In the fall of 1982 Lisze Bechtold of Los Angeles, Lesley Keene of Glasgow, Scotland and Candy Kugel of New York City met at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. They each had presented work and were bummed at how long it would take to make another film-- they all wished to be at the Annecy International Animation Festival the following June. Lisze suggested that she had already composed a piece of jazz that was 3 minutes long and maybe, somehow, they could each contribute to the piece so it could be finished in time for submission. The film gets divided into quarters to see where in the world each lives, and then each artist gets a solo. The screen is then divided again into quarters and at a predesignated frame, each finishes her film, sends it off, and gets her acceptance letter. The final part, the trickiest, the paper itself was divided into thirds and Lesley took care of the right hand side of the scene, mailed it to Candy in New York who handled the middle and finally she sent it to Los Angeles, where Lisze did the left hand side. And it got into Annecy! And Lesley and Candy were there to represent it!
In 1989, David Ehrlich, in conjunction with ASIFA- International (association international du film anime) asked me and 18 other animators from different countries to explain ourselves through our animation. This is my short segment and here is the fully compiled film.
It was a wild idea and amazingly it did get presented in Annecy. I believe it was the first anijam, preceding Marv Newland's "Anijam" a year later. But ours was smaller-- only 3 contributors, all WOMEN (not considered equal yet...) and there were no computers, internet, overnight delivery. We had to rely on various post offices and long distance calling. I made the mats for the different sections and flew to LA to shoot our drawings. None of us could have predicted that we could have done this and now looking at it-- I'm mighty proud of us!
And it was the inspiration for David Ehrlich to make "Animated Self Portraits". He had recently created Academy Leader Variations where he had asked animators from around the world to create their version of the Academy Leader (the standard countdown for projecting film). He felt there were more animators who had been left out and wanted to come up with an idea for a new compilation. He met with the New York contingent one afternoon and asked what we thought could be a common theme for the next one. I had just finished "My Film, My Film, My Film" and suggested self-portraits and everyone jumped at the chance to show who they were through their work. I chose to show myself as a chameleon -- a shape-shifter-- who could fit in the role of whatever the story needed. Nick Hubbell created my music.
My Film, My Film, My Film: Presented Annecy international Film Festival 1983, ASIFA-East 1984 Concept Award
Animated Self-Portraits: multiple ASIFA festivals and New York Film Festival
Written, designed, animated, directed by Lisze Bechtold, Lesley Keene and Candy Kugel
Music by Lisze Bechtold
Camera New Hollywood Inc.
Mats by Computer Opticals.