Handball, a film by Steve Bemis

ByHarry Forsdick

One of the more interesting submissions I received following my request for classmates to send me artifacts from our days at Yale, was a 3-minute, 16mm film Steve Bemis created for Art 50b, a second semester, senior year seminar.  The film shows his roommates, Ralph Schmidt and Mabry Rogers, playing handball, set to an Erroll Garner jazz soundtrack.

Check it out by clicking the play () button and then the “expand screen” icon ().

Conversations I had with Steve as I was converting the film to digital form evoked the following memories from Steve:

“This is bringing back, with a rush, visions and sounds of the 1969 editing process — with strips of 16mm film hanging from a pegboard, then carefully (artfully!), physically cut to selected points against the sound tape which I manually moved back and forth across a stationary playback head. The soundtrack controlled the video editing.

“Technology has really changed. Today I could make a vastly improved color product with my iPhone. I think the shoulder-held Arriflex camera (no sound) with 16mm, chemically processed, black and white film weighed at least 5 pounds.  I was getting as much a workout as Ralph and Mabry!  As I recall I shot about 10:1 to have enough video material.

“Roommates Ralph Schmidt and Mabry Rogers were good sports, then and now, to let me film them. They had to avoid smacking me or the expensive borrowed camera, which is probably now in a museum someplace, assuming it survived years of student would-be Coppolas. We were all handball players, and some of the more awkward moves in the film had everything to do with their avoiding me as I crouched in one of the kill-shot corners or scampered around the court. “

Creating such a film was certainly difficult 50 years ago — but these efforts by pioneer amateurs like Steve created the demand for expressive media that we now all take for granted.

P.S.  If you have interesting artifacts from our years at Yale, email me (harry@forsdick.com) describing what you have.  I’ll reply with a plan for memorializing your treasure.

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3 Comments

  1. Steve, I loved your film, especially being right in the middle of the action. We should have run it at the Film Society. I liked the idea that the editing was determined by the Errol Garner music track. Thanks for sending it on for our viewing pleasure. It also made me recall how slim and trim we were then. Oh, well.

  2. Thanks. I heard through grapevine years later that it did have showings in some film series or other, but I was never contacted directly. I graduated with a single 16 mm copy, which so far has not crumbled (or burst into flame).