As longtime readers know, on June 30th I like to write about my friend and mentor Erik Timmerman who passed away on this date back in 2000. Well this year, I'm going to do something different. Instead of sharing a fond memory of Erik or a life lesson he taught me, over the next two months I'm going to write about a personal project involving Erik's filmmaking.
The Roadworks project that I'll be discussing was borne out of a two-fold desire to continue reinforcing many of my memories of Erik in my own mind as well as creating a greater remembrance of my friend such that his contribution to his students' lives, in addition to the animation program at the Rochester Institute of Technology, will be known by the students who come afterwards and never forgotten by those of us who knew him personally.
In order to do this, I'm going to ramble a bit about the steps that brought me and this multi-year project to it's current phase of development--and hopefully, it'll be completed sooner rather than later so I can share it in greater detail.
So tune in next month for part two of this blog post, titled "Roadworks", as I talk about the only experimental film Erik produced during his time at R.I.T. and my attempts to rescue it from obscurity.
