Paul Fletcher
b. November 23, 1962, Melbourne, Australia.

BIOGRAPHY:   Paul started experimenting with Super 8 film in his last two years of high school, 1978/79. At this time he produced several films, using Super 8 to experiment with audio visual collage techniques, drawing and direct manipulation of film media, basic pixillation and stop motion. Paul then went on to complete a Bachelor Degree in Fine Art/Media Art at Philip Institute (now RMIT) 'specialising' in sound, film/video and screenprinting.

Between 1980 and 1985 he performed as a drummer for experimental music group "Essendon Airport" and pursued a lifelong interest in collecting junk, in particular discarded trinkets and toys.

This collection lead to the production of no less than 15 short films. These stopmotion animated, Super 8 films were both individualistic and ironic pastiches of mainstream cliches and forms such as, Soap Opera, Romance, Horror and Science Fiction, and the now common Mockumentary; all in highly condensed and mangled form. Films from this period include Dolls (1981), Space Mutants (1982), Rover Dog Elvis (1983).

In the early nineties Paul moved into the production of a twenty minute animated film on 16mm Watch This Space (1991) and then quickly moved back to the do it yourself low budget ethic in its new digital form with Josie and the Tecno Bunnies (1993), and Virtual Shopper (1995).

Presently Paul has been continuing his fascination with the relationship of sound and animated motion creating short films, installations and working as sound and music composer for Robert Stephenson's animated film Lucky For Some (2004), Tom Fraser’s The boy who loved the rain (2006), and Magda Booths’ Broken Spell (2007) and Dot Com (2008).

Paul is currently a Lecturer in the Animation Department of the VCA School of Film & Television, and is also working collaboratively with multi-discipline central Victorian art collective Punctum, and Undue Noise. Paul continues his individual film and live performance projects, including exploration of the intersection of abstraction and narrative and the invention of a custom built audiovisual instrument; the Hover VideoVac.

	The Last Retort

CRITICAL OVERVIEW:   A common thread through all film and my own explorations in particular, has been a fascination with stories written by culture and the basic spectacle of the interaction of motion and sound.

I have consistently also been interested in creating sound and image as quickly and cheaply as possible, coming from the junk collecting/ reworking/ do it yourself sensibility.

This habit of working fast also comes from an interest in attempting to capture, emulate, stimulate the speed at which our waking and dreaming selves make connections and associations.

- Paul Fletcher, May 2004.

FILMOGRAPHY:

	Space Mutants

Catholic Loop (1979, indefinite duration, Super 8 film loop / cassette sound)

Mowing Around the World (1979, indefinite duration, Super 8 film loop, slides, cassette sound)

Butchered (1979, 25 mins, Super8, cassette sound)

No.11 Clifton St Box Hill (1980, 12 mins, Super 8, sound)

Scratched (1980, 4 mins, Super 8, hand colored and scratched)

Royal Visit (1980, 3 mins, Super 8)

Dolls (1981, 10 mins, Super 8)

Mr Tsuzuki Comes To Australia (1981, 22 mins, Super 8)

Space Mutants - Sci-Fi Musical (1982, 11 mins, Super 8)

	They Shoot Werewolves Don’t They

Raggedy Ann (1982, 10 mins, Super 8)

Monster Film (1982, 30 mins, Super 8 + Slides)

Rover Dog Elvis (1983, 2 mins, Super 8)

They Shoot Werewolves Don’t They (1983, 10 mins, Super 8)

Elephant (1983, 10 mins, Super 8)

The Weird, The Mysterious and The Unexplained (1983, 22 mins, U-Matic Video, Mockumentary)

Disco Mixers (1985, 30 mins, Super 8)

Watch This Space (1991, 22 mins, 16mm)

Corporate Turtle (1992, 10 mins, Digital +VHS)

Josie and the Tecno Bunnies (1993, 3 mins, Digital/Video)

Ten Years in Realville (1994, 10 mins, Super 8 + Digital/Video)

Virtual Shopper (1995, 10 mins, Digital + SP-Betacam)

The Cloudwatchers (2002, 6 mins, DVD)

Eleven (2003, 5 mins, DVD)

De-emergence (2003, 2 mins, DVD)

Creature from the fractal lagoon (2003, 2 mins, DVD)

The Last Retort (2004, 5 mins, DVD)

Lake Qualm (2004, 3 mins, DVD)

Shed Film (2005, 3 mins, DVD)

	Lake Qualm

10,000 Days (2005, 6 mins, DVD)

Test Transmission (2005, 5 mins, DVD)

Dreamlake (2006, 6 mins, DVD)

The Program (2007, 5 mins, DVD)

City of Dust (2008, 7 mins, DVD)

FESTIVALS:

Josie and the Tecno Bunnies
1994 St.Kilda Film Festival
1993 Clermont Ferrand
1993 AVE Netherlands
1993 Melbourne Fringe Film Festival

	Dreamlake

Watch This Space
1995 Prix Leonardo
1993 Okomedia Festival Ecological Films - Freiburg, Germany
1993 St.Kilda Film Festival

Virtual Shopper
1996 Atom Awards.
1996 Australian National Cinematheque Retrospective Program

Eleven
2004 Microcinema Touring Program "Independent Exposure 2004"

Lake Qualm
2005 Microcinema Screening Program "Animated Exposure 2005"
2005 Darwin International Film Festival - awarded Best Experimental Australian Short Film

	City of Dust

10,000 Days
2005 Allans Walk Artist Run Space June 2005

Shed Film
St Kilda Film Festival 2006
in competition in Prix Ars Electronica 2006

Dreamlake
short film and interactive performance using the Hover VideoVac, Bendigo Commonwealth Games Cultural Festival

The Program
Amsterdam Film Experience 2007

City of Dust
St Kilda Film Festival 2008
& in competition in Prix Ars Electronica 2008

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY:

	Mr Tsuzuki Comes To Australia

"A multi-levelled construction of film language … all headaches should be like this." New Music Magazine No.2 1980 Philip Brophy.

"With both Number 11 Clifton St and Dolls Fletcher works within a narrative mode, constructing microcsomic worlds … in a sense one could say that these films have a strange connection to the works of Jules Verne and Lewis Carroll." Art and Text No.3 Rolando Caputo 1981

"To his usual festival of effects affects: cartoon stylistics, multi-layered media references, mad leaps in tone and register, narrative position, Elephant adds a melancholy and a sensuality." Notes for "The Adrian Martin Selection", Fringe Network screenings, 1986, Adrian Martin.

WEB SITES:

Eleven, Lake Qualm, Shed Film and Dreamlake can be found at Microcinema International.

Paul Fletcher is a member of the contemporary arts group Punctum.

Animated Sound and Image 2004 - Music and Short Films on DVD - Paul Fletcher

Animated Sound and Image Archive site

"The impossible chaos ensemble" movie file

Tales from Two Schools

Animation sound and sculpture installation 2007

City of Dust web page

Contact Paul Fletcher

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Melbourne independent filmmakers - a web resource is compiled by Bill Mousoulis.