KINETIC TYPOGRAPHY INTERESTING EXAMPLES

In order to develop my idea of creating some kinetic typography I wanted to examine lots of examples for inspiration. I gathered a load of my favourites here to act as a resource moving forward and to inspire and get my creative juices flowing.

• The basic elements as a whole I have taken from these are. Links to sound and text import and contrapuntal or parallel.
• Use of image (moving or still) alongside the text adds real punch.
• Fast enough to not bore you BUT slow enough to read.
• The use of font is important a variety to emphasise words works best.
• Colour is hugely important and juxtaposition of it.
• Working on one place is fine but working in a 3D space adds real dynamism.

ANDY GLYNNE: ANIMATED MINDS

The following are all films by Andy Glynne an animator. he specialises in social issues and in particular mental health. he was behind the award-winning series Animated Minds. Commissioned by C4 and directed by Glynne it uses real testimony from survivors of mental illness, combined with engaging visuals, to climb inside the minds of the mentally distressed. The first series won the award for Best Animation at the Banff World media Festival 2004 .

The works are a real insight into the tenderness and subtlety that can be used to address big issues and are inspirational. I want to take some of these ideas into my own work dealing with the global warming issue I am looking at.

The animations here are to act as food for thought and inspiration for what is acheiveable and interesting ways to address issue led works.

















https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeyWqcg8Vk0

1-1 TUTORIAL: MOVING FORWARD

Currently I am still toying with several ideas and a 1-1 tutorial is a good time to catch up with all of these and take stock of where I am and how to move these forward. Currently I have lots of ideas on the drawing board with some on the back-burner and others brought to the front. I feel I need to push on further with these but as of yet none of them have me fully fired up to concentrate solely on developing them.

GLOBAL WARMNING
These is the idea that I have been researching and spending the most time on to date and have created an outline test for an installation. However I am not all that happy with it as it is and it needs further development. There was some good feedback from my peers concerning this though andI am currently working through this. However one issue I have continually had is doing a lot of research for one project and then only creating one piece of work for it. What I intend to do as well as looking at developing the installation idea is looking at other ways to communicate the message. This will fit in really well with the modules aims which is to create a body of work too but the central theme will be global warming.
One of the issues levelled at my installation ideas was that the message has become dull and laboured and what is really needed is new and interesting ways to communicate it to an audience. I will explore this and possibly online virals, micro-docs, fictional or semi-fictional works, spoofs, TV adverts and motion graphics to see what other ways may be able to communicate the message effectively and interestingly and perhaps entertain and engage the audience first and foremost but also inform and educate second.
I was recommended some interesting artists and filmmakers to look at (Phil Coy, Bruce Conner, Terrence Davies and Cory Archangel) films Plastic Ocean and exhibitions such as Offshore in Hull to look at by my tutor.

JANES WALKS
A collaboration with another student (Sara) on the course to create a record of an Art walk she is doing. I will be acting as camera and documentarian of the walk but more discussion is needed as to the true nature of the piece being created. A simple document or record of the walk? A homage to Jane Jacobs the academic and writer on urban life and living which the walk is part of a celebration of her ideas? A documentary on what walking as art is and could be using this walk as a window into the world of walking as art and practitioners? An art film piece in itself dealing with and celebrating all of the above possibly.
In terms of what I could get out of it simply recording it and editing it are not what has got me interested but I feel I could use the walk to create an art piece celebrating a lot of the above. Possibly using IV's, commentary, Sara as a presenter and guide to communicate what the walk is all about. This will also open lots of opportunities for creating a visually and aurally interesting art piece and not just a run of the mill documentary. It would allow use of studio footage, possibly green screen kinetic typography and interesting use of motion graphics to create the documentary which are all ideas I am keen to take to the next level.

ANONYMOUS
This started off as a documentary idea around a character who wanted to remain anonymous (graffiti artist) so the film would rely on lots of interesting filming techniques, effects and motion graphics to keep them anonymous. It was more about exploring these techniques but marrying them with a subject matter that suited them. I still like the idea of this but have been looking into taking it further and either making it a scripted reality documentary.
Another possibility is to simply find an interesting character and explore them using some of these techniques to push the boundaries of documentary filmmaking and explore the "truth" and the grey areas between fact and fiction. I like the possibilities of this and possibly exploring the multi faceted educations, ideologies, morality, belief system, loves and hates of one character may also suit itself well to this multi-faceted technique.
I have approached a friend who I think would make a really good subject matter and we are in very early primary research discussions on how this piece could work. Possibly some sort of visually and aurally stimulating scripted reality style doco. This idea is a little on a back burner but I will continue to ruminate on it and research and develop it in the background.

