Our Art Class Makes A Film (1971)

[Music] making a film involves a lot of research my art class and I chose Marco Polo and his travels as the subject of our film and our school library was a treasure Trove of information I shot color slides so as to have a victorial record of the classes I activity later they proved to be helpful for this film in the library we researched how things looked in Marco Polo's time and we made sketches to make the figures of the people and the Animals we used paper mâché lots of thought and experimentation went into making figures and objects or on the screen they had to give the impression of movement this boat was pulled by a thin string while our camera ran continuously for some figures we invented a way to give the illusion of movement we fitted them with plug-in legs a figure with one set of legs would be photographed for two or three frames then we'd move the figure slightly plug in new legs and shoot two or three more frames the result motion on the screen we experimented with wire figures and here's Marco poloo himself our classroom was the studio and the workshop too the camera was lent to us everybody learned to use it each time a scene was ready we filmed it everyone took part in the film project in his own way contributing his personal style his personal interests everyone felt free free to experiment with all kinds of materials and all kinds of ideas one student even invented elaborate figures that would move mechanically and now let's travel with Marco [Music] Polo oops little touch-up on the Venice set [Music] [Music] we're in Venice Italy in the year 1261 Venice at that time was a busy sea port [Music] here is Marco Polo he is about to go on a long Voyage with his father a rich Merchant [Music] hey the first part of the voyage was to Baghdad by shipping over land [Music] here is bag down [Music] n [Music] [Music] after some time in Baghdad Marco Polo and his father continued their travels onto China it was called Cafe in those days it was a perilous Journey there were Bandits and fights [Music] over the mountains of cashmir they had to travel on [Music] Yaks they saw many mountain goats [Music] and they passed before Giant Buddha carved out of the mountain sides they crossed the hot dry goby desert at night they thought they saw evil spirits people were very superstitious in those [Music] days and here they are arriving in [Music] China Marco Polo got to see the great k the ruler of [Music] China they became [Music] friends Marco po was entertained at the K's Palace [Music] the great con took Marco Polo [Music] everywhere in his honor there was even an elephant parade of 5,000 elephants [Music] this is the great Khan's personal astrologer he read Marco Polo's horoscope [Music] Marco Polo also got to go on a tiger hunt [Music] he got to see many strange [Music] people Marco Polo saw mythological animals not really but he thought he did [Music] after many years Marco Polo and his father prepared to return home The Voyage took many years and led them through India [Music] when they arrived back home in Venice after 24 years scarcely anybody knew them but they must have been glad to be home [Music] l [Music] hey