Sky

Feeney was a National Film Board director beginning in the early 1950s, and this was one of the last films he did as a director. Since he lived on until 2006 I assume, like other NFB types, he made the transition into management, and thereafter didn't work actively on production.

That said, nothing in his previous films could prepare you for the breathtaking splendor of the images in this film, nor (once you think about it) the technical virtuosity which created it. We are very used today to time lapse, or speeded-up motion films, particularly as it's used in such films as "Baraka" or "Koyanisqatsi," to show nature and society. Sky uses all kinds of camera mounts and positions to show one day in the life of the sky over western Canada, specifically, the mountains, forests and prairies from around Banff and on down in towards Calgary. In 1963, when Feeney made the film, so far as I know, nobody had ever tried to use time lapse photography in quite this expressive and artistic way. Mostly it was a tool used by scientists to study various phenomena that moved too slowly to be observed with the unaided eye. One locked down the camera, exposed one frame every second, or every two seconds, or whatever, developed the film and studied whatever it was you wanted to study.

For a movie, however, a locked down camera is boring; movies should move. So Feeney and his collaborators devised ways to get the camera to pan, tilt and dolly while it was simultaneously working at time lapse speeds. So you get shots in the film that appear to follow the clouds and their shadows as they speed past mountains tops, and then down on into valleys. "Baraka" achieves the same effect with the assistance of complex computer programs, i.e., a motion control system. Feeney did it without any sort of computer assistance at all, with purely mechanical systems. In some shots, the speed of the pan appears to perfectly match the speed of the clouds as they move across the sky. My guess is that Feeney either built his own motors and gearing systems, or he adapted gearing systems used by astronomers of the day to keep their telescopes static with respect to the movement of the stars. One of my favourite shots in the film shows a vast stormcloud rotating, raining on the prairies below, and moving up fast towards the camera.

However he did it, it is an astonishing technical feat. What 's even more amazing is the stark beauty of the images, and the melding of the minimalist music track with the images. One gets an entirely otherworldly feeling from the movie, that is, the music is designed to try and put us into a frame of mind that emphasizes that what we are seeing is not something one can ever see in the real world, but rather only out of a distillation and transformation of the real world, a transformation only achievable by the technical means of cinema. Simply astonishing.

NFB's website doesn't really do justice to the film. Shot in 35mm, this is a film that is long overdue for transfer to a high definition medium.

One further point. The film was shot at a wide variety of different speeds, but at the very middle of the film, roughly the five minute mark, there is one shot, and one only, at the regular 24fps. A truck passes along a road with a storm looming over the fields in the background. I believe it's placed there as a reminder that what we see depends on how we choose to see it.

'Sky' is a short film which presents the nature in western Canada. There is no acting, narration or any human interaction in front of the camera. That said, the movie tries to create emotions by showing breathtakingly beautiful images of the nature with music stressing the point.

Some might claim that this movie is nothing but artistic crap while others praise it for its piquant style and brilliant directing. My opinion lies somewhere between. Movie had its moments. On an occasion picture and sound played well together and created the feeling of something great taking place. Sadly these occasions didn't even cover all the ten minutes of the film and thus I was not at all captivated by it.

'Sky' is is not a bad movie, but it is not a great one either. It is an old flick and the standards for short films are high nowadays. If you don't have some specific reason to watch this film I recommend to skip this and to find any of Don Hertzfeldt's short films.