"Take Time" - The Books

This is a video made by a band called The Books. This band has a very cinematic way of making music and if I ever made an experimental film I'd ask this band to score it. The band is a mixture of the two band members' instrumentation (guitar, vocals, etc) with sampled sound clips. The orchestrate each and every song in an inventive interesting way and their music would be classified (if it were up to me) as montage-rock. This video proves my point in saying their music is very cinematic. Watch this video and think about how the music compliments the video and vise versa. Also think about the realtion between judgement and experince. Here it is...

"Take Time" - The Books

What I found most interesting

I find the idea of taking an ancient technology like a camera obscura and recreating it in modern scenarios fascinating. Ethan Jackson constructed this whole project himself. He combined hard work and construction/architecture with a cinematic view of an old trick. Projecting the outside world into an enclosed room is a beatiful idea. One could almost feel the weather and the brisk winter breeze. Seeing this with an audience made me think of how all this different media we experienced in class necesitates discussion and contemplation. Talking with a group of people helps me to straighten out my thoughts and realize what it was I enjoyed or didn't enjoy in class. Something like a camera obscura in modern times needs to be discussed with fellow film students. Each and every person has their own idea of how this instillation applied to modern media and hearing all of this made me appreciate the fact that Ethan Jackson's project was appreciated by all.

Along with this project comes a film we watched called "The Dark Room" by Minyong Jang. This also fascinated me but in a ver different way. We watched it as a class but I think it could be watched by oneself and still enjoyed. This film documented Jang's camera obscura in new ways by tilting the camera and editing. This film was a documentation of one space meeting with another and find that beautiful.

Internet Media

The media we watched in class had something blatantly simple about it. Media is a digital art form bores me. Yes, I do understand that it may be the future of media as we know it but there is something too common in all the videos we watched. Not that all this media is simple but the fact that it can be made on a computer without lifting anything but a series of fingers shows me that the passion of cinema has been demeaned to a simple, easy state. I enjoy the idea of editing together found footage and adding a meaningful score to it to make it more madernly relevant but there have been too many spoof videos that I have experienced on the world wide web that show me there is no knowledge of the history of cinema necessary to make a popular video. YouTube has mage this from of media banal and pointless. It has reverted back to a state where any bored fourteen year old can make a video in Quicktime Pro and post it online and be credited for creating the newest popular swill. There is online media that I have appreciated over the years and still do to this day (explodingdog.com)but there are also sites that reward internet users for being lazy and unintellectual. There is definitely media on the internet, especally in the experimental form, that I believe is still advancing the art form but it is too easy for these artists to come back to make flash animation videos of hampsters dancing or a Quicktime video of a computer's memory. I just ask that this media makes use of the contemplation of where experimental cinema is going.

Lockhart's "Goshogaoka"

Lockhart’s “Goshogaoka” is an interesting take on mixed media. This film is a choreographed Japanese girls’ basketball practice that speaks to the synthesis between theatrical dance and film study. Lockhart sets her camera up at half court directly in front of the stage that adorns the end of the court. The fact that the whole film is shot in front of a stage gives it a performance aspect as if this practice was being done specifically for us to watch. The more and more I though about this film, the more I realized the voyeurism that backs the whole concept. Watching a basketball practice is something someone does on the sidelines, trying not to be a distraction to the players. Since the audience is an auditorium of people and the film is shot in front of a stage it seems like this was a practice for a routine to be performed on that stage. I would have enjoyed this film quite a bit more had it been an instillation in a gallery accompanied by film stills that Lockhart had showed us. The stills seem like a much more thoughtfully composed way of conveying movement in a Brechtian style; capturing action at its most active.

Porterfield's "Hamilton"

Porterfield’s dialogue-based 16mm film “Hamilton” deals with family, becoming an adult and the individual. All three of these topics are things that are very relevant to me at this time in my life. This is portrayed in the film by steady shots; biographical imagery that allows the audience more time than they need to consider the characters' dilemmas. We can feel the angst and hopeless feeling that comes with the realization that one is completely self-sufficient. These steady shots are composed in ways that allow viewers to feel the emotion that is trying to be portrayed, not by dialogue, but by contemplation of these portraits. One must consider the way in which the town is conveyed and slowness of the camera; the heat we feel from a small town on a summer’s day.
Something that really fascinates me in cinematography is any attempt to express something to an audience without the use of dialogue or sound. Expressing emotion strictly by utilizing what one knows about the human psyche and imagery is an art in and of itself. What a beautiful way of using a camera if a human can connect on a deeply emotional level without being prompted by the mise-en-scene. If I’ve found anything in experimental film that I can really attach to it’s using a camera in a way that is more human than machine.

