At home, outdoors. Street shots.
Farm work and nature.
USPS workers go bowling.
Chicago streets.
Two women gardening on a sunny day.
Elam films her close friend, Chuck Kleinhans.
This footage is almost entirely black, save for a few shots possibly showing electric poles outside.
JoAnn Elam plants collards.
A film record of a Soviet expedition to Pamir, not to be confused with Krysha Mira, a different 1928 expedition film also about Pamir, directed by Vladimir Erofeyev, released in USA as Roof Of the World. A pictorial record of the 1928 Russian-German expedition to explore and map an area of the unexplored heart of the Pamirs. During the expedition, three German researchers (E. Allwein, E. Schneider and Karl Wien) made the first attempt to reach the highest point of the Trans-Alai Range, which at that time had the name of the Kaufman Peak (today, Lenin Peak or Ibn Sina). They started climbing upstream of the Saukdara river and continued climbing along the Greater Saukdara Glacier towards the Krilenko Pass at 5820 m. On September 25, 1928 they started climbing from the saddle along the NE Ridge and at 15.30 they made the first ascent of Lenin Peak at an altitude of 7127 m.
Andy Warhol directs The Factory regular Louisa "Jackie" Foster for a screen test.
This silent film from 1948 "The Creation of Life" briefly demonstrates how a fetus forms and graphically shows different types of births. It was made by Sherwood Picture Corp., and may have been sold both to schools and professional organizations for medical education, and to the public for shock value. (Several similar birth films were sold in this era through home catalogs and photography shops.) Summary: By means of diagrams, conceptions and pregnancy are explained. Views of various methods of delivery are shown. Created by: T. Marc Sherwood
"Scenes from their (Guilherme and Lia Torá's) tests in Brazil, others taken at Paulo Benedetti's studio and garden, some excerpts from footage in which they are not present, excerpts from the 'formidable' reception in New York and natural scenes: of trains and Fifth Avenue." (Cinearte, 07.03.1929)
Six years after the Berlin Wall fell and five years after German unification this documentary looks into the fast changes in architecture and street life of Berlin Mitte and stays in tune with a piano piece of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Rock climbing on the "Cobbler". Awarded first prize by Michael Powell in the 1948 Scottish Amateur Film Festival
Documentary short film depicting the filmmaking activity at the Paramount Studios in Hollywood, featuring dozens of stars captured candidly and at work.
Contrasting environments, in and outside.
Elam records several men moving boxes and furniture as they track across her backyard.
“Tai Chi II,” similarly to Elam’s “Tai Chi Bowling” and “Tai Chi,” focuses on movement. Through a sequence of close-ups, Elam coyly records portions of several individuals practicing tai chi, primarily focusing on the practitioners’ extremities as they float about. Distinct from its affiliates, “Tai Chi II” finds the action taking place outside.
Consists of frantic and (mostly) uninformative pans sprinting across Elam's lawn.
Elam's husband prepares vegetables at the sink.