, as in every successful low-budget film, it seems, certain people came through for Zola even more than she'd hoped. Dedicated crewmembers like Production Manager Lynn Martin were much appreciated, as was the ownership of Bauhaus, who contributed free lattes and an ideal location.

One of the biggest influences on Zola as a moviemaker has been, surprisingly enough, the Kung Fu films she watched while growing up.

"They're a real film education," she says. "The directors have no regard for established film-world rules. There are these wonderful time and continuity gaps. They do anything they want- I love it."

No one who knows her will be surprised if Zola gets to that point in her own filmmaking career much sooner than she thinks.

I met Tom Hodgson last May at the Lucky Charm Awards. His project, Sodi Back Bug, won the award for Best Music Video. He is currently working on a full-length narrative called Box Head Man. We recently met at 911 Media Arts and talked about paper mache, clean psychadelia, and Liz Taylor.

---

From Tom Hodgson's Sodi Back Bug

MM: What did you shoot Sodi Back Bug on?

TH: We shot on black and white Super-8 film. I transferred it to 3/4" video at Section 8 Films for editing. We did all our slow motion effects during the transfer by running the projector at a slower speed. I edited at 911 with Holly Taylor. It took about 30 hours.

MM: How long was the final video?

TH: About five minutes.

MM:Is it hard to find Super-8 film nowadays?

TH: No. I get mine at the University Bookstore. I'm using Kodachrome 40 for Box Head Man.

MM: Why don't you edit on film?

TH: I'm so sloppy I would ruin it. Editing with video is like using a word processor. You always get a second chance.

MM: So why don't you shoot your projects on video? That way you wouldn't have to transfer.

TH: I don't want to give up the look of film.

MM: What's the story of Box Head Man?

TH: It's a fairy tale. It's about a guy who falls asleep watching 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In his dream, Box Head Man appears, riding a unicycle, asking the guy for help. The Mosquitos have stolen Box Head Man's dog. Throughout all this, the sleeping guy is trying to figure out whether or not    fry this is all actually a deam.

MM: Sounds more like he fell asleep while watching The Bicycle Thief.

TH: Box Head Man will be what I call clean psychadelia. That's the beauty of a fable. It can be weird, but clean at the same time. Box Head Man will work at levels for both kids and adults.

MM: Are you using your same method on Box Head Man?

TH: Yeah, I'm shooting on Super-8 film and transferring to 3/4" video for the edit. Only this will be in color.

MM: Are you recording live sound?

TH: No. We're doing the music soundtrack and narration at Triad Studios. The voices are going to be dubbed in to go along with the moving mouths on the masks.   The voice of the dog will be played on a saw.

MM: What's it like, working with a dog?

TH: Waddi is a gem, although he has a bad leg, which slows things down a bit.

MM: Probably no worse than working with Liz Taylor.

Hodgson is a multi-talent who also composes music and constructs paper mache masks for his projects We talked about how his maskmaking led to involvement on Bernardo Bertolucc's latest film.

TH: A designer for Little Buddah was scouting locations by my houseboat. He saw my work and asked me to make a mask for a scene in the movie.

The designer was Bruno Cesari, who did set design work on The Last Emperor, as well as work for Fellini. The art director said my stuff was too refined. I'm waiting to see if they used it in the final edit.

MM: So ... what are your inspirations?

TH: The Grinch. I love The Grinch. MM

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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT

Comment by Alessandro Machi on 11/01/07 at 12:10 am

Almost 15 years have passed since this article first came out.  Where are you they now?  I would now recommend transferring to betacam sp instead of 3/4 video and then editing either on Betacam sp or Final cut pro (but use the kona card so you can go component into final cut pro with the DVC-Pro 50 codec instead of the DV 25 codec).

Kodak now offers Vision 200T and Vision 500T negative Super-8 film stocks and they really open Super-8 filmmaking opportunities.

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