I wish that I had taken screenshots of my first try at working on the compositions, but I was really just trying out the pen tool in Illustrator.
As you can expect, it didn’t work out so well.
I worked on the Xmas composition first, thinking that because of the usual Xmas colours (Red, Green, White), I would not have to think about the colours so much. How Rong was I? I was so wrong.
There was something about it that just looked bad. I could tell, but I just didn’t know what. I approached The Kim Nguyen of G2 for advice.
She brought to my attention the use of colours as tones – something that we had learnt in Foundation Drawing while working with pastels.
She also showed me a couple of illustrations that she was inspired by and that got me thinking about illustrations that I liked – namely Steven Universe (A cartoon show). I chanced upon the artwork of one of the art directors of Steven Universe, Elle Michalka.
With this newly acquired knowledge, I started working on the compositions, proper.
My first attempt at using a colour palette.Using images from google as referenceA more successful attempt with a colour palette (in my opinion)A great amount of time was spent making this tiny santaWelcome to Palette Town.
Following the shoot of my grandfather in his trunks, I decided to make a radical shift in concept.
I took inspiration from some of my favourite documentary films:
Nobody’s Business by Alan Berliner
A film about the filmmaker trying to find out more about his father. I like the director’s use of found images to compliment the soundbites. Also, this is unlike the film I’m trying to make but I love the fact that it was a conversation between a son and his father. This is part of the first scene:
Dear Zachary: A letter to a son about his father by Kurt Kuenne
A film about- well, to explain the film would be to ruin your first experience. I like that this film was directed at a person; as if this film was meant for someone.
Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog
I’ve talked about this already, but I liked the idea of holding a shot long after what was needed – just like this famous scene in The Graduate:
With these references in mind, I’ll proceed with a first draft.
This past week, we watched Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog.
I had already watched this once, but I had yet to watch it in greater depth.
I liked the director’s use of holding the shot much longer than it was intended. It felt starkly real and human.
Of course, the footages of bears are interesting in itself, but the real story is actually about the Grizzly Man, Timothy Treadwell.
It was quite interesting how the story was structured. Herzog would provide commentary ever so often throughout the film. I feel this acknowledges the fact that this is the opinion of a person and not trying to set the entire film up as something to be digested and accepted to be as truth. Herzog wants us to form an opinion of our own. This was quite powerful for me. Most times, we have to take a step back in order to realise that documentaries have their own agenda.
It got dry at some parts but as a whole, the film was intriguing, even on 2nd viewing.
Trying to analyse this film at this point will probably not come out right; having only watched this film once. Instead, I will talk about what I liked about this film.
First of all, I loved the ending of the film where the timelines were split in two; with Thong being aware and confused about it. It breaks the fourth wall and makes us realise that we are watching a film. It left me feeling confused and intrigued. I’m still trying to figure out why this worked for this film. I have a feeling that if this was done on just any other film, it would have fallen flat. It is a tricky thing to pull off. There is still a lot to figure out about this film. It was an interesting experience in cinema, to say the least.
Secondly, the use of different styles of filming was, while not entirely groundbreaking, used in good taste to fit the narrative. The film made use of cinematic styles, documentary styles, and ever photography to give each scene its own unique flavour. There are times when everything feels so real and then there are times when it feels detached.
Lastly, it was confusing how it was never explicitly mentioned when Uncle Boonmee was recalling his past lives. Yet at the same time, it was refreshing and we are left to think about it. Which parts are his past lives? Is the film itself a recollection of a past life? Again, I can’t really make any sound conclusions yet.
Having never watched an Apitchapong film, it was an unusual first experience. It is quite challenging trying to keep up with what is really going on in the film. It challenges the audience. I am not entirely sure if this is the kind of film I want to produce down the line, but it is definitely a film worth thinking about.
During the presentation of project 2 a.k.a Screen to Screen: A collection of short stories, I came up with the idea of having a one-second video to express the idea of appreciation. The one-second shot would be a landscape scene and the credits would be about everything and everyone that has made the scene what it is at that moment.
This brings us to me actually googling about if this has been done before. I was hesitant to do any research on this for fear that it would affect how I approached this concept. Alas, if you want a good enough grade to go to film, you have to do research and show process so here we have the same method of a one-second film.
The idea is to make the World’s Biggest Shortest Film by inviting everyone to make a movie together. People all over the world are invited to donate a minimum amount of $1 to be a producer in the film. All profits of the film would then go to charity. in that one second of film, there will be 2 frames of 12 paintings. This makes up the 24 frames in one second. The credits will then play for one hour with a feature-length ‘making of’ documentary next to it. To me, this is a gimmick to garner attention, albeit for a good cause (probably).
It seems then, that my film would only be taking “inspiration” from the aforementioned film on the part that it is one second long with a long end credit.
Conceptually, the two films are quite different. While their film is about bringing people together to partake in this non-profit experiment, my film is about appreciation of things we take for granted. This can be in the form of the people who clean up the dead leaves on the ground every day or even the people who made the filming equipment. Unlike The 1 Second Film, my film will not be 1 hour long with a feature length documentary playing over it. Not having any video or image playing over or alongside the credits places focus on the credits themselves.The long length of the credits is meant to show appreciation for the people we take for granted.
As interesting as Yves Klein is as an artist, I’ll be keeping this as closely related to 2D mark making as possible. With that in mind, let’s dive in to the deep blue.
As I lay stretched upon the beach of Nice, I began to feel hatred for birds which flew back and forth across my blue sky, cloudless sky, because they tried to bore holes in my greatest and most beautiful work.
-Yves Klein
Klein’s feelings towards the birds were in response to a spiritual activity that he was engaged in with his friends, who were also artists. They were to divide up the world between themselves. Klein got the sky and he was to “sign” his name on it- but then came the birds.
Yves Klein is most well known for his use of a single colour: International Klein blue (IKB).
In a way, Klein’s approach to art is translated in the boldness of IKB. Klein was high controversial for his time for his critique of the accepted understanding of abstract art. In the 1950s, abstract art had been accepted as a means for the artist to communicate with viewers through abstraction. Klein rebutted this notion with this monochrome blue paintings much like the one above.
He insisted that there was no motif, only “the void”.
“Blue…is beyond dimensions, whereas the other colors are not. All colours arouse specific ideas, while blue suggests at most the sea and the sky; and they, after all, are in actual, visible nature what is most abstract.”
-Yves Klein
Klein was a pioneer in developing performance art and currently, I stay in Pioneer hall. Coincidence? I think not.
Bad jokes aside, here’s a video showing the performance of two pieces of work.
With performance art, Klein wanted to put an emphasis on the immediate experience of the art itself.
Anthropometry of the Blue Period (1960)People Begin to Fly (1961)
Gaining access to one of France’s major destructive testing laboratories, he made use of “flamethrowers” to create fire paintings as shown in the video. Much like Anthropometry of the Blue Period, got his models to make prints on the canvas but covered them in fire retardant instead. He then used the “flamethrower” to create his fire paintings.
I feel that it becomes harder to feel for the kind of marks being made when you are unaware of the performance that went behind it. There is meaning in the action of using nude models and IKB. There is meaning in using fire against the fire retardant marks of the nude models.
If there is any take away from Klein, it’s that if you want getting the kind of feeling or message to come across clearly , you need to put in careful thought not just into what kind of marks you make but also how you go about making your marks.
Then again, he was also big on the idea of voids so maybe the take away is that once the performance of art is over, what is left is the remains of art; and there is an element of emptiness to the product of performance art.
2 fairly contrasting take aways for you to decide what you want to do with.
