-
Chapter Three: The People and the Path of Isuma
- University of Nebraska Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
chaPteR thRee The People and the Path of Isuma Igloolik Isuma Productions is a loose collection of people. It expands when funding comes in and a project is under way, then contracts again when projects end and the group applies for the next production grant. In its largest formation—for example, during work on The Fast Runner and Rasmussen—it employs dozens of people: actors, costumers, makeup artists, set and prop builders, dog-team wranglers, and so on. When those projects ended, most of the people involved in production went back to their regular lives in Igloolik. The magic of Isuma is that it grows directly out of the community when it expands: all the people are ordinary citizens of the town who pitch in when a large project comes along. At its inception, the core of Isuma consisted of four people: Zacharias Kunuk, Norman Cohn, Pauloosie Qulitalik, and Paul Apak. When Apak passed away in 1998, the group shrank to three, with additional writers, assistants, and others brought in as needed. Zacharias Kunuk At the heart of the Isuma enterprise is Zacharias Kunuk, one of the founders of Isuma and the primary producer. Kunuk was born in an outpost camp in 1957 and grew up in the Igloolik area. When he was in town, he enjoyed watching movies that were shown in the school’s gym; for a quarter, he could watch John Wayne westerns and other classic films. Like many Inuit children of his generation, he was taken away to boarding school to learn English and become more like “mainstream ” Canadians. He remembers that period in his life bitterly. Nuns would beat him when he spoke Inuktitut, but he arrived knowing no English at all. As a result, for most of his time at the boarding school, he spoke very little. 32 When he returned to Igloolik, he spent his time hunting and carving sculptures. He became a skilled artist, and his carvings commanded considerable sums on the art market. But he still enjoyed movies greatly, and he was delighted when he heard that video gear had become small enough and cheap enough for ordinary people to own and use. When he told me the story of how he got started in videography , his voice carried the tone of experience; he has told this story many times before. In 1981, before anyone in Igloolik had a television , Kunuk made some carvings and took them to Montreal. He could already see that videography—moviemaking—was a new art form that inexpensive video equipment made accessible, and he was interested in using his success as a carver to launch an exploration into this new medium. He sold his carvings in the city and found a store that carried video equipment. He bought a complete set: camera, vcr, and television. The store clerk showed him how to turn everything on and which button to push to record. Then Kunuk flew back to Igloolik to try out his newfound art. At first, he shot footage of his son crawling on the floor and playing with his toys. When he played the images back on his tv, he said, he heard some noises behind him. He turned around to discover a large knot of children pressed up against his windows, fascinated by the flickering images they saw on the screen. When the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation opened a production center in Igloolik, Kunuk joined them as a videographer and producer. The ibc brought in some videographers from the South to train the new producers. Among them was the experimental videographer Norman Cohn. Cohn was flown to Iqaluit for a workshop , and Kunuk signed up to take it. The two hit it off from the start. While the workshop was winding down, Cohn and Kunuk wandered around Iqaluit shooting footage for a video they called Two Strangers in Frobisher Bay.1 Cohn taught Kunuk about camera angles, video grammar, and the importance of immersing yourself in the scene, even if it feels uncomfortable to walk up and stick a camera in someone’s face. The People and the Path of Isuma | 33 [54.165.122.173] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 13:11 GMT) Kunuk’s second independent video was called From Inuk Point of View. It shows his family, various activities around Igloolik, and other scenes, all with a voice-over in Inuktitut. Kunuk began to think seriously about a long-term career in videography. He worked with the ibc for nine years, ultimately...