CINEMATIQUE
The purpose of this piece is once again to push the boundaries of what constitutes a documentary by creating a site specific work celebrating the joy of cinema going. I envisage lots of little screens replacing the heads of the audience in a cinema auditorium and each one being a mini documentary of one audience member and cinema going fan from somewhere in the county. The audience could then move around the auditorium and build their own personal documentary by choosing who they wanted to hear from. I have started to draw up rough visuals and to explore the questions and mood and tone of the piece. as well as this I have been investigating how technically (iPads, mini screens) it could work in the cinema environment. I have also been considering what could go on the big screen and researching the ideas of audience, group sharing of texts and notion of looking.
Moving forward I will aim to move this idea forward by doing a visual mock up of how the piece could look, develop the questions and look to film some tests and get an iPad working or possibly even e few

AARDMAN: ANIMATED DOCOS

KINETIC TYPOGRAPHY: OVERVIEW

The dictionary definition of kinetic typography is: noun [uncountable/countable] an animation technique involving moving text, usually accompanied by corresponding speech. '… Motion typography (or kinetic typography) refers to the art and technique of expression with animated text.

This pretty much sums it up but an excellent example and Dan Palmer, winner of a Student Design award from Canterbury Christ Church University. This makes excellent use of kinetic text, layout, size, colour, images and animation to communicate the speech on creativity. Bold colourful and creative it really shows off what the technique can achieve



The technique quite often works with speech using type and animations to illustrate what is being said in a complementary, fun and inventive way. It may also be just text but it tries to bring the words to life. The technique can be a little time consuming and you certainly want to have a basic storyboard and idea of how it will work on screen creatively before you get down to the technical aspects of creating it. It is a technique I have used before and created in Adobe After Effects and feel may work well with both the Anonymous piece and Amen Pieces I am developing. I have a little graphic design experience and training and as long as i do not stretch this too far feel that this will serve me well. Below are a collection of kinetic typography work that I feels works well for reference.

The piece below uses Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator speech and makes good use of effects, filters, movement and also imagery and animations to bring this to life. The timing is bang on and it really shows what is possible. It also demonstrates that if the speech is too fast then the typography can be a little overwhelming for the audience so something to watch here.




The video below is a clip from a movie about the snowboarder Travis Rice, Thats It, Thats All. As you can see it demonstrates how moving video and kinetic typography can be used in tandem. Truth be told not a great example but it does give some idea of how (and how not to) use the technique. The typography often obscures the images underneath and could be more sympathetic to them and work in tandem with them as often it is just a heavy handed overlay. Also it suffers on occasions when the visual and typography create overload in the audience and there is far too much to take in. Perhaps highlighting a few key words would be better. They have also avoided images my guess is because there are images underneath but I feel these could have been used and avoided a lot of the words on the screen. In places it works but if I decide to use this technique of typography AND moving image perhaps a clearer screen with room for this to happen, the images and typography working together and greater focus on composition are the lessons to take forward.

INTERESTING FACTUAL WORKS

PAUL FIERLINGER

Paul Fierlinger

Paul Ferlinger is one of the most consistent creators of this form of animated documentary today is His films from the late 1980s-onward typically feature recordings of people talking about certain topics in their lives (such as alcohol abuse or loneliness), accompanied by Fierlinger's animation which mainly illustrates the stories in a realistic way.

I am looking to work with larger less personal topics in my global warmning piece but I loved the simplicity and cleanness of his work.  The piece below is a recorded voice over from someone who is recovering from mental illness. The use of animation alongside this frank voice over to tell the story and not filmed talking head doubtless freed her up to be more honest and to bare her soul. The animation works excellently generally by adding scenarios to the story and cleverly not just providing picture to exactly match the voice over but they enhance it. There is a tender quality that I really admired and it could also be applied to the piece I am still working on with my grandma possibly with animation or just shot footage.

MULTI FACETED DOCO IDEA

I want to try and create a documentary that shows off the different sides of a persons character. The aim is to to show them as a sum of varying and different parts and to not be typecast or pigeon holed as one thing. I want to make this very stylistics to be representative of this idea and I am looking to shoot highly controlled footage possible on location and in a lit studio space to do this. I may get some shots of the dialogue being delivered by equally may use none of this and settle on other imagery to depict what their story is.

Rather than shooting a traditional talking head one stylistic idea is a fractured multi faceted face to show this complexity of who we are, what we do and all of the peccadillos and quirks that make up a well rounded individual. Stylistically I have been looking at a lot of photography for inspiration and how to depict this on one screen or a multitude of screens.

I want the piece to be a documentary style but I am happy for it to be contrived to get the best telling of the story. Realism is less important than character and narrative.

