Narrator: Today on Spectrum, we watch a Hawaiian hula film project sponsored by the Bishop  Museum.

Rare film footage of past hula practices from the 1930s has been corrected and restored to  serve as a teaching aid and a historical document.

Also, a melody from the Royal Kingdom of Tonga  will be sung by the Tongan young adult choir.

But first Hawaii Public Television's Mel Farinas  visits with Ishu Patel, a native of India, now a Canadian.

Mr.

Patel has won numerous awards  for his novel techniques in animation.

Here he shows Spectrum the new types of material he  uses, as well as selections from his work.

Mel Farinas: Ishu, most people are familiar with this type of animation.

It's called cell animation, where you  draw and paint hundreds and hundreds, sometimes even 1000s of pictures to get what they're looking  for.

When you're not involved with this technique, maybe you can explain to us what methods you use.

Ishu Patel: Okay, well, Mel., the kind of traditional cell  technique, which Disney really used it in his, in his lot of films that has been really getting  very expensive because, you know, you really have to have so many people to work on it, and so many  people has to use to paint and piles and piles of drawing really gets very, very expensive.

If  it's a half an hour film or one hour film, you can imagine how many drawings you need.

So, people  have been developing different kind of things over the years.

And one of the very simple one, is  the cut-out technique, we call.

Where you don't have to draw the same drawing over and over again.

Instead, you have the drawing made into different parts, different section.

And then you can use  the hands and the legs and eyes and a mouth and a nose and different pieces separately, and then  manipulate it on the camera.

I'll give very simple example of for example, let's say this is a square  here, if you have to do with a traditional method, the same square, if the square is moving from this  position to this position like that on a screen, that square will be drawn several times.

That means this square has to be drawn over and over again, has to be painted, colored  and so on.

Whereas with cut out techniques, you can put the same square here and then most  likely take one frame.

Most likely take one frame, most likely take one frame, and then eventually  the square reaches there.

So that means you have one piece of square which you just manipulate  under the camera, frame by frame.

You must also remember that animation camera shoots single frame  at a time.

You can never have to run the camera continuously, and it's very sophisticated machines  often used.

And in the schools and colleges, often they use super eight cameras, which  shoot single frames.

So you can really manipulate character like that.

Now that's a  simple one.

Sometimes you can use complex one, like little character.

Has a little character.

You see the little boy, and there's a shirt here, and his legs and everything.

So, you can really  manipulate those.

We haven't had all the parts here separately, but you can have this hand  separately, legs separately, and you practically make him walk, make him do things, what you  want to do it.

So that's one aspect of it.

(Instrumental music) Ishu Patel: Then there are various other things people use.

And actual material I have used in one of my film, the beads.

And you can see here some of the some  of the beads, you know, which you which the little girl or younger makes necklaces out of it, and  Indians and so on.

Use for their decorations, on their on their clothes and so on.

So, these  kind of other material, you could use it.

And here I'll just show a few.

You just leave the beads  here on the of course, they are loose like that.

So now you can form any shape you want.

So, either  you can shape it like that, take one frame and you can shape it slightly more like that.

Now that's  something very, very simple, but you can also line them up with a little brush like that.

And if you,  if you line them up one by one at a time, like this, you have made a drawing out of out of beads,  actually, instead of drawing everything.

Now, this line is a mobile line.

It's just, just flexible  line there.

Let's say, let's suppose this is the line here, right now, this line is twisting like  that.

All you have to do is to frame by frame, change the position of the line.

Sometimes you  can use the actual object to put them in a line like that, or like that, curve them, like that,  slightly, and so forth and so on on.

Or very fine movements could be done by the brush.

Now this is  just a simple one, but you can, you can just the way you draw any animal or a human figure.

You  line them up beads in that form, and that would make it look like an animal.

And then you change  it frame by frame, what actually supposed to do?

So, these are some of the things people use.

People have used sand under the camera, and you shape them into different shapes, and everything  else depends on your imaginations, how you do it.

(Instrumental music) Mel Farinas: Your technique seems to be an individual technique  where you alone control everything, whereas this technique seems to involve many, many people doing  many, many different things.

You find this as far as expression of art, this, this is more personal.

Ishu Patel: Well, this is this kind of extra new mediums.

Also gives you different visual quality on the screen.

First Secondly, it also gives you  a freedom to try some different subject, which you cannot do always with cartoons  or this kind of practice animation, which most of people are familiar with.

So  having different materials, having cutouts, or sand or things like plasticine or something,  we go for this kind of new ideas, which then gives you possibilities to go into different kind of  subject areas, sometimes very serious subjects.

Often people associate cartoon or funny, few  jokes, little man with a big nose and few bing, bang, bang.

Whereas this one, you can go into the  very serious subject matters and so on.

So it is, it has a personal expression, yes.

Mel Farinas: And your materials actually help  you to interpret your feeling, Ishu Patel: Sure, the material follows.

Material gives you the kind of action.

Material also gives you the style  of animation.

Material also gives you the style of concepts and ideas.

So, this is it's just another  tool, which also slightly cheaper in terms one man show, one person controls everything.

