Further Research – Cinematography

Further context on experimental cinema and its history

Some filmmakers that I really liked:

Godfrey Reggio – Koyaanisqatsi, 1982

“life out of balance,” this renowned documentary reveals how humanity has grown apart from nature. Featuring extensive footage of natural landscapes and elemental forces, the film gives way to many scenes of modern civilization and technology. Given its lack of narration and dialogue, the production makes its points solely through imagery and music, with many scenes either slowed down or sped up for dramatic effect

I like Reggio’s heavy use of varying speeds of video, especially in such a large scale like his films. He also uses time-lapse to represent the fast and busy pace of the modern world, while slowing the speed down for natural landscape scenes. Another filmmaker that utilises this effect very well in his works is the next artist, Ron Fricke.

Ron Fricke – Samsara, 2011

A visually stunning film that explores the beauty of countries and culture. Fricke also uses a of time-lapse effect in his film.

Oscar Fischinger – Motion Painting No. 1, 1947

A very simple technique but still useful, especially to my work. I like this work because it refers to the passing of time, as each brush stroke is recorded on film, over 9 months. I could use this technique in my work, to explore the idea of motion and succession of time.

Andy Warhol – Sleep, 1964

Once again another simple video yet powerful and considered ‘anti-art’, that challenges the definitions and parameters of art & filmmaking of the 60s. The fact that it is 5 hours long appeals to me and the nature of my work. It literally explicitly portrays the passage of time that occurs when one is asleep. It’s probably gruelling to watch, bordering on unbearable as 5 hours of the same image is long, but I would like to try this in my work. I think films like this are interesting as they actually affect the viewer, making them feel invasive (as they watch a man sleep) and demand attention and patience.

Michael Snow

An artist I have previously looked at before. His works Wavelength, 1967 and Back & Forth, 1969 are notable. Both play with the idea of motion and its relation to the passage of time.

A long and intensive collection of filmmakers and their cinematography that embody the conception of experimental film-making. A good basis for an introduction to experimental film and key figures of cinema history.

Nino Fournier

Similar to Zbigniew Rybczyński’s Tango, 1981 (see previous page).

Good use of simple techniques of video editing that can be effective and interesting to the work. Its a similar idea in the regards to the use of the same setting but with repetition, masking, layering, reverse to represent motion in time. I also like the combination of figures running, walking, standing still, changing direction and moving in reverse. The varying motions work well together. I also enjoyed the simple narrative of the umbrella, displaying the object on its own at the start and end of the film.

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Mid Term Review Feedback – 10/11/20

Artist to look at:

Christian Marclay

• Born January 11, 1955
• Visual artist and composer
• Explores connections between sound, noise, photography, video, and film

• The Clock is a video projection constructed out of moments from cinema when time is expressed or when a character interacts with a clock, watch or simply a particular time of day.
• The video lasts 24 hours and functions as a working timepiece in itself, synchronised to the local time zone. While The Clock examines how time, plot and duration are depicted in cinema, the viewer can also look at the work at any moment and use it to tell the time. Yet the audience watching The Clock experiences a vast range of narratives, settings and moods within the space of a few minutes, making time unravel in countless directions at once. Even while The Clock tells the time, it ruptures any sense of chronological coherence. Drawing on strategies of avant-garde film and music, but using recognisable motifs from popular culture, Marclay at once defamiliarizes and heightens the temporal experience of the cinema, transposing it into the direct, lived experience of any viewer who engages with the work.
• The Clock plays with how audiences experience narrative in cinema, examining the conventions and devices through which filmmakers create a persuasive illusion of duration. When watching a film, an audience is removed from normal time and swept up in a new register that corresponds to the narrative at hand. The Clock transforms this condition of cinema: time, in this case, corresponds precisely to the actual time beyond the work. 

I like how this 24 hour film functions as a clock in real time. This has inspired an idea of mine, that links with my project, where I produce a 24 hour long film. This film will consist of 24 films with a duration of 1 hour, for each hour of the day. It will also explore the theme of time, but rather than Marclay whom explores it within cinema, I will explore it in time perception and consciousness.

Dramatizations are collaged into almost indistinguishable narratives and presented through concentric rectangles, like a flickering conveyor belt of popular cultural content. The forty-eight war films play simultaneously and continuously, and the accompanying soundtrack generates an indecipherable cacophony of wartime sounds.

“I’ve always used found objects, images and sounds, and collaged them together, and tried to create something new and different with what was available. To be totally original and start from scratch always seemed futile. I was more interested in taking something that existed and was part of my surroundings, to cut it up, twist it, turn it into something different; appropriating it and making it mine through manipulations and juxtapositions”.

– Christian Marclay