Time travel back to July 1928 for a day at the beach in Odessa Ukraine. Filmed by Mikhail Kaufman for Man with a Movie Camera. Scenes include fashionable couples on Pushkinska Street and relaxing on Arcadia beach on the shores of the Black Sea. AI enhanced film at 4K 60fps. Colorization method – Deep Exemplar-based Video Colorization.
Originally shot in black & white at 24 fps for the landmark documentary Man with a Movie Camera. Filmed by Mikhail Kaufman, directed by Dziga Vertov and edited by Elizaveta Svilova.
Svilova was a pioneer of modern film editing. She employed multiple exposures, fast and slow motion, freeze frames, jump cuts and split screens. She literally wrote the textbook for modern film editing.
See A Day at the Beach in Odessa Ukraine 1928
Mikhail Kaufman – cinematographer
This AI enhanced edit – with an ambient immersive soundtrack, is a tribute to the stunning cinematography of Vertov’s largely overlooked brother Mikhail Kaufman. It is Kaufmann we see at regular intervals during Man with a Movie Camera – as the Cameraman!
The sequences here in Odessa Ukraine, shot by Kaufman represent the most intimate fly on the wall footage that can be seen on film in the 1920s.
I feel it justified an attempt to bring Kaufmans subjects – the people of Ukraine, now long dead, back to life through this immersive AI enhanced short film.
Kaufman was part of the ‘council of three’ working with his brother David (Dziga Vertov) and his sister in law Elizaveta Svilova on the newsreel series Kino-Pravda.
Kaufman himself filmed and directed two other films which were also edited by Elizaveta Svilova.
Moscow (1927) and In Spring (1929). Kaufmann and Vertov stopped working together because of creative differences. Kaufmann felt that Man with a Movie Camera was far too chaotic. He wanted his work to be a reflection of life.
In no way do I wish to detract from the documentary Man with a Movie Camera. If you have not already seen it, it now resides in the public domain and can be viewed on the Internet Archive as well as many other free streaming services.
Man with a Movie Camera
The documentary was largely dismissed upon its initial release in 1929, but the British Film Institute’s 2012 film critics poll, voted Man with a Movie Camera the 8th greatest film ever made.
The documentary in its entirety depicts a single day in the lives of ordinary Soviet citizens, in the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Moscow and on the shores of Odessa,a popular holiday spot. It has no actors.
Vertovs real name was David Kaufman. His brother Mikhail was not the only cinematographer in the family. Another brother – Boris Kaufman went on to fight the Nazis with the Free French. Later escaping to start a new life in the USA. He went on to win an Oscar for On the Waterfront! Now that’s a family of film makers for you!
That’s all ! © Glamourdaze