The piece may even work best by blurring the lines between factual and fictional and rehearsing and doing a script after a more formal interview in the style of scripted reality shows to experiment with what works best.

As always it will be content over style but the style will be really important. I want to try and create stylistic interpretations of waht the subject matter is and not be too literal and simply show images relating to what they are saying in the documentary.

Currently I have approached a few people wo i know have stories to tell and I will do some recorded primary interviews and take it from there.

GW: BIG CRIT & FEEDBACK

The big crit was an opportunity to get feedback on my Global Warmning piece from my tutors and peers. the format worked quite well a screening of the work and then 3 questions posed by me that my peers and tutors discussed whilst I took notes. As mentioned earlier the Global Warmning piece that I screened is really just an experimental sketch and outline of the finished piece in terms of possible content and testing of the ideology and message I want to communicate. Style was not a huge consideration and I will be developing methods to evolve the aesthetic but the hierarchy and use of multiple elements creating a collision of images and ideas and use of appropriation were an approximation of my intentions. The piece was a little too short, explicit and not as far reaching as to  what my eventual aims were but the aim was to provide a basis for discussion.

GLOBAL WARMNING 01 from Jon Saward on Vimeo.

The questions I posed for those present at the crit were the following and also there are there responses underneath as well as my own thoughts for moving the piece forward.

1: Is there a hierarchy of elements that allows you to follow the piece?

• The clips of Obama and Trump are the top of the tree as far as hierarchy goes and really attract most of your attention. Could these be audio only as the voices are so recognisable to not draw quite so much attention and allow more focus on the visuals. Other speakers would be good too. This is the idea though as this is just a rough sketch of a version.
• Could the video clips play at the same time or be cut more together?
• Many missed the slow dissolves of images such as the Mountain top with snow from the past becoming one that had much less snow on it today.
• There is a good mix of images and content covering a varied spread of issues surrounding climate change.
• Lots of the images were a little too obvious and archival ones that have been seen before.

I agree with most of these statements and will address them all moving forward. it does need more content as it is just a sketch so these were comments I expected. It was interesting to see how focus was drawn to the talking presidents to the detriment of the other clips and this is something I will need to work with . Too much happening at once, adjust pacing, use audio only of speakers and hierarchy of elements will need to be explored. Also I will need to try and find new images or facts to try and grab and inform and educate the audience more. Possibly use some kinetic typography.
2: Does it matter that all of the content is "appropriated"?

• Generally the feedback was that the appropriated content worked well, unlike the early versions of Amen Brother. It was mentioned that in particular the video content of Obama and Trump had a clarity and directness of message.
• It was commented that the clips were not all that original and examples of this nature had been seen too many time before though.

This was a positive and I like the "appropriated" content. It will need to perhaps be less obvious and not tread too familiar a path and add other content, stats and facts and figures to grab the audience though as mentioned above.

3: How important are the aesthetics of the piece?

• It was all little too neat within the boxes. Possibly consider a more interesting framework OR be more experimental with the size, shape and layering of the images.
• Hierarchy affects aesthetics. Could use audio only of Trump etc and therefore concentrate audience more on the visuals. More use of other sounds to accompany images and create more of a soundscape.
• Possibly too many images happening at the same time. Slow down and keep shifting focus and let images etc breathe and the audience digest them.
• The music was a little clunky and a better more subtle choice may be worth investigating.
• The aesthetics ARE important as they help influence the audience to decode and interpret the message. Could be more engaging.

The aesthetics do need work as they are currently just a collection of ideas. Even if the message is strong the style, look and feel have to be engaging, entertaining and hook the audience in too and help deliver the message to them. All of the above are good points but ones that I was already very well aware of.

Other thoughts that were discussed during the crit.

• Going over old ground is there a new slant that could be taken over the issue? Do we not know all of the climate change argument already? What is the purpose of the piece? A call to arms? Exploring the hypocrisy of politicians? Expose the "spin" used over the debate over time to get to a point where "global warming" is acknowledged as fact?
• Is the piece a little too explicit and "on the nose". Could it be more implicit, vague and leave room for the audience to have to do more work?
• Some of my peers had seen better harder hitting Greenpeace content similar.
• The title and typeface at the start writing Global Warmning met a really mixed response. A few liked it, most were confused and a couple really disliked. It was felt it was a little clunky which it was as this was a test and could easily be given a polish. There was confusion over it writing Global Warming, then changing this to Global Warning before settling on a mix of the tow and the actual titles Global Warmning. The font was thought to be very computer orientated in style and even a have a computer game feel with the way the letters appeared adding to this. Perhaps this is something that could be exploited within the piece.
• Presently as to what it is and where it sits some said it feels like a viral online type piece. It has documentary form though and
• The purpose was clear but as to the content most agreed that it did inform and educate even if labouring a well worn path of information most were aware of and a little too on the nose. However the most interesting factor was that it did entertain and got titters from trumps brash outlandish sound bites.
• Look at Koyaanisqatsi mentioned by one person again. Images., motion effects of nature set to sound and music but no VO. Could provide inspiration and ideas to unlocking the piece.

