School Diary 24/11/09

In today's lesson we watched 7 abstract/experimental films. These films seem to be designed in the purpose of art, rather than in the purpose of entertainment, and we were told we probally won't have seen anything like this before as these are underground films.

We were asked at the beginning to take notes on our reactions to the films.

The films were:

-A Colourbox:

This film was made as an advertisement for the post office, and was funded by them at the time. Originally it was not designed for that purpose but they added weights and prices in at the end. The words I associated with this film were:
'abstract, wavy, polkadot, chirpy english clarinet music, cheaper parcel, unpredictable, jittery'.

-Dog Star Man

The artist who made this film experimented with the media of film and actually painted on, ripped, stapled etc. parts of the film strip.
The words I associated with this film were:
'unique titles, baby dreaming or having a nightmare, snowflakes, blood red= embryo?, splatters of paint, random closeups, scribbles overlapping real life.

-Scorpio

I think that this was the least abstract of all the films we were shown, at least because it has some kind of storyline. The film is about gay nazi bikers, and we begin to realise this through the way they seem to love themselves and prance around in leather jackets. The artist who made this film was gay himself and took on 3 main roles of filming.
The words I associated with this film are:
'scorpion logo, chirpy music, clockwork metronome in music with man as the boy- shows passion for the toys, how he is making things work like clockwork and the idea of time as it;s a flashback, skull, gothic, leather.

-Big shave

Possibly the most disturbing of them all, a man starts shaving, there are many close-ups of the sink which builds tension as we can forsee in a way that he'll cut himself. Then he does and he cut himself so much it's slightly funny for the audience as well as disturbing. Apparently this film is something to do with the Viet Nam war as there is a referance at the end of the film.

-La Rêgion Centrale

A 3 hour long film with a 360 degree camera spinning in circles for the whole time. This was very unpopular with the class. I thought fair enough the first time it went around. Then it stopped and waited for a split second, and then it went around again. This made me feel quite uneasy about the film. The robotic arm was programmed never to make the same rotation and so no part of the film is exactly the same.

-Fuzzbox

Everyone seemed to like this film, it's funny and the way it was made was very cool in my opinion. The artist put on a workshop, and got many people who had never had done animation before to think of an idea for ths music video. They thought the word 'fuzzbox' meant something else and so the video has a sexual spin on things.

-Berlin Horse

This is a video of a horse going in circles in the dark. Then it has some effects put onto it such as colour shifts and flips so that it looks like it's going the other direction. There is a man in some shots and I think it's interesting how some of the film overlapped so that the same horse followed itself in the frame. The colours change a lot and towards the end it looks like there might be a fire, though this is debateable as the colours might just have changed again.