Interviewing Experimental Filmmaker Kent Tate

Athabasca Glacier in 2019. Photo by Cheryl Brown-Tate.

Kent Tate is an award-winning experimental filmmaker. He draws on his background as a painter and musician to layer and integrate sounds and images he encounters. Kent’s work includes dramatic sky images layered with human technology or their consequences. He shares his concern about man's impact on our biosphere. Kent moved to Southern Saskatchewan in 2007 and joined the Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative and began showing his work at screenings and in galleries. His film Catalyst won The Ruth Shaw Award, (Best of Saskatchewan) in 2015 and he has gone on to win awards for his work internationally. Some of these include Best Experimental Award at the Walthamstow International Film Festival in London, UK in 2019 for his film Velocity, Best Original Music Award at the Retro Avant Garde Film Festival in Cairo for Carbon Sky, and in 2022 his film Spark received a Special Mention from the  ALC videoart festival hosted by the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Alicante, Spain.

The following is a brief conversation with Kent about Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Filmpool and making his experimental short films.

Sandra:  How did your membership in the Filmpool contribute to your work as a filmmaker?

Kent: I was a member of the Filmpool from 2007 until 2020. The Filmpool was a wonderful place to network with other experimental filmmakers in Saskatchewan. They made a great effort to keep their members informed about resources and opportunities important to experimental filmmakers living and working in the province.       

Sandra: How did your time in Saskatchewan impact your filmmaking? 

Kent: I was able to spend the time I needed to articulate and refine my aesthetic and emotional relationship to the world around me, which in Saskatchewan is a world of endless horizons inspired by both dramatic and subtle layers of time and space. I never tired of seeing stories in every shape and sound, stories that infused so much meaning for me that I felt compelled to share. 

Film still from Landing Site, courtesy of Kent Tate.

Sandra: Where have you lived and what influence has each of these places had on your work?

Kent: I was born in Rivers, Manitoba and grew up in Baden-Baden, Germany and Ottawa, Ontario. Since then, I have lived in Toronto, Vancouver, the Island of Hawaii, Southwest Saskatchewan and now I’m living in the village of Ashcroft, B.C. which is in one of only two true deserts in Canada. 

Kent: Every place I’ve lived in has had its own unique impact so I can’t say one place was more impactful than another. 

Sandra: Have you always made experimental films?

Kent: My background is in music, painting, and installation art so those forms of expression have informed my filmmaking more than film. 

Sandra: Not everyone reading this article will know what experimental film means. How do you describe experimental film? 

Kent: Good question. For me, it describes an artist-based approach to moving images where the intent is to describe what is deeply felt by the maker and that film provides the toolset needed to tell their story. 

Sandra: What is the difference between film and digital footage?

Kent: I don’t really differentiate between analogue and digital. For me, an image is an image is an image. 

Sandra: How do you determine the length of your films?

Kent: It varies from subject to subject or whatever time I feel is long enough for a particular shot or sequence. I try to respect the time a viewer spends with one of my films. Most of my single-channel movies are under five minutes. 

Sandra: How important are light and shadow?

Kent: Light and shadow are everything, the very core of my film practice. 

Sandra: Colour?

 Kent: Natural colour is very important. I never colour grade in post-production unless I’m creating a sequence with animations where it is clear that the colours have been altered.

Film still from Burning Farm House, courtesy of Kent Tate.

Sandra: How do you compose your sound narratives and background?

Kent: I was a musician before I became interested in the [film] arts. I play the piano and I’m a firm believer that sound shapes how we see. For each film, I compose the soundtracks at the same time as when I am editing the footage. This begins a conversation that hopefully creates a story that will eventually become a finished work.

Sandra: How much of your image and sound is new and how much is from your personal stock footage?

Kent: Depending on the project almost all the images and sound are new, although I have a lot of personal stock footage, so I’ll use that too when it makes sense. 

Sandra: I see you say in some of your shorts you encountered or came across events that you shot. Is it your practice to have your camera with you at specific times? What type of events would you stop to shoot? Or are you more likely to go out to shoot? 

Kent: I never leave the house without my camera and tripod since I can never know if, or what, I might encounter that inspires me to set up my gear and film. 

I only go out to film a specific scene or event if my local weather forecast predicts a particular kind of light/shadow phenomenon I’m interested in. 

Sandra: I see you show your work at festivals and in galleries. Please explain the difference.

Kent: My films in festivals are single-channel movies with sound whereas my films in a gallery setting are generally reconstructed loops, often without a soundtrack. The movies in festivals are in linear time whereas my films in a gallery are in non-linear time. 

Sandra: What is the reason you decided to make a book about your works?

Kent: My late wife Cheryl — who passed away from breast cancer in March of 2022 —  had encouraged me to make a book about my films for years, but I didn’t take the time. As an homage to Cheryl, I decided to take the time and finally make that book she had wanted me to make in the winter of 2022-2023.

Kent shares beautiful stills with the synopsis of each of the selected 32 films in his recently published book. The book starts with an essay about Kent’s work by visual art writer, Julie Oakes. It ends with a list of selected works, awards, residencies, exhibitions, festivals and screenings where his works have been shown. Kent continues to make and show his experimental short films.