I was enticed by an article about stucco corpses painted on the walls of a Baroque church in Palermo and how artist Giacomo Serpotta could "impart life and motion to all unlikely entities, such as abstract virtues and tired old scriptural stories." This article (along with browsing some of the media and links) tipped the balance and made me choose... "Cabinet" @ http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/
as my field report journal.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Field Report #1
Robert Schaller’s “Traces of the Wild” film selections can be, in my opinion, described/analyzed by one word… MOVEMENT! Whether it is movement of the camera on screen (for example zooming in and out of trees in bright lighting conditions) movement of the focal point/subject of the film (the dancer in two of his films), or even physical movement of the projector or projectors themselves displaying the film. No matter the variation of movement it is exemplified brilliantly within Schaller’s work.
The movement of the camera reminded me much of “The Bear Garden” in the sense that by using some of the technical aspects/techniques of the machine recording the images, an illusion of a motion/movement is created to which the viewer experiences. The opening shots of someone walking through orange flowers creates this illusion of a bear meandering because of the technique of low angles and seemingly random directions taken during this journey. Schaller’s zooms and quick sequential rotation of branches share this same experience by making the trees come to life (what I noted as being the “spinning tree method”) by only using a camera technique. Schaller’s “My Life as a Bee” also demonstrates this method due to the fact that the camera technique makes the audience feel like they are living as if a bee would.
The movement of the subject matter or focal point demonstrated by dancers in multiple Schaller films was related in my mind to “5:10 to Dreamland.” Within that film multiple shots emphasize downward or upward movement by use of the subject matter on the film itself. The shots that first come to my mind are when the child puts a feather on to a heater and immediately it floats upward in the air and dances a bit and the archival footage of dashed lines of light bouncing around the screen. Schaller’s dancer subjects reflect this idea of movement within the frame (and sometimes out on to the next frame) by the subject matter itself.
The final concept of movement I thought Schaller demonstrated well was the actual, physical movement of the projectors. Most films have a standard one-projector system that show one box of light to which it can be viewed in usually a 4:3 aspect ratio. Schaller used three projectors and to make things even more interesting he tipped them on their sides flipping the aspect ratio. This physical movement is somewhat mirrored (or reminded me of) “Suspension,” In which two projectors were used and there was physical slippage of the images being projected. The physical movement of the projectors has to be precise for there to be better coherence and artistic display of what the director exactly intended. If not done correctly the images may not match up as well which may or may not lose the exact intention of what is on screen.
-Lydell Peterson
The movement of the camera reminded me much of “The Bear Garden” in the sense that by using some of the technical aspects/techniques of the machine recording the images, an illusion of a motion/movement is created to which the viewer experiences. The opening shots of someone walking through orange flowers creates this illusion of a bear meandering because of the technique of low angles and seemingly random directions taken during this journey. Schaller’s zooms and quick sequential rotation of branches share this same experience by making the trees come to life (what I noted as being the “spinning tree method”) by only using a camera technique. Schaller’s “My Life as a Bee” also demonstrates this method due to the fact that the camera technique makes the audience feel like they are living as if a bee would.
The movement of the subject matter or focal point demonstrated by dancers in multiple Schaller films was related in my mind to “5:10 to Dreamland.” Within that film multiple shots emphasize downward or upward movement by use of the subject matter on the film itself. The shots that first come to my mind are when the child puts a feather on to a heater and immediately it floats upward in the air and dances a bit and the archival footage of dashed lines of light bouncing around the screen. Schaller’s dancer subjects reflect this idea of movement within the frame (and sometimes out on to the next frame) by the subject matter itself.
The final concept of movement I thought Schaller demonstrated well was the actual, physical movement of the projectors. Most films have a standard one-projector system that show one box of light to which it can be viewed in usually a 4:3 aspect ratio. Schaller used three projectors and to make things even more interesting he tipped them on their sides flipping the aspect ratio. This physical movement is somewhat mirrored (or reminded me of) “Suspension,” In which two projectors were used and there was physical slippage of the images being projected. The physical movement of the projectors has to be precise for there to be better coherence and artistic display of what the director exactly intended. If not done correctly the images may not match up as well which may or may not lose the exact intention of what is on screen.
-Lydell Peterson
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