Betty Ferguson, Interviewed
Interview conducted by Chelsea Keen on April 27th, 2015. The interview was conducted by phone and is reproduced here in part with minor changes made for flow and ease of readability. Due to an equipment malfunction not all of the interview was recorded. All changes have been approved by Betty Ferguson.
Take Two: Tell me about your story and where did you go to school? How did you get into film making?
Betty Ferguson: Well I went to the University of Guelph to study farming, is that any help?
How do you get into film making from there?
In Manhattan I just started...you know nothing creative I was just doing splices on film. You have to scrape off the emulsion and glue them together and that sort of thing. Then I met Shirley Clarke and Maya Deren and a whole lot of interesting people and that's how I got into film making.
What was your relationship like with Joyce Wieland? How did you meet her and how did you divide the film making labour on your collaborative films?
I met her when she and Mike [Michael Snow] moved to Manhattan I had a large, rent-controlled apartment and they stayed with me while they were hunting for a loft to live in. Joyce and I became really great friends from that time.
You made Barbara’s Blindness together?
Yeah I had an editing room in that apartment and where I had all the films that I had collected. I had worked in a building that was all filmmakers and when I would get off work I would go into the basement and pick up all the garbage, which was film. I had this room full of film and Joyce got interested because I would work on it when I could and so she would watch what I was doing. We started making this film together which became Barbara’s Blindness.
Is that a found footage film? Or did you make your own?
No no, no. It was just found footage.
Can you explain a bit more about the film and kind of what you're trying to accomplish with it? Did it have any specific meaning to you and Joyce Wieland?
No we were just having fun [..] It was about a little blind girl when she got her eyesight back and what she saw only we added what we thought was going on in the world at that time.
In your words, what was going on?
Oh it was so... c'mon we were having fun [laughs].
The film that we're showing at the screening is The Telephone Film which you made in 1972. Where did you get the footage for that film?
It was all those films I collected after all those years. All my friends in the film world also gave me all their prints that were damaged, so I had a very large collection of film.
Were you just having fun on The Telephone Film as well?
Oh yeah.
Okay.
And I liked painting on film, that was fun. I don't know if there is any paint left on all those films now, somebody cleaned them and I think they took off the paint.
Oops! What drew you to collage and experimental film making? Were you influenced by anyone in the movement in particular?
No, no. It was a way to make film and it didn’t cost anything.
That's a good reason! How would you describe the Toronto independent film making scene from 1965-72? Are there any trends you noticed, and if you did notice any how would you describe them?
In those days we had The Funnel where we could all show our films, but that is gone, and the CFMDC for distribution. I volunteered there because at one point, it was when the offices were right on Front and University and I would volunteer, I would go in because the people who ran it before were spending a lot of money travelling so we were more or less pretty broke. I would volunteer my time to keep it open and later I sat on the board of CFMDC.
Oh you did?
Mmmhmm, for a while.
At what point were you on the board?
Well it was a great scene, everybody had a good time and they've always distributed my films, the CFMDC.
Would you say there were any specific things going on in terms of style and experimentation? Was there something specifically Toronto about the films or were people just getting into it?
Oh, Toronto. No, you could probably answer that better than me. I don’t know, everybody seemed to have a good time and they weren't really doing anything. Using old footage...they were just shooting films or being more creative in shooting films. It was a great bunch of people.
You knew Joyce Wieland, obviously Michael Snow, and Barbara Ruben...
I didn't know Barbara Ruben, and if I did I've forgotten. Shirley Clarke, Maya Deren were close friends. Shirley was a friend for life, and Joyce was a friend for life. I had lived out on this farm, Keith Lock used to be out here too. We rehearsed The Far Shore out here on my farm.
The Far Shore was..?
[Directed by] Joyce Wieland.
Did you work or collaborate with Maya Deren or was it mainly Joyce Wieland?
No, they were just friends.
How did audiences receive your films and did your films receive much distribution?
Well they were shown at the Toronto Film Festival a couple of times and the CFMDC would send checks so I guess they were getting shown. I did go to one that was at the film festival, I went to screenings and nobody booed, so.
Did anyone write about your films at all?
Yes, people did, who was it? Hang on a minute. [long pause] The Film Kiss, you'd probably never seen it, but anyway whatshername wrote a study guide on it, was pages and pages long. I think who was renting it was university's I think.
Was it used to study?
It was Shana MacDonald who wrote this. It was like, seven pages.
Do you think it was used by the universities to talk about found footage film making?
I have no idea.
Do you still make films at all or are you involved in any production of any sort?
No, I don’t because what happened was family. I had to start looking after my Mother and my kids and then my grand kids who came to live with me when they were two and a half and five so I didn’t really have a lot of extra time.
Was film making something you ever thought about pursuing as a career but then other things got in the way or was it always a fun thing?
Well I did do work on other films but not creatively.
What other films did you do work on?
I once produced a film, an independent film in Toronto. I once edge numbered an IMAX film by hand before the labs could put numbers on them. That was and accomplishment I guess.
No kidding!
No, I didn't do it for a living.
What film did you produce independently in Toronto?
Oh god I have a poster, give me a minute and I'll tell you. It was called Angel in a Cage and it was directed by Mary Jane Gomes who I met because she worked at the CFMDC.
