I bless the page with the pen,
But the pen is a blessing
As it blesses me with expression
The key to the prison gates that house my thoughts
The tongue is weak, it is a slave to impulse
The pen is patient, it sits as you think
Waiting for fate to guide your hand towards it
To navigate the ink across an endless landscape of wonder
To pick up the pen, is to wage war
To fight the demons that no weapon can reach
To access the heart
To enlighten the soul
To give meaning to life
Nothing is more effective
This is the trailer for the first music video I’ve ever directed. The song was produced by a french artist, Jean du Voyage, in association with a couple talented artists from my hometown Buffalo, NY… Drea D’nur and Quadir Lateef.
I sincerely hope you enjoy this teaser, the full video is coming soon! Leave thoughts and comments below 🙂
A short comedy, starring yours truly as the lead role, Steve. Steve is dealing with a recent heartbreak as his friends try and motivate him to get out his depressed state and see that “everything happens for a reason.”
Very funny and deep, written by my friend Luis Silva.
As a part of my film theory class, I have to post a response to one of my classmates blogs. Her blog can be found at http://kt-watches.tumblr.com/ if you’re interested in seeing her writing. My response is as follows:
       Your insights that you have provided in your blog are very informative and, also, very personal. Reading your blog felt a lot like reading your own journal dedicated to Avant-Garde film, which is in my eyes a good thing because it allowed me to experience your reactions to these films which were oftentimes odd and confusing. I especially liked when you inserted quotes by the filmmakers to help us understand these complex pieces of work, for example when you quoted Peter Greenway in his post about Intervals, you really showed me a perspective on his piece I probably would not have gathered myself! Your personal insights were profound as well, especially with interpreting “Blue,” “Scar Tissue,” and “Tails” to name a few. I like how you related Scar Tissue to the separation of the genders and the feminist plight. Really, I could not have related to that since I’ve never walked around in high heels. Your post about Tails gave me the chills, so much so that I’m going to quote it: “THERE’S SOMETHING SAD ABOUT THE FILM TOO, BECAUSE THESE FILM TAILS WERE CUT FROM SOMETHING ELSE, AND THEY GOT TO FINALLY BE SEEN WHEN THIS WAS MADE, OR ELSE THEY’D JUST BE FORGOTTEN MOMENTS IN TIME CAPTURED ON CELLULOID.”
           Really profound. One tip I think I could give you to help your film theorizing in the future would be to not take the “effects” at face value and how simple and complex they are, but rather to look at why those effects were implemented and what the filmmaker was aiming to express with those effects. For example, in your interpretation of David Rokeby’s “Watch,” while you made a great point about how the effects were simple and any computer could achieve them in post, you missed the powerful and profound social commentary embedded in the piece. Or maybe you didn’t, but your post certainly gives that impression. Same goes for your interpretation of Science Friction. There are much more to these films than having fun with special effects to make something that looks cool., they are pieces inspired by emotions and sentiments of their times.
           Besides that, I think you are an excellent writer. You have a wonderful way of expressing your feelings regarding these works and I understand how hard that can be to do. Keep on writing!
I flow through you You flow through me You read my words I share my story You hear my voice You feel my soul I feel yours too We’re not the same Except for the pain In which we all share.
This film, produced by yours truly, demonstrates what it means to be followed in the 21st century. Please, leave me your thoughts below and reblog if you like it 🙂
Science Friction (1959) is a piece mainly consisting of cut-outs that are animated (think early South Park), with some live action/stop motion sequences. Although it’s a very fun piece, there must be some sort of social commentary embedded between the lines, given the time period and context of the piece. Humans were racing to get into outer space and the many rocket sequences make the whole situation seem hillarious. At the end, there is a hand that “grabs” the world and cracks it into a pan, cooking it like an egg… Vanderbeek must have feared the direction Science was taking mankind.
John Whitney’s Catalog is a very early (1961) computer generated film piece. To me, this film demonstrates the evolution of the Abstract film form, fully realizing its potential with the aid of computers. Could you imagine how Opus I or Rhythmus 21 would have turned out if there was this technology at their disposal? Although those works have a different feel owing to the nature of their construction, Catalog certainly does a wonderful job capturing emotion and feeling with its flowing images. It is certainly something to marvel at even in this age of advanced technology.
Street of Crocodiles is definitely a must-see, even for those who don’t have the patience for experimental film. It’s one of the earliest films I’ve seen that pushes stop motion to the next level, creating its own dynamic world that doesn’t adhere to the laws of nature. The protagonist, a puppet just recently released from it’s strings, explores a world in which it feels isolated and lonely. Different objects represent different forms of “manufactured pleasures” (as the Brothers Quay themselves describe) and as the puppet gets more absorbed in this reality we get to see how desolate and unsastisfying it can actually be.
