By Mary Knox
LOS ANGELES- Fritz Feick has a vision, and it’s playing to a classical music soundtrack. The director/editor recently won a Gold at the Houston International Film Festival, was a finalist at the USA and Louisville Film Festivals and received honorable mentions at Hiroshima and Sacramento.
The object of all this attention is Feick’s six-minute classical music video “Bulgare,” set to Franz Schubert’s Quintette A Cordes En Ut Majeur Op. 163 and performed by a Belgian group, Quatuor Bulgare.
“When People think of classical music they envision violins, tuxedos and a fat lady singing. I hope to change all that,” Feick explained.
“I hit upon classical because to me it’s got the best sense of film,” he said. “I want to take advantage of the richness and depth of the music and bring it to bear on film with narrative stories.”
Feick was the writer, producer, DP, star talent, director and editor of the classical video, which was produced through his own company, Fritz Feick Films, in New York. The freelance editor- who worked through Digipix and Salamandra Images while in new York- recently moved here and is affiliated with Graying and Balding in Hollywood, Calif., as well as with some industrial and television editing projects.
Feick’s start in the advertising business was as a media planner at Ogilvy & Mather and then Grey Advertising, both in New York- not your usual spawning ground for either new editors or directors. After 18 months on the agency side, he left to attend film school at the New School for Social Research in New York, and then worked as an actor there- commercials, soaps, Off Off Broadway- before taking up editing and directing.
“My first love is editing, but I love to do both [editing and directing], Feick explained. “I like working with people not afraid of an editor’s insights.”
“Bulgare” was shot on location in New York during Christmas 1989. Using both color and black-and-white film, it tells the story of a boy who strays away from his father at Grand Central Station. Feick finished the edit last December. He estimated the entire budget through completion at $290,000.
Much of Feick’s time now is taken up with showing the clip to record companies and network and cable executives in order to spark interest in the classical music video genre. Feick has a proposal for a one-hour classical music television program- basically made up of six different video segments- that he is currentyly shopping around, with shooting scheduled to start in September.
“There’s a tremendous market for classical music and for people to see it in a new way.” Now that the baby boomers are graying, there’s a growing market,” Feick said.
“It’s become fashionable to listen to classical music,” he added, allowing that “it’s not the kind of thing people will rush over to their neighbor’s to do.”
Feick admitted that Schubert is his favorite composer- hence the choice for his first venture. “Essentially, I just picked music I love and that has meaning for me, “ he said.
Additional credits for “Bulgare” go to Peter Buccelato of DB Sound for the stereo mix. John Dowdell of The Tape House for color correct and Rod Carbaugh at Editel for the online- all in New York.
[Note: Bulgare would go on to win the coveted BOHEMIAN CRYSTAL at Prague D’Or (the Emmy of the Iron Curtain).
It was subsequently made part of the permanent collection
of the MUSEUM OF TELEVISION in New York, and the
MUSEUM of JOURNALISM in Prague.]
