Wild Sync description 11 minutes b/w 16mm 1973

“In Wild Sync the words come out of the characters’ mouths but rarely are they in sync. Another example of the “home movie” exploring a 1929 V.I. Pudovkin statement: “One must never show a man and reproduce his words exactly synchronized with the movements of his lips. This is cheap imitation, an ingenious trick that is useless to anyone.” (Cathy Jonasson, “Recent Canadian Experimental Films,” Catalogue published by Canada House, 1990)

“An impulse which manifests itself in much of Hancox’s work, and notably in Wild Sync, is the maker’s intentional de-mystification of the filmmaking process. As a student at Ohio University, Hancox first began to react against a type of filmmaking which based its standards of quality upon a film’s degree of professional veneer. He observed there, among certain filmmakers, an intoxication with “high technology” as an end in itself. He also strongly reacted against the peculiar pretense of that type of filmmaking that an audience participate in the filmic illusion to the degree that it entirely ignores the film’s artifice, that is, ignore the fact that it is watching a film at all!

In Wild Sync, Hancox pointedly subverts such mystification by letting the filmmaking process itself be the subject of the film. At the same time Hancox reveals his love of two filmic forms-the autobiographical form and home movies. According to the filmmaker, Wild Sync, which features Hancox himself with friends, is “a combination Christmas home movie/instructional film on how to make lip-sync sound films with only your average wind-up camera and wild tape recorder.” (The Frontier, WNED TV Channel 17, Program Notes. Air Date: Oct 3, 1981)

A combination Christmas home movie/instructional film on how to make lip-sync sound films with only a wind-up camera and wild tape recorder. Inspired by V. I. Pudovkin's 1929 statement, "One must never show on the screen a man and reproduce his words exactly synchronized with the movements of his lips. This is cheap imitation, an ingenious trick that is useless to anyone.

“The flamenco dance sequence, with Hancox yelling out his ‘wild sync’ technique, is the most absurd piece of cinema I’ve ever participated in.” (Lorne Marin)

“...after Hancox announces near the end that the main action here is lip sync, there is no technical connection between the visuals and the soundtrack: a piano is heard, for instance, but its player is up and dancing. It is technique.” Michael Wade, Ontario Film Series, Cinema Parallel

“...enthusiasts will find the instructional part of this film very helpful... (but) be less entranced with the.. buffoonery that is used as illustration.” Chris Wornop, A Newsletter Called Fred, January, 1980

“A home movie about the making of a home movie, Wild Sync is Hancox’s restless instructional film, teaching his audience about impromptu sound synchronization, the use of cutaway shots and the total destruction of the clapper board. The film begins with the traditional film techniques: the sound is synchronized, cutaway shots create continuity and the Christmas presents, which are unwrapped and revealed, represent the filmed object given significance in time. However, after Hancox explains his Wild Sync technique he, in a dramatic context, is suddenly capsizing these coding systems. The sound goes out of sync. The timing of the cutaway shot of the tape recorder completely obliterates any continuity that the shot is purported to have. And finally, after Hancox announces near the end that the main action here is the lip sync, there is no technical connection between the visuals and the soundtrack: A piano is heard, for instance, but its player is up and dancing. It is Hancox’s celebration (complete with musical duets and a flamenco dancer), of his compulsion to break all the roles and subvert traditional film technique. Hancox is home for Christmas again, so the characters are his family, again, as well as his friend Lorne Marin (who madly strums a very excitable guitar).” Michael Wade

Wild Sync was selected to participate in the Ann Arbor Film Festival Tour of 1974.

Available from: Canadian Filmmakers' Distribution Centre

37 Hanna Ave. #220

Toronto, Ontario Canada M6K 1W8

telephone: 416-588-0725, e-mail: bookings@cfmdc.org

web: www.cfmdc.org