Letter from James Broughton to Sally Dixon
(11/30/1972)
November 30, 1972
Dear Sally,
I am enclosing what wo Id he a highly desirable crew for our great film production. As you can see this involves quite a number of people. Perhaps some of them you would immediately be able to assign among the most capable persons there. Would Ondine be the most helpful liaison for me as a casting director?
It is not clear to me whether the bulk of this crew is to be made up of paying students. How much of a credit course is this workably to become?
For the best results the key positions should ideally be persons
of experience. The most crucial one is undoubtedly the Production Manager, who has to coordinate all the logistics and functioning of all the factors of production. This is the key person and often hardest to find. My own camera man collaborator, whose name is H. Edgar Jenkins, II, is planning to come to Pittsburgh with me. Will there be housing and living expenses available for the two of us?
Which brings us to that crucial question of Money. If I fail completely to receive a grant from Guggenheim and A. P. I. will that necessarily cancel the whole project? Is there any source of funds that could be tapped in your neighborhood?
We will need all we can get, in any case. Foundation grants are parcelled out in quarterly payments spread over a year.
Assuming I received a grant next spring the first installment would not be available until July 1st. Do you think it would be possible for you to finance all the costs of the shooting in Pittsburgh? This would be an enormous advantage. In my experience the heaviest costs in film production occur after the shooting: the sound mixing, the opticals, the editing, and the cost of prints. I would prefer to figure that a foundation grant would be the factor that assured a film of being completed. This is a process which requires months and months of time and technique after the shooting.
Let me hear from you when you have time about how you are envisioning the whole thing. Also how it looks for March.
Meanwhile all good wishes and love.
James Broughton
Desirable Crew
Production Manager 1
Camera assistants 2 or 3
Lighting director 1
and assistants 2
Grips 3
Recording engineer 1
and assistant 1 +
Continuity 1
Script 1
Designer 1
Set construction 6
Props 2
Costumes 1
and assistants 1 or 2
Casting director 1
Actors many
Still photographer 1
Hostess and caterer 2
Film Proposed by James Broughton
Orifice. A film of Pittsburgh's most intimate wonders.
The argument: This is conceived as a hymn to the sensory organs,
a celebration of those flowers of the human body which we take so much for granted: the openings which perceive, receive, and emanate so magically for our consciousness.
If The Golden Positions honors the whole temple of the human spirit, this film will be a companion piece to pay homage to the glorious parts.
The orifices are, of course, the mouth, the nose, the eye, the ear, the penis, the vulva, and the anus. The film will be a rhythmic mosaic of images of these openings, seen in closeup, and in as many varied examples as we can gather, both male and female, young and old.
The texture of the film, abstracting the forms of these perceptors, will include the orifices themselves, and each of the orifices in contact with one another, in all possible combinations.
The aim is to create a definitive and ravishing exploration of sensory experience.
Contact 362-5449 or write Pittsburgh Film-Makers' Assoc., P.O. Box 7200, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15213
