For my Video Art class at Emily Carr, I decided to move forward with the “Personal Journeys” project and so I went ahead and recorded the story of the day my mom died from ovarian cancer in 1994 and the Journey that I and my family went through that day and made a video about it. I published it on YouTube last night and wanted to share it with all of you:
– FlashAddict
John DeVeaux is a second year Film, Video and Integrated Media student at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Classifying himself as a Digital Artist with future aspirations to work in either the film or video game industry, his work focuses on combining a wide range of media including crowd sourcing, data capture, film/video, installation, storytelling and web based material.
My Personal Journey tells the story of the day John’s mother died from ovarian cancer in 1994 and features the artist providing a solitary monologue over a black screen with white text providing an ongoing narrative, as he describes the mental images that haunt him to this day.
Inspiration for this video comes from Derek Jarman’s film, Blue, which showcases the director looking back on his life as he was losing his sight and dying from AIDS. The film is 79 minutes in length and features a single shot of saturated blue covering the entire frame of the screen.
My Personal Journey is also part of an ongoing digital art project dealing with personal storylines about significant or memorable Journeys in peoples respective lives and can be viewed at:
MISE EN SCENE
– is what you see in the frame – the great shots – the visuals!
– french term means to put on the stage (ie: a couch, a painting, the lighting, costumes…)
– applies now to what the director puts in the frame or the production designer
– costume, lighting, sets, props, actors (poses and movement)
– some directors encourage spontaneity (ie: Salaam Bombay! = improvisation)
SETTING
– need to decide if you want authenticity or stylized (outdoors or indoor sets)
– foreground and background planes
– special effects are also involved (3d or background projections = driving scenes)
– props that represent part of the setting
– Persepolis market scenes contrast scarcity and plenty in Iran vs. Austria
SALAAM BOMBAY! – Dir. Mina Nair
– director Mina Nair had made 5 previous documentaries before making this film
– wanted to use cinema verite to capture the moment
– “enraptured by the everyday life”
– used real street kids – hundreds auditioned but 24 were cast – the main character was actually 15 but looked 11
– 7 weeks of training with the kids – asked them to tell their stories and wove them into the plot
– the kids ended up improvising the script
– 3 professional actors – Rika (prostitute/mother – cast against type) – Chillum who played the addict – woman who was the brothel mother – Baba was a theater actor (he is now a major Indian Film super star)
– the rest of the actors were from the streets
– Mina Nair got 25% funding from the Indian government
– the film was shot in the red light district of Bombay – real location
– met with the union leaders of the brothels!
– depth of field – she loved to have it in each shot – someone in the doorway but also behind them down the hall
– loved the colours of the brothels – you weren’t in Kansas anymore
– she studied photography and was very aware of the frame
– shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1988 – at that point Mina was completely broke
– she won the Palmes D’or as the best film of the festival
– with the money she made, she setup a street kid charity to help them with food and education
– all of the kids have ended up rising up from the street and are now working
– guerilla film making – crew were involved for several scenes
– the first on screen kiss in Indian cinema history (Bollywood)
– nominated for best foreign film at academy awards
COSTUME AND MAKEUP
– authentic or stylized or contemporary rendition?
– show evolution of a character (ie: Sandy in Greece – young innocent girl all the way to the hot leather pants)
– can also define difference (Ie: Shane as a cowboy and then becomes a farmer)
– Manju in Salaam Bombay is somewhat sexualized in the beginning then toned down in the girl’s reformatory
LIGHTING
– used for highlights and shadows
– attached shadows around your face linked to the source light
– cast shadow comes from another source – entrapped venetian blind shadow covering someone for example
– each shot is controlled by the light quality, direction, source and colour
– frontal, back, under and top lighting – how do you want to light the figure so they appear in the frame
– 3 point lighting = key light,
– high-key lighting = bright not a lot of shadows
– low-key lighting = much stronger contrasts / chiaroscuro (dark shadows with bits of light framing it = film noir/horror)
MOVEMENT
– if a character is going to move, the director has to decide if the light will move with the actor or will the actor move through shadow
STAGING, MOVEMENT AND PERFORMANCE
– the body is a plastic form and up on the frame, it becomes a shape that has plastic characteristics
– is the actor cocky, sad, happy…
– actor’s business = what is the business/movement that this character would adopt
– facial features (brow, eyes and mouth) are the most expressive along with the hands
– an actor’s performance is individualized and unique and the audience believes that they are the character
– stylized performance = over the top performance
– Salaam Bombay actors were encouraged to just be themselves
– types of performances (friend, villain, evil spy…)
– you can bring individualized performances to the role, but not all the time
DIMENSIONS OF DIALOG – The Alchemist of the Surreal – Dir. Jan Svankmajer
THE BIG EASY
– our teacher, Ann Naymie was the Post Production Supervisor for this film
– original screen writer was pissed off that the story was moved from Chicago to New Orleans
– took his name off of the Associate Producer credit to the credit of his Chicago cop, Tony Tagliatere
– every single song or artist was from or about New Orleans
CONCEPTUAL / EXPERIMENTAL FILM
– what are your physiological responses to watching this film?
– how is the film engaging you?
– using new technology to inquire about itself (optical printer)
– goldrush to explore new possibilities that the technologies can usher in
Ballet Mechanique – dir Fernand Leger
Part 1
Part 2
Mothlight – dir Stan Brakhage
Wavelength – dir Michael Snow
Pas de Deux – dir. Norman McLaren
Part 1 – all I have to say is WOW – what an incredible film
“pièce touchée, Martin Arnold, Austria,16mm Film, b&w, 16 min
Arnold’s breakthrough film, pièce touchée, is based on a single 18-second shot from The Human Jungle (dir. Joseph M. Newman, 1954). Woman sitting in a chair. Man enters the room. Man and woman kiss. Exit man.”
– from the YouTube description
– this is only half of the film as a whole – could only get the first 9 minutes of the piece from YouTube
personal notes:
– b/w film – opens with a woman sitting on a chair in a living room reading a newspaper
– humming / mechanical noise overlay
– repetitive film – no movement at all other than fingers and head
– starts with only one frame then slowly builds up with the number of frames
– back and forth with forward and backward movement of the frames as the man enters the room
– mirroring imagery from left to right = cool effect on the eyes
– her head appears to swivel a complete 360 as the scene repeats and mirrors itself
– the man goes down and kisses the woman finally
– various editing techniques follow to the end…
in-class round table discussion:
– motion study / repetitive motion study
– changes of planes / changes of perception
– disorientation and uncomfortable
– dealt with time – kept revisiting and repeating frames
– absurdity of everyday domestic scene
– sound was mechanic humming
– story interpretation of repetition
– negation of story narrative
– metaphor / felt like we were inside a washing machine
– creation of new images using existing frames / transformation
– underlying issues of domesticity (violence / sexuality)
– issues of dominance, power and gender
– introduction of new editing techniques
– abstraction of shapes and creation of negative space
– interesting effects of animation (head spinning / rotating)
– soundtrack gives a dehumanized / mechanized theme to the piece (lack of humanity)
– unexpected editing techniques (reversals, mirrors, motion, movement)
– Experimental / Found Footage film piece
– too long? too repetitive? (was it intended?)
– no finality at the end – felt incomplete – where did it end? what does it mean?
– resolution irrelevant – it is an experimental film by nature
– A Touching Piece / Touched Piece – what does the title actually refer to?
– critique of cinema / society at the time (Hollywood system and view of society)
– expanded cinema (new term for avant-garde / experimental / innovative)
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