The New Venue

09.January.2001 "The Pretty Girl" "The Pretty Girl" is a short story told entirely in still images - the fragments of a memory. Written, Photographed & Directed by Gorman Bechard Starring Irina Gorb: The Girl Patrick Nicholas: Narration Based on a short story by Gorman Bechard Produced by Gorman Bechard Stephen Handwerk Flash Animation by Stephen Handwerk Graphics & Photoshop by Jenny Clock Music by Gorman Bechard Maya Rossi Stills from "The Pretty Girl" Interview with the filmmaker. New Venue: How did you get involved in digital filmmaking? Bechard: My involvement in everything digital came through my multimedia web novel The HazMat Diary, by way of animalchannel.net, which is run by one of my oldest friends, Kathy Milani. She basically proved to me that digital was a viable format, especially now. That it (like 16mm back 20 years ago) was the indie way to go. And that the quality offered by the latest cameras and editing systems was truly spectacular. Everything Stephen and I learned on HazMat (which is approximately 6 hours of programming) was refined and whittled down to the 6 minutesof "The Pretty Girl". New Venue: How would you define "The Pretty Girl"? Bechard: Edited in Macromedia Flash and created specifically for the web, "The Pretty Girl" tells the haunting tale of a young Russian woman who lies in her casket, confused as to her whereabouts. As she looks back upon the last night of her life, her situation and the identity of her killers, becomes brutally clear. New Venue: What was the inspiration for this film? Bechard: The story was written almost a decade ago. I had always wondered if, given the opportunity, the unattractive would rise up in revolt against the beautiful. It's about innocent sexuality. A girl who's simply too beautiful. The other women around her can see only her beauty and the effect it has on their men. They areignorant of her loneliness,her pain. It's jealousy-fueled vigilanteism. New Venue: What prompted you to tell the story entirely with stillimages? Bechard: I had been wanting to turn this short story into a film. And then the idea came to me after seeing the DVD of La Jetee. Perfect! New Venue: What technology did you use? Bechard: Digital stills were taken with a Sony DSC-D770. The soundtrack was recorded and edited using Cakewalk's Guitar Tracks 2. (I'm playing a 1965 Fender Jazzmaster.) All of the images were edited and manipulated using Arcsoft Photo Studio. The color images were created with Adobe Photoshop. And everything was put together with Macromedia Flash. New Venue: How was this different from the more traditional films you've made? Bechard: The biggest difference for me was not physically editing the film. When I made "Psychos in Love", I shot and edited the film.Stephen handled the editing chores on"The Pretty Girl". I drove him completely crazy during the tweaking process... cutting one frame here, or making that dissolve 3 frames longer. Also, this time around, I worked with a very small cast... Irina Gorbin the title role, and Patrick Nicholas as the narrator. They were both a complete joy and very easy to work with, very professional. Without going into detail, I'd say that was also quite different from my other films. New Venue: What's next for Gorman Bechard? Bechard: I recently completed a three minute anti-hunting short, "In Her Eyes",for animalchannel.net, which premiered in late November. I'm now working on yet another short for them. I'm putting the finishing touches on a new spec script. Doing a final rewrite on "Ninth Square", which will be released by TOR/Forge in January 2002. Plus I will be directing a music video in late January. Doing another short (this one in digital video) in March. And hopefully directing a digital feature over the summer. I also need to begin my next book. If you know anyone with a cloning machine, let me know. New Venue: Where else can we see your work? Bechard: You can learn more than you'll ever need or want to know about me and my work on my website: gormanbechard.com View this movie. You can find out about other digital flicks in the New Venue Archives.