Murray Smith(IX)
- Director
- Writer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Murray Smith is a critical thinker by nature, an avid cinephile by
nurture, and an enthusiastic filmmaker by consequence. He's largely a
film formalist, and has a shared passion for photography, writing and
(especially) editing-not to mention film theory in general. Some key
topics/influences include: philosophy, contrast, ambiguity, film noir,
surrealism, David Bohm, Linklater, Tati, and Kubrick. He's currently
(2010) in his final year of a Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies degree
at the University of Calgary, and volunteers whenever he can within the
local film community. Outside of the film world, he loves to do
freelance web/graphic design. --- Although always bound to art, it
wasn't until drudging through two years of engineering at the UofC that
he realized his passion for invention and hands-on creation was better
suited to an artistic environment than to the specifics of science. And
while such a switch might initially seem drastic, the truth is a
filmmaker is a lot like a scientist: both toil to convey compelling
ideas by way of creative decisions and competent techniques. In any
case, he's a Gen-Y student from Calgary who has dabbled in fields that
span from promotional writing to tournament paintball to hobby
electronics to pizza topping. He has a vested interest in
new-media/web-based/interactive film projects since he thinks they are
the gateway to a new kind of artistic 'depth' (a topic that he'll be
uncovering further in his upcoming Honours thesis). He's also always
had a fond appreciation for film on celluloid, however, and believes
one of cinema's greatest offerings is being able to attend a theatre
and physically talk to people-especially about great movies.