experimental video art

experimental video art

i started my research into experimental video by watching a film by my favorite experimental film maker david lynch. i had already watched the twins peaks movie and really liked his way of film making so decided to watch one of his stand alone films. 

i watched eraser head 

this film was amazing. difficult to watch at times and went into some really dark stuff about humanity and the nature of love and the darkness inside us. 

what i noticed about this film was it's unreliance on story. the story was not even noticable. 

also what i noticed was it's use of mephor. even though many people would see the film in some kind of alternative reality this isnt what the film maker wanted. he wanted to show conceptual themes whilst using concepts we see in this world. every object, action, placement, camera angle had a reason conceptually to be there nothing was there just to "look nice". it didnt have a relance on cause and effect logic it broke away from the ideas of character devolpment and types seen mainstream cinema. i broke most structures in narrative to. it didnt follow an idea of time, it didnt have cause and effect, no distinct idea of character, there were parts of the film which broke an idea of contunium you had about the film. 

film art an introduction  (book)

challange orthadox notions of the purpose and funtion of a movie 

often work without a studio 

made to express personal viewpoints too excentric for mainstream 

express a mood or physical quality

exploring what the meduim can show, push its limits 

less focus on story 

challange the notions of character and deigetis 

poetic over narrative 

use any type of fotage, less form 

fed by other types of filmmaking 

if not led by story more attention put on the shots 

can be led by themes or colours or shapes, anything really 

puts focus on the particullar not the whole. 

the abstract pattern becomes the focus of the film 

works on relationships between it's abstract qualties 

music comes to add rthytm to the image 

teases with the idea of formal, gets us to trying and work out it's form / meaning

aesthetics are very important and it gives meaning to them. 

problems "art for arts sake" 

ie abstract form = working around a theme or relationship of objects 

ie associational form = puts images together which dont have any logical connection and gets us to seach for one in them, find the assiocation. 

creating a assoication among unlike things

my personal objection to this is that this type of associational filmaking doesnt add anything, we find an association which is already a prestruct in our conceptual scheme, i beleive great films make the viewer create a new association with the actions not just seach for something they already know, 

works like a methphor, uses non logical links to create a diffrent meaning. 

implisict meaning 

very associated with imagery "love is like a rose" 

meaning comes from metaphor (abstact) vs meaning comes from personal association

maybe use both?

the film experience and introduction 

narrative film for stories, documentry to see and understand society and history, other elements of humanities interlectualism expermental film

expermental film = poetry
narrative film-= novel

using the mondane to mesmerize audiences

music allows us to transend physical limits

focus on movment of images (fundemental element)

follow closesly changes in technology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gaklhn3m0CE

you can see the expermination of images and tehcnology in bjorks human bewhavoiur video.

problems with alienation

formalism = concenced of problems of form over content

poetry of motion

expermenting with light motion and time

plots and characters are undefined, the are in motion and free moving

abstact films play with form and break it

either objects are purely form baised or abstracted

organize experienice in ways which defy realism

associative form= create a psychological or formal resonance (dreamlike)
realtionships between objects
metatphorical assocation relate a objects together via a concept
symbolic assocation realtes isolates single objects and gives it a symbolic realtion to a concept

structural form= rejects narrative films form and tell addience to focus on material of film
it is about the process of the film making, zoom, dof ect to create meaning

participatory form = centralise on the viewer and the place of viewing
expanded cinema,
organized around the audience experince
can be interactive or via the internet



surrealism 
use recognizable imagery in strange contexts
breaking the realist tendisys of film with photographic reproduction and its place in time



lyricism
expresses emotion, beliefs, the personal position in film
empasses personal voice and vision through singularity of imagery through voice overs or handheald camera movments, makes in personal.
existental philosphy
explores human concouisness



critical position 
interrogration of form and content
overlap with documentry or narrative form
take positions of political or theoretical postions
use of associations of objects to represent their theories

significance of experimental media 

gets you to reflect on your viewing experience, what is it's purpose 

think about the phenomenon of vision 

nature of consciousness

explores cultural concepts   

how we see the world 

challenging and expanding perception 

opens our minds to new concepts 

expanding film to new levels 

expanding imagination 

exploring new technology 

communication of personal issues 

artistic originality

exploring new ideas or re imagining old ones  

comforting traditions

using juxtaposition to challenge tastes

confront believes and traditions

not controlled by agenda

 

double focus

use relation of ideas

low dof .....turner style .....focus change, show relation of ideas.

experimental video inspiration for idea

first thing that gave me inspiration was watching the film turner by mike liegh. i loved the establishing shots, the weight of them and overall cinemotaghy and mise en scene was specitacouler, representing well the eye of a artist like turner.





these are a few examples of the shots created by the director of photography Dick Pope.

also from this film i was inspired by turners artwork redirected in a film. I've always loved turner as an artist and have in the past wanted to use his style of neo reomantic no formalism in a film construct.



rain steam and speed is a perfect example of a turner piece which inspired me. i love it removal from form and it's use of colour and movement to create meaning and passion. i also like the dual focus created in this piece with the out of "focus" parts between them. i know this isnt really focus but that is what came to mind when viewing it.
i feel like i could create this kind of style by using very low dof shots with a sharp focus but then taking to shots. one focused on one thing ie the train and the other focused on another ie the boat, then i could layer the shots over each other creating this style shot.



