kingrat Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 Tonight TCM has re-scheduled The Sid Saga and Multiple SIDosis, interesting films from the amateur filmmaker Sid Laverents. Here are the notes I made after seeing these films at the 2011 TCM Film Festival: The most unusual films shown at the festival were two by Sid Laverents: Multiple SIDosis and The Sid Saga. Never heard of Laverents? Although he did a couple of years ago, he lived to be 100 and was active in the amateur film movement which was popular in the 50s and 60s. Ross Lipman of UCLA introduced these films, commenting that Sid invented filmmaking techniques in his garage. UCLA did a marvelous job of restoring these films. You can easily find Multiple SIDosis on YouTube. It's only nine minutes long. Back in the 20s Sid had a one-man band act in vaudeville. He knew a man who had an act whistling "Nola," a tune which some of you will recognize, if not by title. Sid had to learn how to whistle on both the in-breath and the out-breath to replicate this act. Sid whistles. He plays a variety of instruments. Imagine something like the split screen techniques from the original Thomas Crown Affair invented in your own garage, and all used for the purpose of playing "Nola." This is not like any other film I've seen, but it' The Sid Saga, Episodes 1-3: this is the story of Sid's life. Imagine a gentle, slow-talking Broderick Crawford and you have a pretty good picture of Sid. He also looked like, and was, someone's grandpa who lives in a modest suburb of San Diego. His life story uses much voiceover, lots of family pictures, newspaper articles, hand-drawn maps, and even some animated sequences. His father moved the family all around the country and failed at every business venture. Sid had a career in vaudeville, but also held many other jobs, including defense plant worker during WWII, and even rocket scientist. He had genuine engineering talent, inventing an improved auto brake which wasn't picked up by Detroit because cruise control came in. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musicalnovelty Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 "Multiple SIDosis" is a VERY COOL short!! Don't anyone miss it! And the documentary is pretty cool, too, as is Sid himself! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kid Dabb Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 This is up on the schedule for tonight's viewing. Can anyone shed some light on why the order of parts 1, 2, and 3 have been jumbled.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limey Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 This is up on the schedule for tonight's viewing. Can anyone shed some light on why the order of parts 1, 2, and 3 have been jumbled.. I'm also guessing that Multiple SIDosis is supposed to be 1st in the list, based on it's release date. You see this quite often when they schedule a bunch of shorts together to air in one block - each will be shown with same start time & frequently listed out of order. If there's one particular item that I want to record, then I have to record the whole block to ensure it ends up on the DVR. As to why - I have no idea. Numerically dyslexic squirrels in the typing pool? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingrat Posted May 21, 2016 Author Share Posted May 21, 2016 I'm glad that TCM is showing these films again. They are not like anything else I've ever seen (see original post). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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