This is another computer generated film piece, and aside from its rather uninspiring title (Scan Processor Studies)Â this film does just as good a job cultivating emotion as the other abstract film pieces I’ve seen. The beginning (and the majority of the film) give a sense of anxiety and “feeling trapped” owing both to the screeching soundtrack and the images. The square seems to be a sort of prison that a form, unidentifiable, is attempting to push and break free from. After several minutes of this struggle, the form takes a static shape rotating in space, but still suffers from the same tension as a product of the soundtrack. Warning: watching this film may stress you out, just a tad. But that just means it’s doing its job.
Watch is definitely an art piece and has been on display at galleries, and offers two perspectives on the same street corner. One of them focuses on the “motion” and the other on stillness, and plays both simultaneously to reveal their disparity. Eventually, a social commentary is inserted. The subtitles say “On a busy street, the only people standing still are the homeless. The stillness process brings these people into visibility, with everyone else fading into the mist, thus inverting the perceptual filters we develop to make these people disappear.” What a powerful statement. Sure enough, the “homeless” stand out while the people in motion remain a blur, calling attention to the poverty that is inherent within every single city, often ignored because of the way we live our fast-paced lives. ∞
Bruce Conner’s A Movie is every single facet of mainstream film rolled into one Avant-Garde ball of film. It touches on the pornographic, exploitative, action packed nature of cinema, using footage that is cut together in a fast paced, exhilarating montage. By calling itself “A Movie”, this piece is definitely making a sweeping statement about the entire medium itself and does not shy or make exceptions. Its message rings true today, seldom do we find a blockbuster hit that doesn’t use sex or violence to attract an audience.
Interval’s is a montage comprising of people walking/transporting themselves from one side of the screen to the other, probably engaging in daily life activities. The curious nature of this montage arises from it’s soundtrack, juxtaposing the images with a narration of someone reading the alphabet. The emphasis here is probably on the mundane life experience, “Intervals”… the time we take to transport ourselves from one place to another always seems like an Interval, doesn’t it? Another interesting thing about this film is it tells you in the credits what days the film was shot in. Is it for anyone who is curious to see if they were crossing the street at the time of the making of this film? Stay tuned to find out…
Scar Tissue is one of the more unique pieces of film I’ve ever seen. The entire human figure is never revealed here, especially not the face and there are no continuous sequences. It is composed entirely of shots of different parts of the body (mainly the legs, but also the hands, torso, etc.) interspersed throughout blank space, creating a sort of silent rhythm that lacks characters. This allows for a more free interpretation and for the audience to create their own associations subconsciously.
This video is blue. Literally. The color blue, and subtitles that go along with the narrations, are the only imagery associated with the narrations of this film. By immersing the viewer in this color, the filmmaker constantly changes your perception of the shade and truly embodies his struggle with blindness. It’s really more about feeling than anything, and in fact does a wonderful job of expressing the author/filmmakers deepest emotions. After all, blue itself is always associated with deep emotional feeling.
We were instructed to watch this film, Wavelength, both the abridged and complete version for my film theory class. About halfway through the abridged (Wavelength for those who don’t have the time) version, my head exploded. See for yourself.
I’ll have to admit, this is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It gives me the impression of a Dada-ist film, or a film whose sole purpose is to deconstruct the conventions of film. The wavelength title must be a reference to the high frequency sound that is played throughout the duration of the whole film (the worst part)… or to the waves at the end. Visually, it is interesting. But after watching the full version (below) I realized that the superimposition that I thought was purposeful might have been just to reduce the length of the film…. in the full version, there are no superimpositons. And, it actually makes more sense as a “structural film”, there is some narrative but it is largely being ignored as the viewer is led from the wide shot to the close up of the waves. In a way, it’s like going from an establishing shot in a narrative film to the closer, detailed shots that tell the story.
You’re probably not going to sit through this one. Flicker films require a certain fortitude, I envy those who can sit through them. But what interests me about this one is the use of the white screen and the increasing frequency of the flicker. It really brings to my attention the relationship between the film strip and the film itself… and if you haven’t realized this already, when you’re watching a movie you’re basically just watching a series of images that flicker before your eyes. Of course, when there’s no continuity, no story, or any sense of logic associated with these images, it becomes something like what Tony Conrad has done, intentionally. One could say that there is a form of narrative embedded in this flicker. The frequency of the flicker increases from the beginning of the film towards the end, where it drops back down to “normal” frame rate, following a typical story arc of rising/falling action.
Maxwell’s Demon is what you get when you pop an old workout video in a broken VCR.
The only thing about this film that is interesting to me is… nothing. I have to pass this off as a waste of 3 minutes of my life. Â I’m struggling to find any rhyme or reason to it, and films like these make me question the innovative nature of the “avant-garde” and whether these guys are just getting away with making crappy films and classifying it as “experimental.” Anywho, with that aside, I must say this is at least slightly less pain-inducing than most other flicker films I’ve seen. I’m sure there’s a meaning buried in there somewhere, whether it’s to defile the workout video or make some statement about motion as it pertains to film… I’m not sure and I’m not going to bullshit a reason for it.
