Tassajara - a meditative portrait - 1997
a film by Frazer Bradshaw
Tano Maeda, founder of the International Buddhist Film Festival, asked me why the Cuke Film/Video section didn't include this film. I said because I didn't know about it. He wrote:
Twenty-eight minutes of details that we often overlook in a high-speed world. Feature cinematographer Frazer Bradshaw delivers a wordless, visual poem that forces us to slow down and experience the pace of the oldest American Zen monastery. We screened it at our IBFF 2003 Los Angeles.
I got hold of Frazer Bradshaw. He wrote back that he'd made it in 1996 "fresh out of film school." He called it an observational documentary. Said he hadn't seen it in 20 years and that it hadn't been digitized. We had a bunch of back and forth and he got interested in digitizing. Going straight from the 16 mm film would be by far the best but it was too expensive. VHS wasn't good enough. He compromised and had it transferred from a Betacam SP copy. That's the professional Beta with a larger cartridge than the Betamax. So now we can all enjoy it. It's good. Enjoy. - DC
Check his website and IMDB
Frazer Bradshaw
Producer + Director of Photography
Oakland, CA
415.517.3260
www.frazerbradshaw.com
IMDB
Vimeo