He can,  originates the idea.

He animates it.

He doesn't have to draw anything, because the material  is there.

And you go under the camera and work for several weeks or months and keep shooting one  after another.

Something else I've used, which is plasticine, in some cases, I have used.

And this  is the plasticine kids use for making models.

Now there is also plasticine animation scene where you  make three dimensional models, and you move the hands and the legs and a face and everything, and  shoot single frame.

People are familiar with this type of stuff.

It's called kind of frame-by-frame  sculpturing.

But I've also tried something else, which is you back light plasticine under the  camera, and you draw all your character in there.

And when the light shines through the plasticine,  then you change every frame.

You change slightly a drawing.

It's like sculpturing under the camera.

Mel Farinas: What do you think computer graphics  will do to animators like you and me?

Ishu Patel: Well, I think I've been investigating lately about what the computer would do.

I've been in process  of planning a film, and I really discovered that that it's very, very, costly to use the machines.

First of all, it's in a very early stage.

There's a lot of technical gadgets are involved.

Hardware  and software are involved.

There are various companies are making various kind of effect  animation, and there is no coordination between industry, among the industry.

So, what happens  that you got, you got, you can do something here with this particular system.

Something else here,  you had to go in California, some other kind of effects, you have to go to Denver.

And this kind  of system has been individually developed by the people, and they got it very secretly.

So when  I go, and when I'm making a film, when I go to one particular system, they tell me that there  is a restriction here.

We can only do this, but for this, you have to go somewhere else.

And so  when I go somewhere, so there is no one particular system exists where the artist doesn't have  to worry about the limitations, and it's very, very costly.

So, I don't know where it's going  to go.

Maybe the cost will come down one day and it will be used.

But it, all my impression, and  people who work in animation, their impression is that it will never take over to became one  more tool like from cell animation to cut outs to plastic sand to sand to beads, it will be  computer animation.

It has a certain slick look, and you can only do so much with that kind of  look, but it'll never replace what we are doing.

(Singing in Hawaiian) Narrator: The Art of hula is an important Hawaiian  legacy.

Vivienne Mader was a New York dancer who visited Hawaiʻi to learn the  hula in 1931.

She returned many times, often with a motion picture camera.

The  results of her enthusiasm is now the subject of a recent documentary led by the efforts  of Bishop Museum scholar Dr.

Elizabeth Tatar.

(Singing in Hawaiian) Narrator: Dr.

Tatar is an anthropologist  who specializes in music, otherwise known as an ethnomusicologist.

She  studies music from a cultural point of view.

(Singing in Hawaiian) Narrator: Commonly, anthropologists study cultural  relationships with the artifacts available to them.

They're trained to explore a culture by  interpreting its habits, customs, and symbols.

A decorative feather collar may serve as a  mark of rank, while a hollowed out gourd may be rendered as a musical instrument.

As a prominent cultural resource, the Bishop Museum is the likely recipient  of such gifts from generous donors.

(Chanting in Hawaiian) Elizabeth Tartar: Vivienne Huapal Mader, when she died in 1972, left  an enormous collection of traditions of hula and music that she documented in Hawaiʻi between the  years 1930 and 1935.

In 1981 we started getting the first shipment of Vivienne Mader's collection.

In 1982 an even larger shipment came in.

I was very surprised that one lady, of course, she  had 50 years to do it.

But one lady could amass as much material as she did, she was deeply  interested in Hawaiian culture, that was obvious.

She collected not only what pertained to dance  in particular, but to the culture in general.

Narrator: As a professional dancer, Vivienne Mader was also interested in the ability  of film to capture movement.

Dr.

Tatar has made an extensive study of the Hawaiian dances, which Miss  Mader has captured on film, as well as other notes and charts drawn from her collection.

Elizabeth Tartar: in the 20s and 30s.

I believe there was a great  interest on the mainland in incorporating ethnic dance movements into modern dance.

She came to  Hawaiʻi, and I think she was one of the first to see the beauty of Hawaiian dance, the art in  Hawaiian dance, the complexity of the movements and the expression.

Narrator: Vivienne Mader had met and worked with most of  the well known teaching masters of her time.

Elizabeth Tartar: There was a print which I viewed and on that print, there were dances of Joseph Ilalaole,  Akoni, Mika, Catherine Kanahele, Kawena Pukui, and the Laʻanui family.

And as soon as I saw that,  I knew that this was a very valuable collection.

And I could tell that this was something that we  should work on, and something to try to get back to the community, because it was that important to  hula.

I was terribly interested in this collection because it had sound.

(Chanting in Hawaiian) Elizabeth Tartar: Dance in Hawaiʻi is really dependent on music.

(Chanting in Hawaiian) Elizabeth Tartar: However, this collection also has a lot to do with dance.

Narrator: One might question, what is an  ethnomusicologist doing studying dance?

Elizabeth Tartar: Well it refers simply to dance, but you cannot have dance without chant.

Dance  by itself does not exist in Hawaiʻi or any part of Polynesia without chants.

The choreography  depends on the poetry.

The mele and poetry must always be chanted.

