HOW I MADE HEMIANAPSIA INTO A FILM
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by Jim Beach |
 Movie-making keeps you young!
How else to explain that at 90 years old Jim Beach is still making
award-worthy movies? At theAIFV Festival 2008 he surprised and moved
delegates with a very personal story in a film with a strange name:
Hemianapsia. With typical modesty he explains how he made it.
After my stroke and loss of the right half of my vision I thought my movie
making days were over.
Family and friends had trouble understanding that my problem was not in my
eyes but in my brain. When I realized I could see well enough to operate
my camera gear and Casablanca editor I decided to make a movie explaining
Homonomouse Hemianapsia, my affliction.
I decided to make it partly dramatized, as seen by me, and partly documentary.
The tricky part was having the audience see the world as I see it. To do
this I mounted a tiny spy camera on a cap that had a metal frame shaped to
fit my head, see picture below. I carried a 12v battery pack for the camera
and a small Sony DV Recorder in a belly bag at my waist. The camera has a
very wide angle lens so it views almost what the human eye can view.
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Jim's special kit. |
Jim shooting with the kit. |
The hemianapsia effect is like a curtain masking part of my right vision.
I see it not as a curtain but just as a blank area with ever moving ever
changing wavy, curly, nebulous lines or filaments. Originally it had flashing
lights in it but over the time of making the movie the flashing lights went
away and the curtain withdrew some from the bottom.
I made scenes using various fabrics, honeycomb screen and even feedback scenes
wherein the camera is focused on a monitor showing the scene being recorded.
I tried hundreds of special effects to make these scenes wavy or rippling
to simulate the curtain. I used the scenes as an overlay on the scenes which
were recorded as seen through my eyes. With these effects I tried to simulate
my vision through the different stages of my hemianapsia, however none truly
show it as I see it.
That's it. The rest is just standard movie making and story telling.
- Jim Beach
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