All of the above were really interesting points and I will be looking into further. Again nothing super-enlightening but it was good to have some of my concerns confirmed and some food for thought from some comments.

Other thoughts moving forward.
The crit was very enlightening and raised a lot of questions in developing the piece further.

• A more personal link to engage the audience. They are still one step removed from the global scale of the piece and the message that has become hackneyed. I will look at mapping the global message to local or even individual audiences. Applying it to peoples everyday lives more personally so it is not a topic too big to tackle unless nations do it but by pointing out what individuals can do.
• Explore what exactly is the event, the piece the dissemination? Is it an installation, viral, mini documentary, infomercial for Greenpeace. I feel I need to explore all of these and possible re-purpose, recycle content and re-design the message for each of these platforms. It could be one of these or use the theme to create multiple messages that will work across ALL of these platforms and genres.
• I still like the idea of using multiple images that are ever-changing and the "collision" of images as mentioned by the Soviet montagist editors but concurrently not consecutively. Just the flow has to be right and more "conducting" and guiding the audience through the piece.
• Greater clarity from myself as to what is the purpose of the piece! I will explore the following and want to avoid simply going over ground that has already had lots of exposure. Is the piece a "shock" and call to arms challenging us to do something about it? Should it as my peers said attack complacency and inactivity or lack of education over the issue and set about addressing it? Exploring the hypocrisy of politicians? Expose the "spin" used over the debate over time to get to a point where "global warming" is acknowledged as fact? I am presently swaying towards the call to arms and what "individually" we can do rather than collectively as nations etc. However I may be able to as mentioned above cover all of these by re-purposing the content for different messages on different platforms.

C4 RANDOM ACTS & 3 MINUTE WONDER

I have been looking at the short form documentary as part of the development of my work. This is the ideal format for online content but being old-school I also love the idea of getting my work on broadcast TV and the credibility that this creates and the contacts it will create. I also want to start looking for more commissioning and funding for my work and this is a good place. I looked at strands that would allow this to happen and that also provide an online curated platform for such works.

One of the first I researched was a strand called 3 Minute Wonder and it used to go out just after the C4 news at 7:55. I really enjoyed their output on this strand and generally the films shown on the series are primarily documentaries that tended to highlight a current issue that is not in the public eye, for instance. Its aim was to broadcasts first time directors' three-minute TV programmes in the middle of the channel's weekday primetime schedule. It was part of the Channel 4's 4Talent initiative to help new talent break into the very competitive UK television industry and Channel 4 offers new directors £4000 and their assistance in making their shorts.

I would have loved to try and get a piece commissioned for the strand as I feel my work would fit with its aims and objectives.but it is no longer running as it ended several years ago. However it was good to look at some past episodes and to get a stronger overview of what could be attempted, covered and ultimately make a successful micro documentary 3 minutes.

http://www.channel4.com/search?q=3+minute+wonder

Random Acts is the C4 scheme that replaced 3 minute wonders BUT not with the same broadcast time slot. It looks like it is an avenue that may be worth pursuing although there does seem to be a slant towards younger filmmakers. They also provide a slightly different programme within Random Acts called First Acts for 19-24 year olds.In their own words (obviously aimed at younger filmmakers!) here is their mission statement on their website here is an overview of heir remit.

Hi there. You’re on the internet, so first of all, congrats. The internet, if you remember, used to be quite good before getting really overwhelming and difficult to filter through the big black hole of content, making schmucks of us all. So we decided to make a thing on the internet that wasn’t just commentary, gifs, Vines of people shouting, think-pieces about what makes a great piece of video art… Instead, we decided to create a space where artists can actually just create, using the TV as a canvas.
So we made this website, which you are now on, called Random Acts. Unlike the rest of the internet though, nothing about it is random. We only show you the best in original short form creative content. We showcase all the films that we commission throughout the year, and also share films that we didn’t commission but wish we had.
We handpick the best artists from around the country and beyond, presenting you with short films that display bold expressions of creativity, films that are pushing boundaries, provoking thought and debate, playing with your minds and making you ponder your existence. We spend a lot of time finding people who are breaking ground in the medium of film and work with them to make the sorts of videos you have never seen before. Watch out for the Random Acts TV show on Channel 4, bringing you the best from the strand and highlighting them in an original compilation TV

