Before my son was born, friends would ask me "Will you make a baby movie, now?". "Of course not!", I would answer. Yet, right after Daniel was born I found myself filming him, not with the intention of making a film, but with a need to retain, hold on to some moving images of his early and miraculous stage of his life. I kept filming. Sort of snapshots with a movie camera. Very much in the tradition of home movies: all focused on my subject and no concern with film form or syntax. Time passed. The rolls kept accumulating. Three of four months later, they were developed. As I began to look at the footage I sensed the need to keep on filming as well as the possibility of giving the material a form of its own and eventually perhaps sharing the work with a few other individuals in the world. While I continued to film as before (not systematically but intermittently, as the occasion and the need presented itself), a tentative shape containing footage of Daniel's first three months was arrived at in early 1993. After a couple of viewings, it became apparent that limiting the work to that period of Daniel's life would not suffice. In addition, there was something about my approach to film here that attracted me and I felt that I needed a larger expanse of time to work with. Sometime in 1995 the earlier edited material was revised and expanded. In the summer of 1996 the decision was made to conclude FOR DANIEL with footage recorded in May 1996.

Having just completed the work, what can I say? First of all, I need some distance to see and re-experience the film from the outside in order to be able to articulate in words what so far I have pursued instinctively and intuitively, working out and resolving issues largely through felt perceptions and using verbal language minimally.

The title implies the work is for my son and that I am for him. My main interest in the film is Daniel. In conjunction with that, one thing that moves me about the work is the casual, intimate, quiet, person-to-person, home-movie character; its focus on observing and celebrating little moments of every day life, such as a yawn, a smile, an expression of pain, a gesture here, a half gesture there, quiet acknowledgements of growth and metamorphosis, the passage of time.

Ernie Gehr was born in 1943 and began to make films in 1968. In 1982 he lived in Berlin as a DAAD fellow. Ernie Gehr currently lives in San Francisco and teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute as well as at the University of California at Berkeley.

1968: Morning; Wait. 1969: Reverberation; Transparency. 1970: History; Field; Serene Velocity; Three. 1969-71: Still. 1974: Eureka. 1972-74: Shift. 1975: Behind the Scenes. 1976: Table. 1977: Untitled. 1981: Mirage; Untitled, Part One. 1982-85: Signal-Germany on the Air. 1986-91: Rear Window; Listen. 1991: This Side of Paradise; Side/Walk/Shuttle. 1992-96: For Daniel.