Frank Scheffer
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Frank Scheffer (born 1956 in Venlo) is a Dutch cinematographer and producer of documentary film, mostly known for his work Conducting Mahler ((1996) on the 1995 Mahler Festival in Amsterdam with Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Muti and Sir Simon Rattle).
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[edit] Education
Scheffer was schooled at the Academy for Industrial Design (Eindhoven), the "Vrije Academie" Art College in Den Haag, where he studied with the famous experimental filmmaker Frans Zwartjes and is a graduate from the Dutch Film Academy (Amsterdam).
[edit] Early films
Early films include Zoetrope People (1982), a documentary on Francis Ford Coppola and his studio with Wim Wenders, Tom Waits, Vittorio Storaro and others, as well as documentaries on the Dalai Lama and various socio/cultural subjects. In 1985 he directed the music video A Day for the band XYMOX on the 4AD Records label, leading him towards musical subjects. 1987 saw his short experimental films Wagner‘s Ring, a distillation of The Ring in 3'50" conceived with John Cage; and Stoperas 1/2 which was created to be shown with Cage's Europeras 1 & 2. Collaborations with Cage continued with the conceptual film Chessfilmnoise (1988), a documentary on Cage and Elliott Carter Time Is Music (1988), and From Zero (1995) in collaboration with Andrew Culver.
[edit] The great composers
Scheffer’s films on music constitute an overview of the great composers of the 20th century — from Conducting Mahler (1996) on the 1995 Mahler Festival in Amsterdam with Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Muti and Sir Simon Rattle, to Five Orchestral Pieces (1994) on Arnold Schönberg's work conducted by Michael Gielen and The Final Chorale (1990) on Igor Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw.
Further documentaries include films on Louis Andriessen (The Road, 1997, conducted by Peter Eötvös), Luciano Berio (Voyage to Cythera from 1999 on his Sinfonia conducted by the composer), Pierre Boulez (Eclat, 1993), and (Helikopter String Quartet, 1996) with Karlheinz Stockhausen and the Arditti Quartet.
[edit] Contemporary composers and experimental projects
The history of Electronic Music, from Stockhausen to DJ Spooky and Squarepusher, was the subject of Sonic Acts (1998). This was followed by three experimental projects searching for the influence of the digital medium in film and music: Sonic Images (1998), Sonic Fragments / The Poetics of Digital Fragmentation (1999) and Sonic Genetics (2000).
In 1999 Scheffer made Music for Airports, a video on Brian Eno's music of the same name as arranged by Bang on a Can founders Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, David Lang and Evan Ziporyn. The sprawling In the Ocean (2001), on present day New York composers, features Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Elliott Carter, John Cage, Brian Eno and the Bang on a Can founders.
Scheffer is also working on several in depth films on specific composers — The Present Day Composer Refuses to Die on Frank Zappa, in cooperation with the Zappa Family Trust (2000, featuring The Mothers of Invention, Pierre Boulez and Ensemble Modern), and the 90-minute Zappa feature Phaze II, The Big Note (2002), to be followed by a third film which will complete his Zappa trilogy. Scheffer has been following and filming Elliott Carter for 25 years; this culminated in A Labyrinth of Time (2005), a portrait on the composer as well as a view of the history of modernism in the 20th century. In 2005 Scheffer also finished a documentary on the Tea-Opera composed by Tan Dun, with Pierre Audi (Director) and Xiu Ying Li (libretto), Tea.
[edit] Selected filmography
- ZOETROPE PEOPLE 1982, 60 min. (director)
- AVALOKITESHVARA 1983, 58 min. (director)
- BGTV (VPRO, Dutch TV) 1983-84
- A DAY 1985, 5 min. (director/producer)
- WAGNER'S RING 1987, 3'50” min. (director/producer)
- STOPERAS I & II 1987, 2'50” min. (director/producer)
- TIME IS MUSIC 1987, 60 min. (director)
- ETUDES SOLARES 1988, 24 min. (director/producer)
- OBSESSION 1989, 5 min. (director/producer)
- THE FINAL CHORALE 1990, 50 min. (director/producer)
- LANDSCAPESTUDIES I & II 1991, 5 / 7 min. (director/producer)
- AND THE EAREYE SEESHEARS 1992, 60 min. (director/producer)
- THE NATURE OF SPACE 1993, 73 min. (director/producer)
- ECLAT 1993, 54 min. (director/producer)
- FIVE ORCHESTRAL PIECES 1994, 55 min. (director/producer)
- LENT, VAGUE, INDECIS 1994, 10 min. (director/producer)
- THE HIDDEN FRONT 1995, 90 min. (director/producer)
- FROM ZERO, A GROUP OF FILMS 1995, 84 min. (director/producer)
- FROM ZERO, the DOCUMENTARY 1995, 52 min. (director/produ cer)
- HELICOPTER STRING QUARTET 1996, 77 min. (director/producer)
- CONDUCTING MAHLER 1996, 75 min. (director/producer)
- THE ROAD 1997, 90 min. (director/producer)
- SONIC ACTS 1998, 60 min. (director/producer)
- KONTAKTE 1998, 10 min. (director/producer)
- TOUCH 1998, 10 min. (director/producer)
- ATTRAZIONE D'AMORE 1998, 55 min. (director/producer)
- VOYAGE TO CYTHERA 1999, 52 min. (director/producer)
- EPOXY 1999, 50 min. (director/producer)
- MUSIC FOR AIRPORTS 1999, 48 min. (director/producer)
- RING 2000, 2000, 3 min. (director/producer)
- CHROMOSONIC 2000, 15 min. (director/producer)
- FRANK ZAPPA: THE PRESENT DAY COMPOSER REFUSES TO DIE 2000, 55 min.
- IN THE OCEAN 2001, 54 min. (director/producer)
- CHESSONIC 2001, 10 min. (director/producer)
- FROM ZERO, THE INSTALLATION 2001, (director/producer)
- FRANK ZAPPA – PHASE II, THE BIG NOTE 2002, 90 min (director/producer)
- SOMETHING OLD SOMETHING NEW IN RED GREEN AND BLUE
- A LABYRINTH OF MEMORY (tv version) 2003, 2x 55 minutes (director/producer)
- QUINTET 2004, 15 min. (director/producer)
- MAHLER: ICH BIN DER WELT ABHANDEN GEKOMMEN 2004, 55 min. (Director/producer)
- A LABYRINTH OF TIME 2004, 94 min. (director/producer)
- TEA 2005, 96 min. (director/producer)
- STREAMING PAST, PRESENT MOMENTS 2005, 6 min. (director/ producer)
[edit] Other
In addition to numerous critical and festival awards, Scheffer was honored with a complete retrospective of his films at the 2001 Holland Festival and most recent with a smaller retrospective at the Mumbai International Film Festival (2008).