The films commissioned get a TV airing and so do other selected works that the editors at Random Acts appreciate. It looks like it is certainly worth applying for funding and also worth submitting my Amen Brother piece to.

programme. http://randomacts.channel4.com

GW: GLOBAL WARMNING TEST VERSION 1

This first version of Global Warmning is really just an experimental sketch and outline of the finished piece in terms of possible content and testing of the ideology and message I want to communicate. Style was not a huge consideration and I will be developing methods to evolve the aesthetic but the hierarchy and use of multiple elements creating a collision of images and ideas and use of appropriation were an approximation of my intentions. The aesthetics will be evolved over time but I wanted to see if the content was working and creating the narrative, themes and ideology I was aiming for.







GLOBAL WARMNING 01 from Jon Saward on Vimeo.




Below are the main issues I see from the piece moving forward that need to be addressed

• Collecting all of the "appropriated footage is very time consuming, many, many hours research and watching to find the clips, sound-bites and archive materials.
• Aesthetically it needs work and presently is a collection of appropriated footage.
• Construction wise it is heading in the right direction in terms of creating a message from the materials but the message is a little clouded.
• There seems to be a lot going on and it will be interesting to see what an audience feels. Pacing will be key and guiding the audience through the piece.
• Lots of focus and attention gets drawn to the talking heads to the detriment of some of the other images. need to continue to develop the hierarchy of the elements.
• More construction of message and content. possibly kinetic typography, animations created by me to focus the message.
• Must consider the purpose of the piece more and focus as there is not currently enough clarity. Is it an overall comment on global warming, call to arms, satire, exploration of "politics" and "spin"?
• The initial appropriated materials used in the piece all a little obvious and stuff that has been used many times before. they serve the purpose but are a little unoriginal. perhaps the originality could come through style or aesthetical way they are used?
• The dissemination of the piece and exhibition etc to an audience is still unclear. It currently feels like an online viral, meets doco, meets installation and more consideration to end aims and the "event" of the piece and its consumption

As part of the crit I had to come up with three questions that I wanted my peers to discuss about the piece. In order to help gain more understanding of it and some of the issues I have just discussed I propose to go with these...

1: Is there a hierarchy of elements that allows you to follow the piece?

2: Does it matter that all of the content is "appropriated"?

3: How important are the aesthetics of the piece?

teamLab

teamLab (f. 2001, Tokyo, by Toshiyuki Inoko) are an interdisciplinary collective/group of ultra-technologists, designers and programmers whose practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, technology, design and the natural world. Rooted in the tradition of ancient Japanese Art and contemporary forms of anime, teamLab operates from a distinctly Japanese sense of spatial recognition, investigating human behavior in the information era and proposing innovative models for societal development. teamLab’s works have been the subject of numerous exhibitions worldwide; in 2015, a projection work was exhibited on the façade of the Grand Palais, Paris.

Transcending Boundaries was an exhibition at PACE gallery London from 25th January until 11 March 2017 Below is from the promotions from the exhibition.

"The exhibition will explore the role of digital technology in transcending the physical and conceptual boundaries that exist between different artworks, with imagery from one work breaking free of the frame and entering the space of another. The installations also dissolve distinctions between artwork and exhibition space, and involve the viewer through interactivity."

http://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/12840/transcending-boundaries


teamLab: Transcending Boundaries @ PACE LONDON from teamLab on Vimeo.

The exhibition was a very early sell out so I did not get to attend but I was fascinated by the work that was in it and have managed to whilst not getting to experience it first-hand have managed to get a flavour of it from video from the exhibition.

Aesthetically the work is very rich. and vibrant. A iridescent riot of light and purity of colour surrounding the onlookers, layered and constantly moving organically in the space. The movements are slow though and purposeful gently caressing the space. The  work surrounds the audience making them at one with the environment created and becoming integral to show off the beauty of the piece.

Content wise the themes of the exhibition play with digital environments with real environmental undertones as does a lot of teamLabs work. They appear artificially organic with nature re-created water, flowers, butterflies and often fish engineered to create a parallel alternative reality for the audiences.

There is also very real interactivity allowing the audience (or possibly a better term would be participants) to manipulate the digital environments that are created around them. Light trails resembling water are diverted around the feet of the audience or flowers bloom from the feet of the audience. Butterflies flutter around on the walls but if touched they fall dead to the floor.




WHAT I WILL TAKE FROM TEAMLABS WORK.