so you can see in this picture the background is out of focus creating this style of blur very similar to that of the turner painting. this is what i want to create.

what i also took from turners work is this idea of light and dark and it's use to methphroically show the good and bad in humianty. this is something i want to represent in my film via the movement of the sun over a day. each shot showing a diffrent mamount of light and shadow. showing this nature of light and dark in the morality of our lives.



i then started thinking about the power of the landscapes turner painted. why they seemed to have such a human element even though they are just landscapes with objects. why did we feel so much connection to them.


the fighting temeraire is a good example of why we have connection to them. these pieces are methphroical. they arnt just nice looking the represeent a higher meaning and concept to us. they are conceuptual artwork whilst using the real would to represent it. the old sail ship, in all it's might it taken away by the new steam boat with less diginity and grace but is an upgrad of itself. we know this human feeling. the feeling of getting old, and outdated. live moves on without us. we are dragged away to our end. i call this landscape methaphorical landscaping and that is what i want to do in my film. have the landscape represent something more about the world.



the next step came from me wanting to have someone in the landscape to interact with the methaphorical landscape created to create this represention of the life humans live.
i was inspired by slipnots vermillion video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJl8zo__6jM

this use of stop motion film making is amazing. it creates a disgunted nature with the landscape. creating this idea of us not understanding our place in this universe. our search for meaning and feelings of loss and darkness in our worlds.

i then thought about what i wanted the person to do. they have to have a kind of interaction with the world to give them more of a purpose.





this is the kind of interaction i want. something where the person i creating an diffrence on the world, or atleast notising the methphor in the piece. i will have to work of firstly the ideas for the metphorical landscapes and also the interactions of the person.

dfsa documentry- screen shots from editing

dfsa documentry - self reflection

how i thought the project went 

i think the project went very well. alot of the things ended up being last minuit but we ended up getting a well put together documentry i was happy with and i believe fit the breif but also was something i was proud of.


things that could of been better 

i wish i had spent more time on colour grading. i am also worried that it wasnt encoded right so might cause problems a viewing. (fix later) i also feel it could of included more things attacking bigger issues. i still like its relatablity. I also wish i had been more careful with lighting with draw my life. i also wished i had moved away from the pervious idea quicker as it didnt work.

how i feel my performance was 

i feel i did very well in this project. i took control when we needed it but also knew where peoples skills lyed so alowed them to work on them. i feel i was fair and allowed people enough influence. i made sure the film actually was made and worked alot of the treatment and overall stucture of shots and the edit. i kept everything on the right direction and put in the extra man hours to acheice the result i wanted. i think one thing i could do better would be to have better comunicaiton with the extent of the stuff i was doing.

documentry - story board and shot list

this is the story board i did for the documentry

there is a few pages for this 

this is the shot list 

i took both of these onto the shoot. 

dfsa documentry - editing

editing 

we had all the shots done at this point and were ready to edit. 

on monday we looked at all the shots we had and it was up to umor, chloe and luke to organise the clips and give them names so we could do the editing easier later. 

whist they did this it was my job to do the transcript for the interview. 13 double pages. 

this took the whole day of monday. i also looked over the naming of the files to make sure the fitted together. 

on tuesday i started to work on the script for the draw my life part. we thought it was the best idea to start this so we could get the pacing of the film. whilst we did this chloe looked for a song whilst umor looked into editing the gopro fotage to my prefernces. 

i did a first edit of the go pro fotage to show umor the way it should look. 

the whist he did that i worked on the script for the draw my life. i looked through the transcript and changed into first person and added bit of personality to it. 

on wednesday i work on the shot list for the draw my life with luke 

I looked through script and wrote the type of shots i wanted and practiced with luke. 

these are the final ideas for shots we can do. i researched into the techniques of draw my life and was ready to do it the next day. 

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-%22Draw-My-Life%22-Video

also this day i did the paper edit. 

on thursday we did the draw my life part of the film. 

we set up the shot and set the lighting using my dslr and led light. 

we then went through each shot and did the draw my life for it. pictures of the set up was taken by chloe. the me luke went through each shot. it went pretty well. 

on friday i wrote the script for the voice over for the walk. i also found our voice actress. 

this was two 4 page documents. it took all day. as i did it i help umor with the prelimary edit of the draw my life and other parts. 

on saturday we did the voice over for the documentry. me and umor met up with lainey and set up my dslr with shotgun mic. this went well. we made sure she was comfrtable and had a good idea of the snynopsis. 

we the listened through the parts and started organising the edit. 

on sunday we edited the voice over and started cliping it to visuals for the draw my life. by the end we had all the draw my life clip to each voice. 

sunday night i went through the second part of voice over making each voice clip seperate and the best take. i then organised the visuals for the walk part of the doucmentry and running part. 

on monday. I put the sound togther with the visuals i did. this took a while but ended up going well. i then gave it to umor to do the sort out the draw my life. i then put the race scene togther i did and did a bit of tweecking and sorted out levels. then umor took over the racing bit under my direction to get it right. whilst he did that i found and downloaded the soundeffects and put them togehter to create the sound scape. 

then we put it all together a i smoothed it out and made sure it all fitted. this involved cutting bits i didnt like. 

then we made the music go over the top. 

and finally added the colour correction adjustment layer. 

finally we exported it. 

(i'm not able to open the file on my laptop so I can't show the edit right now. but it should be able to be seen on umor blog for now i hope)