Jay Lash Cassidy is an Oscar-nominated editor who for the past few decades has worked on quite a number of prominent features, indie films, and documentaries (including the films of David O. Russell and Sean Penn, as well as An Inconvenient Truth, A Star is Born, Foxcatcher, and many others). His origins are with political documentary and experimental film, which includes his involvement in co-running the Ann Arbor Film Festival in the late 1960s to early 1970s, during which time he also produced a small but fascinating body of independent film work, which is listed below.
75 AND STILL CLOWNING (1968)
16mm, 6m
A PERSONAL STATEMENT BY ROBIN FARBMAN (1969)
16mm, bw, sound, 3m
THE JUPITER EGG (1970)
16mm, bw, sound, 22m
ADRIFT IN ILLINOIS (1971) (w/ Fred LaBour)
16mm, bw, sound, 22m
HER BIG HEART (1972) (w/ Fred LaBour)
16mm, bw, sound, 30m
THE BEST OF MAY, 1968 (1972)
16mm, bw & color, silent 24fps, 4m
THE VANGUARD STORY (1974)
16mm, bw, sound, 17m
TROUBLESHOOTING YOUR CAR (1975)
16mm, bw & color, sound, 4m
OTHER WORK
[UNTITLED SAMUEL FULLER ANN ARBOR PROJECT] (1970) (w/ Samuel Fuller & other Ann Arborites)
16mm, bw, silent 24fps, 4m
Cassidy also organized a film shoot in Ann Arbor with visiting director Samuel Fuller (who was in town for a Cinema Guild retrospective of his work) on February 7, 1970, and an untitled, 4-minute, silent b/w film was made – devised and directed by Fuller, and shot primarily by Cassidy with some other Ann Arbor film folks participating and shooting some of it with them. Cassidy also edited the film and it still exists in his collection.
CINEMA STREET snipes (1971) (w/ Peter Wilde & Fred LaBour)
16mm, bw, sound, 16m total
Jay Cassidy also co-created a series of nine 16mm snipes in collaboration with Peter Wilde and Fred LaBour to be screened at the 1971 Ann Arbor Film Festival. Wilde (technical director of the AAFF at the time) handled sound, Cassidy shot and edited, and LaBour performed. Cassidy recalls that although they were made in such a way that they could be shown at any Cinema Guild event, they were apparently only shown at the 1971 festival. The entire series of films were called Cinema Street (a reference to Sesame Street), and featured LaBour (as “Ticket Fred” – he was the ticket-taker for the theater) explaining some basic facet of cinema convention or technology, or just enacting an absurd and humorous performance. The nine snipes are titled as follows, in no particular order: Scope; Seats; Film Inspection; Bathrooms; There is a certain difficulty with the sound tonight.; Sync Sound Movies; Andy Devine; Plastic Marilyn; Blues.
LIGHTSTRUCK 