• The interactivity of the installations.I do not have a team of designers and coders but i can still consider how to make my work more interactive somehow.
• The immersive quality of the work and how it surrounds the space and the audience. It is not an exhibition in the corner or in one wall of a space it IS the WHOLE space. I would like to experiment with this more in my work.
• The sheer visual impact of the work . At times I concentrate too much on content and message and not enough on style and visual impact. The former will always be more important to me than the latter BUT there is no reason that I should not strive for both.

https://www.team-lab.net

RACHEL SUSSMAN: THE OLDEST LIVING THINGS IN THE WORLD

Photographer Rachel Sussman has been travelling the globe for the past 10 years, searching for the world’s oldest living things with her camera. From the Mojave Desert to the Australian Outback to Greenland’s icy expanses, she has captured portraits of organisms capable of lasting for 80,000 years.

Her work is a little removed from some of my own ideas and I certainly do not have the budget to travel but I love her images. In my global warming pieces it is no good just banging on about we are damaging our planet and are likely to destroy it. Sometimes you need to simply marvel at what our planet is and the amazing ichness and diversity of the natural world to fully appreciate the beauty that we  risk destroying. This needs to come across in my work it cannot be just perfunctory and all message it needs to show the audience what they could be missing unless things change.

Sussman's images are of this planet but also otherworldly and her oldest living things in the planet (some 2000 years old!) helps to shine a light on our planet’s resilience in the face of human intervention.  In an interview for Brain Pickings Sussman wrote. “Extreme longevity can lull us into a false sense of permanence... but being old is not the same as being immortal.”

BEN RIVERS: TWO YEARS AT SEA

Two Years at Sea 2011 was Ben Rivers first feature film and won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize, 68th Venice Film Festival.

It profoundly affected me as Two Years At Sea gives the audience plenty to do and as with lots of Rivers other works blends reality and fiction to create a dreamlike hybrid of a film. It is a style of film when not much happens but it does this beautifully and a kind of which there are not many around. The film breathes and lives and frees itself from the shackles of narrative and exposition trading them for mood and atmosphere.

The film follows Jake Williams a recluse living of grid in the wilds of a pine forrest in Aberdeenshire. Nothing is explained in the film and we never find out who we're watching, where he is, why he lives like this, whether it's real or not. Even the title is a mystery although it refers to the two years Williams spent working at at sea Rivers says.

In the film we see the wiry, bearded Williams going about his lone existence: making coffee, having a shower, reading a book. Except nothing about this man's life is ordinary. A great guardian article on the film describes his house as "a cross between a bric-a-brac shop and a municipal dump, every corner filled with old books and records, tools, farm machinery, skis, oil lamps, woodpiles. And around his smallholding are decaying caravans filled with even more junk." This describes it perfectly but all of this junk adds texture and potential never quite knowing what the inventive Williams can make out of it. Rivers' film presents Williams' life as a fantasy of perfect solitude, of complete freedom in a land of do-as-you-please, with nothing to do and all the time in the world. Alternatively, he could be the last man on earth.

There is something of the bizarre too that makes it at once bewildering but enchanting and some of the images stay with you. The morning rituals ands the weird shower in the corner of the kitchen. The caravans floating up into the air revealed to be it being winched up into trees to form a quirky tree house. The "boat" made from plastic drums and wood being carried over a huge distance to build it. Williams life seems to be whim and fanciful at times.

Visually the film has a really rich style. Shot on old 16mm cameras in monochrome the blacks are often very black and the whites really white. The film stock is sometimes of such  high speed that it looks like there is a permanent snow storm. every image seems to be constructed every movement, frame and action within it help to build the world that Williams inhabits. Williams too

I love the style and the content and of creating this weird hybrid of fact and fiction. It links back to my recurring themes of representation, character, narrative and the ecstatic truth. It is a style I would like to experiment with and possibly build my own version of.

Jinhee Choi reiterates this in his essay The Ethics of Contemplation in her book Cine-Ethics: Ethical Dimensions of Film Theory, and add how this effects the spectatorship. She states "Rivers projects Jake as one of the most content human beings on earth, with his secluded bucolic life filled with objects and past memories. Jake who is reading by his desk or falling asleep by the fire, resembles the look of  a contented philosopher. The slow rhythm of the film expands the subjects of the contemplation to include the spectator; one not only observes and contemplates Jakes "simple life" but also reflects on his or her own life and perhaps the desire to escape from it".

Rivers states he is often drawn to people like Williams, eccentrics and outcasts who have created their own realities far from civilisation. "They're all fiercely individual," Rivers says of his subjects. "I'm interested in worlds people have created – very specific, hermetic worlds that haven't needed to conform to perceptions of the way we should live."

This is perhaps we all feel sometimes and this sentiment is backed up by Kristin Thomas who on a blog post entitled Ponds and performers: Two experimental Documentaries, notes  "As with any film about someone who has a simpler life, we are lured to contemplate our own occasional fantasies of giving up societies complex challenges and joys and living somewhere isolated and peaceful". I certainly felt like this about the film it is slow, it is bewildering but it is a pure sort of escapism too.

