Handmade Film Workshop with Robert Schaller
I encountered art here, in the darkroom on the fourth floor of the Kenilworth building. I signed up for this session with my friend Kurt because it was free and the sound of making your own film sounded interesting to us.
One thing I learned is that making film is fairly simple. There are a lot of complexities to it, and a lot of variables, but to make a light sensitive material and put it on something that can be displayed through a projector is really not that difficult.
It was interesting to go to this session, and it’s really good to know that if I have trouble getting a certain effect out of traditional film I can always go this direction. But after working with homemade film, I feel the work is not really worth it. I guess it’s not really my passion. I thought it was really cool though how the first guy who came in there exposed the homemade film through some negatives of some buildings he filmed. I think that’s a really cool concept that I may implement sometime, and I think it would have some great effects.
I like to distort things. I like to take reality and twist it a bit to get my point across (or just to make people look harder). A lot of the stuff we were doing in the workshop didn’t seem to have any kind of tangible grounding. We were exposing random things (sugar, salt, sticks, leaves, bubble wrap) to the light to get interesting images on the film. The problem I have with this is that it’s just making things look “interesting.” As an experiment though, it was very interesting. If I did the same thing and exposed it though a filmstrip I’ve already shot of something tangible, I think what I’d come up with would be something much more interesting.
All and all, I learned a lot of things I may use for the future as a media artist. A large part of me really wants to stretch the bounds of what media, especially film, can do, and I think the newfound knowledge of what I learned at this workshop, even if I didn’t see it as very practical, taught me new techniques and opened my mind to new things I never really knew much about.
1 comment:
Chris-
The field report assignments are to help you develop your analytical thinking on work seen in class by engaging with an art event outside of class. So instead of reporting your opinion of the handmade workshop, instead write about how it influenced your thinking on ideas/works you've encountered in class.
For instance, did the knowledge you gained from the workshop give you a new perspective on other works we saw that had handmade elements, such as Mothlight, Bear Garden, and What the Water Said?
How does a filmmaker's decision to use handmade elements in their work effect you as a viewer? Do handmade techniques effect meaning in a film? Do they bring you closer to the material aspects of film?
You are not specific enough even with your assessment of the workshop or process. You mention that aspects and outcomes were interesting, but what specifically was interesting about them?
Be sure to be analytical in your thought process.
Sarah
Post a Comment