Nostalgia

During class today I was struck with a feeling that I haven't felt in years. Vladmir's ViewMaster narratives reminded me of my childhood not only in a mental state but a physical one, too. The childish memories of pointing that plastic machine towards a bright light for so long that your arms ache; also the interaction of the audience as one, acting so simply, following instuctions. Most intriguing during her performance was the sense of space I felt. I'd forgotten about the 3-D aspect of those machines and how Vladmir's work made me feel small, like I was always looking up. The first slideshow about cockroaches really heightened that feeling, like I was innocent and helpess again. The use of music in the slideshows we watched made me remember how I used to feel when I heard dreamy music, almost like a lullaby. There is a large aspect of that medium that is beautifully childish and innocent, a parallel to life as it was when we were little.

"Hukkle" by György Pálfi

"D'Est" by Chantal Akerman is a wonderful film of a woman's travels through Eastern Europe. Her compsition is impeccable and her framing is meaningful and expressive. My only complaint is that this piece is drawn out so long (2 hours?) and it seems excessive. Her idea of life in Russia after the Cold War being slow and boring, there being this constant waiting within the community was expressed thouroughly after the first hour or so. I also saw some shots that I thought were filmed in a very narrative form and felt like the movie was striving to be something of a story of Russia, but not succeeding. I know that this film was used initially as a video installation which seems like a much more feasable idea.

The film "Hukkle" by György Pálfi is a Hungarian film with the same amazing composition and framing (still no dialogue, like "D'Est") but it's much more meaningful to me. I've been wondering to myself if I like this film better because it's more of a narrative than Akerman's piece but I do think both films are on the same wavelength and would work together very well. This could illustrate what narrative brings to Experimental film.

5 consecutive posts post

As one can tell, I'm not too persistent and really have trouble with consistent and consecutive work. Even the 5-day posting assignment is hard for me to follow though with. I've really come to appreciate works like "I Learn Something New Every Day" and "365 videos" because for me it's hard to continally work on one project with as much persistence as some have. Making a project that has to be updated daily and worked on consistently wihtout fail is suprisingly tasking. There's a sort of beauty to making oneself that devoted to a single project and not getting bored or lazy with it. This says a lot for how much motivation I need to make myself focused and even excited to work every day.

Inspired Experimental Film

I guess I don't know where I'd draw the line for the term experimental film. I just saw the new movie Pan's Labrynth by Guillermo del Torro and I'd call that one of the best experimental films I've seen in quite a while. I think this is partly because it reminds me a lot of German Expressionism, in particular The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The shadows were all pretty exaggerated and even almost looked like cutouts and the acting was so over the top that I really felt like that movie was striving for something that a mere fairytale plot could not churn out. I call this experimental film because it reminds me so much of a new way of confronting something far less fantastical than what the meaning conveys. This genre seems like it's very ahead of its time, like an experimental Chronicles of Narnia. I'd highly suggest seeing this movie.

We Can and We Must - "Man Alive" music video, directed by Jason Schumacher

Here is a link to a music video a friend of mine from Stillwater, MN directed. His name is Jason Schumacher and he actually attended UWM for 2 years and studied film. The video is called "Man Alive", music written by We Can and We Must, a band out of Chicago. I really love this aspect of video. Since we've been talking about video in 201 I've really been searching for some aspect of it that I appreciate more than film. I've found that when digital editing is done tastefully, especially when it adds stylization, I'm really fond of what it can provide. This video is about the future in a world gone wrong and the colorization and small amounts of special effects are synched wonderfully with the offbeat music and they really seem to open up this future age. The other thing I enjoy about this video is that I found it profoundly amateur in an extremely heartwarming fashion. Jason has a great sense of vision.

here it is...