However although Two Years At Sea is a work of fiction although it feels real. The Jake we see in the film is "an exaggeration," Rivers explains as the real Williams has friends, computers and does not live full time in solitude. He directed Jake like an actor. As I mentioned earlier there are touches of surrealism, too. In what you could call the film's big special-effects sequence, one of Jake's caravans magically levitates up in the air while he takes a nap inside. When he wakes up and opens the door, he is up a tree. "Even if its a re-enactment of things he would ordinarily do, you're still fictionalising someone to an extent," Rivers says, citing the fact that documentary greats like Robert Flaherty and Humphrey Jennings also staged events. Flaherty's Nanook of the North is actually pretty close to "mockumentaries" like Spinal Tap, he says.

Rivers is aware of the others working in this field and that there is an ever increasing place for this type of film within cinema today. In an interview with Jason Wood for his book, Last Words; Considering Contemporary Cinema he mentions "Perhaps its a little quietness and reflection in terms of insanity. Of course some folk found it slow, but I think when audiences were open to go on the trip, to immerse themselves in this world, then it could offer something different to the usual experience which is beholden to plot and exposition. My film does not stand alone either; there are other examples of contemporary filmmakers offering worlds that encourage more imagination on the part of the viewer so that its not just about asking for a narrative but asking for the audience to partake in completing the film".

Since Rivers started making Two Years At Sea, a new term has found purchase in film circles: "slow cinema" – meaning the type of contemplative, observational movie where image (and soundtrack) takes precedence over conventional narrative. The same gurdian article quoted earlier brackets into this category international auteurs such as Béla Tarr and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, possibly with Tarkovsky and Antonioni the movement's spiritual forefathers. Theres is work I will seek out although I have seem some Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The term fits Rivers' work well. At times the film almost slows to the stillness of a photograph. They are cinemagraphs of staic images with a tiny amount of motion in a static image. From trees moving against the sky, to socks blowing on a washing line, or a cloud drifting across a woodland landscape.

TWO YEARS AT SEA - TRAILER from Ben Rivers on Vimeo.

I usually like more going on in my cinema not in terms of action but character and narrative. However i found Two Years at Sea beguiling for all of the reasons mentioned here. I am not 100% sure it is a way I would want to work but there is plenty to take from it. the visuals, pacing, mise-en-scene and sense of the bizarre to name but a few. The visual style and cinematography is excellent. Whilst not wanting to run out and create slow cinema such as this I can see a voice over working excellently with timilar imagery in my own work. When I always find myself going too OTT in terms of the content of my own work Two Years at Sea is a great reminder that sometimes less is more.

WHAT I WILL TAKE FROM TWO YEARS AT SEA

• The quality of some of the images. Style over substance never but often achingly beautiful cinematography that provides style to support the substance.
• Following on from above the cinematography, pacing and visual richness of this with a voice over would suit my own style well.
• The "blending" of fiction and fact. He operates often in a parallel universe at once here but outside of the mainstream. These are seamlessly woven together to show an abstract alternative version of reality that at the same provides a mirror or flip-side to contrast with reality.
• The fascination with loose character and narrative. Often characters at the fringes of society and he shines a light into the "walled city" worlds and environments and created societies they operate in.
• The creation of myth from reality and the magical qualities he develops in his work.
• The less formal structure and slowness of the film. Make the audience work a little and fill in some of the blanks emotionally and intellectually.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

An Inconvenient Truth  (2006) Directed by Dave Guggenheim and starring ex vice president Al Gore was perhaps one of the most influential films of all time on climate change and I decided to watch it gain to refresh myself with it. We follow Gore on the lecture circuit, as he campaigns to raise public awareness of the dangers of global warming and calls for immediate action to curb its destructive effects on the environment.

The documentary was a critical and box office success, winning two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song. The film grossed $24 million in the U.S. and $26 million at the international box office, becoming the tenth highest grossing documentary film to date in the United States.

The film was excellent for research purposes as it is inundated with facts, figures statistics and experts backing up these. However the problem with it is exactly that it is like a powerpoint presentation and however hard Gore tries with animations and graphics it is a bit of a dull watch. The topic and issue IS riveting but the delivery is at best OK at worst a little boring and a bit like being beaten around the head for a couple of hours.

The film highlights the problem of creating factual pieces about the issue they are hard to do. facts and figures and hard to turn into conflict, character and narratives that will hook and engage an audience. This is where I feel a gap in getting the issue out there is frame it around people. An Age of Stupid comes closer with some personal drama but I feel  this would be the best device to get the message across in an engaging way.