Tails by Paul Sharits actually has some merit to it.
This film is actually visually pleasing as opposed to most other flicker films I’ve seen. What many filmmakers have done, and still do, is take film strips out of garbage receptacles outside of a studio and compile them into their own film. This seems to be the technique used in this film, although masterfully done. The flowing motion of the film strip is effective in transcending the medium-to-viewer boundary and even conveys a deeper meaning as barely noticeable images seem to make their way on and off the screen… the illusion of time maybe? Life as fleeting?! Who knows.
This film is a very interesting experiment. Test yourself and see what words you pick up from the mess of phrases that flash before you. Did you figure it out yet? All the words are from a medical textbook. This reflects the chaotic nature of human health and how it can be overwhelming to keep up with yourself. At least that’s what it means to me.
The nature of flux film is to call attention to the banal, the importance of un-importance. The images flashing before you in this film are of no meaning, but meaning can be derived from them for that is the nature of art. Flux films often were results of flux kits, a series of everyday objects without meaning to be made into film. On the surface though, you see a series of flashing images, a black circle on a white background, inverted, flashing constantly before you, eventually transforming into lines moving across the screen. The film makes use of the flicker effect, offering an interesting ocular experience as you perceive both the motion and the negative space in the film simultaneously.
You can get away with a lot in the experimental film world, and Entrance to Exit proves that. While this film is without a doubt, symbolic, it’s also agonizingly simple, which could hurt or help this film depending on your perspective. This film is a progression from light, at the entrance, to darkness at the exit… then back to light. Without the use of characters or narrative, this film manages to sum up life itself. This may or may not be the purpose of the film, but it is certainly a wonderful insight to interpret the clip.
Of all the surrealist films we’ve came across in my film theory class, I have to say the most polished and intriguing one has to be Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon.
This film has a circular narrative quality, with no definitive beginning, middle or end. It pushes you into a dream like world in which symbols are repeated that manifest the protagonist’s (and maybe even Deren herself’s) debilitating anxiety. We see the grim reaper (wearing an eerie mirror for a mask), we see Maya chase the grim reaper down a long driveway, and then we see Maya see herself chase the grim reaper down the driveway. This cyclic/disorienting time structure does a better job in my opinion of representing the dream sequence than the corny special FX of earlier Avant-Garde film. I think this might be one of the earliest films that really puts emphasis on manipulating the temporal structure in order to transpose its own constructed reality to the viewer. It’s very effective and while it may not make sense when compared to actuality, it does however accurately reflect the feeling of being anxious to the point of torment. Although, there is more to this film than mere anxiety, it is particularly the anxiety experienced by a woman, potentially a housewife (represented to me by the key, the endless waiting, the phone off the hook, the man returning at the end of the day). The ending, which shows a shattered mirror and Maya laying in the same couch she slept in with blood pouring from her neck, might be representational of her shattered identity and the potential outcome of the self-struggle that a housewife faces everyday in a never ending cycle? Maybe it’s a stretch…
Fireworks is quite an odd piece of work. Anger uses excessive violence to transpose the torment facing the protagonist to the viewer. The abundance of male figures and the final shot gives the impression that the source of the torment may be a result of homosexual angst, a theme that drives the queer art movement. There are also a lot of symbols that suggest the same. Overall though, this film is very surreal and while it resembles Dada art, it does seem to have more meaning behind it.
Stan Brakhage is a master of camera-less film. Most of his movies that I’ve seen utilize no captured footage, just different manipulations of the film strip itself. In mothlight he literally places plant and animal matter on the film strip so that it flashes before the viewer. He also meticulously paints the film strip in some of his other works, in an effort to capture the images that appear in your mind when your eyes are closed. Each frame as a result is a work of art, deserving its own right in the annals of abstract paintings.
Harry Smith’s films may remind you of Stan Brakhage’s work, although his seem a little more concrete, owing to the portrayal of forms and the timing to the music. What’s really interesting about these abstract films is their ability to tap into our synesthetic nature. The images are meant to invoke feeling in more than just the senses of sight and sound, seeking to cross over and create connections amid the senses. When you allow yourselves to see these films with that perspective in mind, it really opens up the door to a whole new viewing experience.
Stephanie Maxwell was also a master of the camera-less film, and you can see evidence of her meticulous work through the bold brushstrokes. Again, her films invoke the connections between the senses and the relationship between color and emotion. These characterless/narrationless films do a surprisingly wonderful job of influencing the viewers feelings. It’s almost as if abstract filmmakers are trying to link us directly to the idea of emotion, rather than indirectly through the plight of a character. These films aren’t just visual feasts, but are really meant to tap deeply into the viewers subconscious.
The Truth Within... 