John Porter is a filmmaker from Toronto. On the day that I arrived I quickly rushed in to watch the Canada Council presentation. Having soaked up the information about changes and what was going on in general I was able to catch up with friends by going out for a pint and some food. Everyone was rushing because they wanted to get back to see John Porter's 8mm performance entitled "Scanning".
So I wolfed down my salad and got the performance... standing room only... and watched some great 8mm films. Amazing stuff that made me think in a different way about film and the camera and the relationship between the filmmaker and the camera and the audience. To try to explain it in words can't really do it justice... there was silent film, sound film, a live human / cinematic interaction, and an audience / projector / filmmaker interaction. If you have a chance to see John Porter screening stuff or to meet him you should definitely do that. He's cool!
After the plenary session we all went out to the front steps of Arts Court for a group photo. John took some with his camera and then people began passing him their cameras for more photos. I took this photo when John had a camera in both hands. The camera in his left hand belongs to Becka Barker and it has 4 little lenses and some kind of circular shutter that takes 4 pictures slightly apart in time. What a cool camera!