James Bogan's New Film To Preview at Mission Point August 9
By Sean Ely

James Bogan models one of sculptor Louis Smart's 6- inch bronze figures in front of Little Stone Church Monday, July 30. Mr. Smart is a modern sculptor who deals with fragments. This sculpture is a human form trying to emerge, without a head or left leg.

Last summer, British Landing cottager James Bogan conducted a test screening of his film, "The Adventures of the Amazon Queen," during which he asked Mackinac Island viewers for opinions, critiques, and suggestions as to how the motion picture could be improved.

Less than a year later, he will return to the Mission Point Theatre with his latest film, "Naket Bronze," and a stack of comment cards for viewers to fill out.

He got the idea for "Naked Bronze" 25 years ago and spent four years producing it. The halfhour film features Louis Smart, a man residing in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri who casts bronze figures using the "lost wax" technique, much like the Assyrians, Greeks, and Renaissance Italians did before Michelangelo and Rodin perfected the art.

Now nearing completion, the film will be screened for the public at 8 p.m. Thursday, August 9. The viewing is free, and Mr. Bogan will look for ideas from the audience to incorporate into the finished product.

He'll take what criticism he likes, based on a lesson learned from the great French sculptor Auguste Rodin, who lived from 1840 to 1917.

"If it doesn't resonate with something you thought yourself, and perhaps repressed," Mr. Bogan said, "don't pay any attention to it. If it reminds you of something you thought, and put away, then you listen to it. That's really useful advice, because Rodin obviously got plenty of criticisms in his life."

Louis Smart, featured in the new film, only pours bronze every six months. Before that procedure, he sculpts from wax, seals it in plaster, then uses a furnace to melt the wax from the plaster mold. The molten bronze is then poured into that mold. He can make additional molds by using the solid bronze figure.

The bronze-pouring scene was shot three times over 18 months, and edited to look like one consecutive pour from three different angles. It was crucial, Mr. Bogan said, that the men involved in the scene were wearing the same outfits each time.

The result of using the three angles, and extending the twominute process, Mr. Bogan hopes, is that the audience will be drawn into the film, as if they are in the Ozarks with Mr. Smart.

"It's like being at a birth," Mr. Bogan suggests. "It's fascinating and brings a lot of excitement. When he takes the figures out of the plaster mold at the end, and they are fully-formed, it's just like a baby being born. I've gone to these pourings a dozen times, and I am totally knocked out each time, and I never get tired of it."

He credits his camera operator and fellow editor, Ryan Wylie, for much of the work.

"He is very sharp, and he also loves the project," Mr. Bogan said. "I wouldn't consider working with him if he didn't. But he loves Louis' work, and he's young, with an appreciation for it. It makes him a great person to work with. I couldn't be happier."

Happiness includes long arguments between the two as to what to cut and what to leave in.

"I could do all of the editing myself, theoretically, but I don't want to," Mr. Bogan said. "I want to have someone there to argue with, someone who knows more than me, technically, and has their own point of view. We have great arguments. Sometimes I win, sometimes he wins, and sometimes it changes completely. But if it comes down to it, I get the win in the end, because I'm the producerdirector."

Mr. Bogan is eager to see how the audience at Mission Point will react to his beautiful bronze pouring scene, which flashes to a number of Mr. Smart's works. Filming over four years allowed the sculptures to be posed with backdrops from every season, some with gleaming white snow and others next to golden, crisp autumn leaves.

In the film, Mr. Smart forms, molds, cuts, and prepares a piece of wax to resemble a naked model posing for him. He works with the complete spectrum of human beings, males and females, young and old, beautiful and ugly, a Rodin tradition, Mr. Bogan explains.

Mr. Bogan has taught writing, art history, and film classes at the University of Missouri- Rolla, since 1969 and has been making films since 1986. He obtained a degree in English from Loyola University in Chicago and earned his Ph.D. in English Literature at the University of Kansas.

"Producing and directing is like writing well," he said. "One must organize their thoughts, and it is a lot like moving clauses around in a sentence. Just like you can hear how a well-written sentence works better than a crummy one, you can see how a well-edited sequence works better, too, chopping it off here or changing it here. It's like moving boxcars around the railroad yard; whatever muscle writing develops is transferable with film."

"Naked Bronze," his 10th film, will be finished in the fall and released in 2008.

"I have put in pints and pints of blood, gallons and gallons of sweat, a lot of laughs, and no tears," Mr. Bogan said of the project.