Global InformationScratch and Crow information
Scratch and Crow (1995) is a four-minute, 16mm, animated film made by Helen Hill as her MFA thesis at the California Institute of the Arts.[1] On January 1, 2017, an authorized Helen Hill Vimeo account launched and includes a high-resolution streaming version of the film, with this annotation: "This hand drawn animated film reveals the secret life cycle of chickens, from their hatching by mother cats to their noisy ascent into Heaven. Filmed in 16 mm."
Harvard University Library created The Helen Hill Collection, 1990-2006: Film Guide (2011), which describes the non-narrative content of the film in this way: "Animated cats hatch eggs; watermelons fall from the sky; chickens become angels and fly out of tombstones; coiled springs symbolize inner meanings and then the film ends."
Scratch and Crow has no dialogue, spoken narration, or human voices. Its soundtrack is a mix of subtle sound effects and animals sounds. A non-narrative film, it includes three poetic intertitles written in the first person (e.g., "If I knew,/ I would assure you we are all / Finally good chickens / And will rise together, / A noisy flock of round, / Dusty angels.")[2]
In 2009, the Librarian of Congress named Scratch and Crow to the National Film Registry, a designation reserved for American films deemed worthy of preservation for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. The Library's news release stated: "Consistent with the short films she made from age 11 until her death at 36, this animated short work is filled with vivid color and a light sense of humor. It is also a poetic and spiritual homage to animals and the human soul."[3]
Colorlab preserved the film in 2007, contributing pro bono lab work for a consortium that included the Hill estate, Paul Gailiunas, Harvard Film Archive, the University of South Carolina, New York University, BB Optics, and the Orphan Film Project. Colorlab's new 16mm print premiered at the 2007 Ann Arbor Film Festival, which was dedicated to Helen Hill, who died that year.[4]
- ^ Daniel Eagan, America's Film Legacy, 2009-2010: A Viewer's Guide to the 50 Landmark Movies (London: Bloomsbury, 2011).
- ^ Dan Streible, “Media Artists, Local Activists, and Outsider Archivists: The Case of Helen Hill,” in Old and New Media after Katrina, ed. Diane Negra (Palgrave, 2010), 149-74.
- ^ "Michael Jackson, the Muppets and Early Cinema Tapped for Preservation in 2009 Library of Congress National Film Registry," Library of Congress news release, Dec. 30, 2009, [1].
- ^ The 45th Ann Arbor Film Festival, printed program (2007), [2].