What year did you produce it?
[laughing] Oh dear I have to go back...
[Interview ends due to equipment malfunction]
Betty Ferguson: Well I went to the University of Guelph to study farming, is that any help?
How do you get into film making from there?
In Manhattan I just started...you know nothing creative I was just doing splices on film. You have to scrape off the emulsion and glue them together and that sort of thing. Then I met Shirley Clarke and Maya Deren and a whole lot of interesting people and that's how I got into film making.
What was your relationship like with Joyce Wieland? How did you meet her and how did you divide the film making labour on your collaborative films?
I met her when she and Mike [Michael Snow] moved to Manhattan I had a large, rent-controlled apartment and they stayed with me while they were hunting for a loft to live in. Joyce and I became really great friends from that time.
You made Barbara’s Blindness together?
Yeah I had an editing room in that apartment and where I had all the films that I had collected. I had worked in a building that was all filmmakers and when I would get off work I would go into the basement and pick up all the garbage, which was film. I had this room full of film and Joyce got interested because I would work on it when I could and so she would watch what I was doing. We started making this film together which became Barbara’s Blindness.
Is that a found footage film? Or did you make your own?
No no, no. It was just found footage.
Can you explain a bit more about the film and kind of what you're trying to accomplish with it? Did it have any specific meaning to you and Joyce Wieland?
No we were just having fun [..] It was about a little blind girl when she got her eyesight back and what she saw only we added what we thought was going on in the world at that time.
In your words, what was going on?
Oh it was so... c'mon we were having fun [laughs].
The film that we're showing at the screening is The Telephone Film which you made in 1972. Where did you get the footage for that film?
It was all those films I collected after all those years. All my friends in the film world also gave me all their prints that were damaged, so I had a very large collection of film.
Were you just having fun on The Telephone Film as well?
Oh yeah.
Okay.
And I liked painting on film, that was fun. I don't know if there is any paint left on all those films now, somebody cleaned them and I think they took off the paint.
Oops! What drew you to collage and experimental film making? Were you influenced by anyone in the movement in particular?
No, no. It was a way to make film and it didn’t cost anything.
That's a good reason! How would you describe the Toronto independent film making scene from 1965-72? Are there any trends you noticed, and if you did notice any how would you describe them?
In those days we had The Funnel where we could all show our films, but that is gone, and the CFMDC for distribution. I volunteered there because at one point, it was when the offices were right on Front and University and I would volunteer, I would go in because the people who ran it before were spending a lot of money travelling so we were more or less pretty broke. I would volunteer my time to keep it open and later I sat on the board of CFMDC.
Oh you did?
Mmmhmm, for a while.
At what point were you on the board?
Well it was a great scene, everybody had a good time and they've always distributed my films, the CFMDC.
Would you say there were any specific things going on in terms of style and experimentation? Was there something specifically Toronto about the films or were people just getting into it?
Oh, Toronto. No, you could probably answer that better than me. I don’t know, everybody seemed to have a good time and they weren't really doing anything. Using old footage...they were just shooting films or being more creative in shooting films. It was a great bunch of people.
You knew Joyce Wieland, obviously Michael Snow, and Barbara Ruben...
I didn't know Barbara Ruben, and if I did I've forgotten. Shirley Clarke, Maya Deren were close friends. Shirley was a friend for life, and Joyce was a friend for life. I had lived out on this farm, Keith Lock used to be out here too. We rehearsed The Far Shore out here on my farm.
The Far Shore was..?
[Directed by] Joyce Wieland.
Did you work or collaborate with Maya Deren or was it mainly Joyce Wieland?
No, they were just friends.
How did audiences receive your films and did your films receive much distribution?
Well they were shown at the Toronto Film Festival a couple of times and the CFMDC would send checks so I guess they were getting shown. I did go to one that was at the film festival, I went to screenings and nobody booed, so.
Did anyone write about your films at all?
Yes, people did, who was it? Hang on a minute. [long pause] The Film Kiss, you'd probably never seen it, but anyway whatshername wrote a study guide on it, was pages and pages long. I think who was renting it was university's I think.
Was it used to study?
It was Shana MacDonald who wrote this. It was like, seven pages.
Do you think it was used by the universities to talk about found footage film making?
I have no idea.
Do you still make films at all or are you involved in any production of any sort?
No, I don’t because what happened was family. I had to start looking after my Mother and my kids and then my grand kids who came to live with me when they were two and a half and five so I didn’t really have a lot of extra time.
Was film making something you ever thought about pursuing as a career but then other things got in the way or was it always a fun thing?
Well I did do work on other films but not creatively.
What other films did you do work on?
I once produced a film, an independent film in Toronto. I once edge numbered an IMAX film by hand before the labs could put numbers on them. That was and accomplishment I guess.
No kidding!
No, I didn't do it for a living.
What film did you produce independently in Toronto?
Oh god I have a poster, give me a minute and I'll tell you. It was called Angel in a Cage and it was directed by Mary Jane Gomes who I met because she worked at the CFMDC.
What year did you produce it?
[laughing] Oh dear I have to go back...
[Interview ends due to equipment malfunction]