New film from Overactive Imagination Studios

My son Sam and his creative partner in crime Sean Newton have finally posted their short film “Torched”.

The folks who’ve seen it are universal in their praise.

Find out why…and discover two young film-makers with a very bright future.

Michael Bay, your days are numbered.

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/62587166″>Torched</a&gt; from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/overactiveimagination”>Overactive Imagination Studios</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

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Cliff Burns: In Performance

At long last it’s done.

My son Sam completed final edits on the film he shot of my reading back in October, 2012.  The official launch of New & Selected Poems (1984-2011) and Stromata: Prose Works (1992-2011).

It was a huge file and he had to combine footage from a couple of cameras, synch sound, touch-up glitches and try to make an author reading as visually interesting as possible. No mean feat. But he’s done a fantastic job. The kid has an amazing eye and even if you don’t think much of the prose (or performer), I think you’ll agree that this effort is striking to look at, cut and trimmed and shaped with precision. All credit to my son, Sam Burns.

Here’s the reading, in its entirety.

Sit back and hit that play button…

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The Grind

I’ve been editing my short story collection Exceptions & Deceptions since November and, I gotta say, the grind is starting to get to me.

Writers who put great stock in their editing know exactly what I’m talking about. You can obsessively work on a piece to near irrationality, trying to get the sound, the tone exactly right. Note perfect.

The art, after all, is not in the initial act of creation, it’s how you shape and hone the material afterward.  Can’t tell you how many books or short stories I’ve read where I had to give credit for the originality of a concept or approach, only to see that uniqueness surrounded, besieged and eventually defeated by drab, unremarkable prose; featureless, uncolored sentences, bereft of rhythm, dumb as stone.

Right from the beginning, I wanted to tell my stories as simply as I could, in as few words as possible. I loathe long reams of description or exposition, what some of my colleagues call “info dumping”. Conversely, I love snappy dialogue and believe that a brief conversation between two people reveals far more about them than five pages of backstory.

I take the editing process to ridiculous extremes. Exceptions & Deceptions includes (at least at this point) around twenty stories culled from the past fifteen years. Most have been previously published but that doesn’t mean I can’t go in and “touch them up”. I’m a different writer than I was back then, a better writer. I’ve raised the bar a number of times since I began the oldest story more than a decade and a half ago.

I’m also a tougher, more demanding editor.

So I’ve really been putting these nineteen tales through their paces, demanding that every word, every syllable be accounted for.

It’s a tiring process. Make that exhausting (more descriptive and accurate). Three months of poring over three hundred manuscript pages, running through them again and again, watching and listening for anything the slightest bit off-key . Going at it day and night, seven days a week. Falling into bed utterly spent, knowing the collection will be the first thing to pop into my head when I open my eyes in seven or eight hours.

But, honestly, I don’t think it’s as bad as it used to be. I pace myself a bit better these days. Take frequent short breaks, stretch, go for walks. Shut down my brain earlier, try to unwind with a movie or good book in the evening. I go for a massage occasionally and sometimes Sherron will set up our big, clunky table, give my shoulders and lower back a solid working over. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: the woman has healing hands.

Over the past few years, I’ve been making a concerted effort to break this cycle of artistic self-abuse. Thanks to tools like Garageband and iMovie, I’ve been able to expand my horizons to other disciplines and, with Sherron’s encouragement, I’ve been applying myself to more visual art: painting, collage, photography. I’ve periodically posted samples of my film and music experiments, the ones that don’t blow up and end up wrecking my secret lab. I no longer rely on the printed word solely to express myself…and I think that’s a healthy development. Might even literally be a life-saver.

However, I sense that no matter what steps I take, writing will always take a toll on me. I want to be an author of stature, respected by my peers, acknowledged and sought after by intelligent, discerning readers. Placing those kinds of expectations on yourself as you commence each new poem, play, novel, short story is bound to create enormous creative tensions, which might translate into fine work, but are also accompanied by certain rather distressing emotional and physical side effects. Trust me.