Narrator: John Charlot and Paul Clark of the East West  Center, sponsor of the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival, indicated to Dr.

Tatar that a finished  version of a Vivienne Mader film might be shown to the public through their festival.

John Charlot: The Mader film could be very important for  the Hawaiian public, because hula is at the center of the Hawaiian Renaissance, at the  center of this resurgence of Hawaiian culture.

Narrator: John Charlot, author of Chanting the Universe, is now actively involved  with a public display of films that enhance our knowledge of other cultures.

John Charlot: Well, the East West Center is a scholarly  institution, so some people are surprised that we have a film festival.

But of course,  film is a very important art form and should be studied as such.

Narrator: Joining Charlot in the film festival activities is  historian Paul Clark, who has recently published a book on Chinese film.

Paul Clark: I think the Mader film epitomizes what the whole  of the film festival is about that we run here, out of the East West Center, that we can bring  artifacts from another culture and show them to a broad public in Hawaiʻi and get a real, immediate  sense of another culture in a way that no other art form really conveys so effectively.

Narrator: As an author of books on Hawaiian culture and  music, Dr.

Elizabeth Tatar is particularly fitted to approach a subject of this nature, but  a film project requires instruments uncommon to the traditional scholar.

(Instrumental music) Narrator: Dr.

Tatar employs sensitive technology that will remove  the hissing and static of old records, (Insrumental music) Narrator: Allowing the purified version to be taped with Swiss precision.

(Singing in Hawaiian) Narrator: The medium of moving images is an apt archive for the dance during her efforts of matching  music with movement, Dr.

Tatar made a discovery.

Elizabeth Tartar: Having viewed this film, I see a big difference.

It's a historical difference, too.

This film was  made 1930 to 1935 and what we see today in 1984 is really quite different.

The Hula has changed.

The  movements have changed.

The focus of the dance has changed.

And our reason for having this film out  is to give a perspective to today's community of what the hula was like.

Narrator: Dr.

Tatar believes that Miss Mader's unique  legacy may prove instructive to today's audience.

Elizabeth Tartar: It is just a document, a very loving document, by this one woman of  a dance tradition as it existed in the 1930s.

Elizabeth Tartar: Helen Beamer and the talented ladies of her family strongly influenced the directions  hula kuʻi would take in the entertainment world of Waikīkī as shown by these performances she and her  family staged on the grounds of the Royal Hawaiian hotel in 1934 and 35.

Vivian Mader, who dances  with this group, considered herself a protege of Helen.

Okay, let's stop here and roll back.

Narrator: In the film studios of George Tahara, Dr.

Tatar records her narration for the historical dance documentary.

Elizabeth Tartar: Helen Beamer and the talented ladies of her... Terry: Okay, hold it, hold it, hold it.

Okay, stand by.

We’re gonna roll film.

Okay at what point do you want to pick it up, at the beginning?

Elizabeth Tartar: Yes, a little bit earlier, I was too fast.

Terry: Okay.

Narrator: She's assisted by sound  engineer Terry, on the controls.

Terry: Okay.

Are you ready?

Elizabeth Tartar: Yes.

Terry: Okay, pick up the scene.

The next change in the scene.

Elizabet Tartar: Helen Beamer and the talented ladies… Narrator: When Dr.

Tatar assumed responsibility for the  project, she realized that she must seek the best assistance available for the time was short.

Elizabeth Tartar: …in 1934 and 35, we have to  do that over I kicked the mic.

Terry: Okay, okay.

Elizabeth Tartar: How was I to have a presentation that was worthy of the museum and also worthy of the audience?

I don't want to kill the audience by showing raw footage.

How was I to get a project together in  essentially two months, two and a half months?

Narrator: She found the answer by consulting local filmmaker George Tahara.

George Tahara: The original film that was brought to us from  the museum was shot at 16 frames per second.

It is now corrected to 24 frames per second.

From this point, Terry, the sound engineer, working with Dr.

Tatar, must do the following  things.

First, it must be projected.

Second, the music which Dr.

Tatar has already collected  to accompany these scenes, had to be changed in speed.

Literally, each musical score that was  selected for these scenes would now be sped up or slowed down to match the picture.

Let us assume  now that the music closely sinks to the picture itself.

Terry, the editor and Dr.

Tatar now goes  into the editing room.

They use a machine that is known as a flatbed.

Narrator: While working on this film project, Dr.

Tatar  came to recognize and appreciate Vivienne Mader's singular contribution to Hawaiian  heritage and culture, due in no small part, to the age in which she lived.

Elizabeth Tartar: When Huapula collected in the 30s hula and  Hawaiian traditions were not as popular as they are today.

I think that if today, one person  like her were to go out and try a similar project, they would not be as successful.

One is not apt  to just give out as freely as Vivienne's teachers were in those days, she was so sensitive to the  culture, she seemed to have this this innate urging to get the truth about a dance or a chant.

Narrator: Folk songs may be sung by soloists, trios  or choirs.

Here to sing and dance a lullaby composed for the royal family of Tonga is the  Tongan Young Adult Choir of the First United Methodist Church of Honolulu.

(Singing and chanting in Tongan)