That said, I have to stop equating the creative process with torture. There has to be a happy medium. I have to approach my work more playfully and allow myself the very human possibility of failure. I don’t want my fiction to become so perfect, polished and tight it’s almost robotic.

Ease up.

Recognize my writing for the blessing it is, rather than a curse that exacts nothing but pain and toil.

Yes, a blessing. A gift. A calling.

So, if that’s the case, what’s with all the angst?

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“Storm” (New Short Film)

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“First Contact” (short film)

I’m a lifelong fan of science fiction. A space geek and proud of it.

Here’s my latest short film, “First Contact”, and, as the title suggests, this piece is about a close encounter with a distant, alien world, evidence of advanced, intelligent life. Abstract, indisputably odd…with accompanying ambient music.

A tip of the hat to Stan Kubrick…

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’76 Corral (the short film)

You read the poem…then you heard the audio version…

Now ’76 Corral, the short film. Created with some help from my son, Sam.

Shot and recorded on location in Grasslands National Park (Canada).

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A writer remembers

One more short flick, this time a personal reflection on the power and impact of the printed word on my life.

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“Suspicious Mind” (A Short Film by Cliff Burns)

My darling wife, all too aware that I’ve been spending far too much time in my office, recently picked me up a gift, a little compact video camera that fits (literally) in the palm of my hand. After nearly a year, my western novel is just about finished, I’m burned out on the printed word and in need of a break. Clever gal knew exactly what I needed.

So…here’s my latest short movie, the first effort made with my brand new Kodak “PlayFull” video camera. This piece is a simple, straightforward adaptation of one of my short-short efforts, “Suspicious Mind”, a prose poem over 20 years old (but still packs a wallop). Let me know what you think…

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“Beautiful Desolation”: The Movie

My new short film is finished and up on YouTube.

This project began as a musical piece which turned out so well, I decided it might make a strange and unsettling soundtrack for an original movie.  Sherron and I shot footage over two days and then loaded the images from our two cameras on to iMovie (a process rendered extremely difficult because of the age of my DV camera).  I commenced editing, spending many long hours shaping the footage to the music, even concocting a kind of/sort of narrative.

You can view the film here and then, I hope, either drop a comment on my blog or over at YouTube:

I won’t try to summarize or explain “Beautiful Desolation” except to say that even on a planet that now boasts over six billion souls, there are still places where one can gain a profound impression of isolation, neglect, Nature reclaiming her own.

Enjoy the movie and I hope it inspires some thought and reflection. Perhaps it will cause you to contemplate the place where you live and view it in an entirely different light.

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On location–shooting a short film

Here are a few snaps of your humble author, hard at work shooting footage “on location” as it were.  An overgrown lot in small town Saskatchewan, old farm buildings that we spotted alongside the highway.  Whenever we identified something that might fit our overall concept of “abandonment and desolation”, we’d pull over and do our thing.

I handled a DV camera we bought off the internet a number of years ago.  Very creaky, the technology practically obsolete.  I can still find tapes for it at places like London Drugs in Saskatoon but I wonder how long that will be the case.

Sherron, meanwhile, was using her iPod, employing a number of settings and filters to grab some neat effects.  We’ll load all the footage onto my computer and I’ll get to work trying to compose something out of what we’ve compiled.

The reason for this flurry of cinematic activity is that I’ve created a delightful seven and a half minute piece with Garageband and it’s so evocative and interesting to me that I thought it deserved some visual accompaniment.

If anything comes of this grand experiment, I will, of course, add it to the blog for your perusal and analysis.

Many thanks to Sherron for her collaboration and input.  It’s a thrill to work with someone as creative and visually attuned as she is.  I’m quite confident her footage will be the best we shoot—the combination of my ancient camera and ineptitude pretty much works against my ever becoming a proficient DP (director of photography).

I’d better get back to work.

Happy Labour Day to my fellow Canucks…and I dearly hope the Saskatchewan Roughriders get their asses kicked later today.

God, I hate that team and its moronic, watery-brained fans…

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