So overall enjoyable from a facts and figures and research point of view but not really captivating another about what should and could be a captivating issue. I need to consider ways to address this in my own work moving forward or I will possibly make the same mistakes. This is the $1m dollar question and from the conversations that I have been having with my friend at Greenpeace it is an issue he has been trying to address for 10 years in his job. Not an easy one then.... Thinking cap on!

LUKE FOWLER

Luke Fowler (b. 1978, Glasgow) is an artist, filmmaker and musician based in Glasgow. His work explores the limits and conventions of biographical and documentary filmmaking  hence my interest in him and his working methods. Fowlers work has often been compared to the British Free Cinema of the 1950s. He works with archival footage, photography and sound and his filmic montages create portraits of intriguing, counter cultural figures. His work has included films on Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing and English composer Cornelius Cardew.

Fowler says about his own work ‘The starting points can be different catalysts. Either events in my life or something I’ve read, or a piece of music I’m listening to... But generally they stem from a sort of concern of trying to understand a question.’

In the link below Fowler talks about his work for the Turner Prize exhibition 2012. For the Turner Prize Fowler exhibited his film All Divided Selves 2011, an exploration of the ideas and legacy of Scottish psychiatrist RD Laing who did a lot of work on the education of the working classes. The film is a rich collage of well selected archival material, in which the viewer becomes an inadvertent witness to psychiatric sessions and Laing's theories..

http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/turner-prize-2012-luke-fowler

The film itself ideals with the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s focusing on charismatic Glasgow born Psychiatrist and celebrity R.D. Laing and his now classic text “The Politics of Experience” (1967). Laing argued that normality entailed adjusting ourselves to the mystification of an alienating and de-personalizing world. Thus, those society labels as ‘mentally ill’ are in fact ‘hyper-sane’ travellers, conducting an inner voyage through aeonic time. "The craziness was all around," Laing says of a mental hospital he visited early in his researches, "and certainly was not confined to the patients." These radical views about psychiatry and society's treatment of the mentally 'ill' made him something of a celebrity for his time.

The film concentrates on archival representations of Laing and his colleagues as they struggled to acknowledge the importance of considering social environment and disturbed interaction in institutions as significant factors in the aetiology of human distress and suffering. The film is a dense, engaging and lyrical collage in which Fowler weaves archive material with his own filmic observation and makes use of a dynamic soundtrack of field recordings with recorded music by Éric La Casa, Jean-Luc Guionnet and Alasdair Roberts. The multi-format fruits of Fowler's archive heavy sliced and diced style create a bewildering bombardment of images and sounds, along with some materials only marginally connected with Laing. These include questionably and self-indulgently, the director's own home-movie footage, suggesting a possible therapeutic element at play. The approach is jagged and ragged in places but it's approach but one which is held together by the force of Laing's fascinating, multi-faceted personality. A natural on camera, magnetic speaker Laing renders complex psychiatric terminology in layman's language. Laing's boundary-smashing career has a distinct stranger-than-fiction air at times, though its wilder aspects do make sense within the volatile, anything-goes cultural and political context of 1970s Britain -- an era rendered in all its dowdy glory here.

The following abridged excerpt is from a review by Neil Young for the Berlin Film Festival 2012 that I feel captures somewhat my own thoughts on the work. "Filmmaker Luke Fowler's documentary is an uncompromising look at Scotland's seminal and radical psychoanalyst R.D. Laing. Infuriating and dazzling in roughly equal measure, All Divided Selves is a wildly experimental documentary on Scotland's seminal psychiatrist-philosopher-polymath of the 1960s and '70s, R.D. Laing. A considerable celebrity in his day, Laing's fame has dimmed since his 1989 death but he remains a figure of interest and controversy for many. Director/editor Luke Fowler's jagged collage vividly chronicles the provocative Glaswegian's life and times even as it awkwardly straddles the worlds of gallery-installation and cinema -- at the Berlinale, it played simultaneously in both arenas. Boldly confrontational in its avant-garde approach, Fowler's debut feature-length effort is suitable for the most adventurously highbrow of festivals and TV networks with suitable late-night berths."


Anne Lyden : Luke Fowler from arts-news on Vimeo.


Depositions 2014 was a film by Fowler as part of the BBC Arts - Artists' Moving Image at the BBC looking at what the results may be when artists specialising in the moving image are invited to explore, investigate and create from the vast BBC film archive? It was part of a unique residency programme based at BBC Scotland, offering six artists of which Fowler was one unprecedented access to the facilities and archives of the BBC.  Following a process of research, development and production at BBC Scotland it resulted in six new moving image art works, all of which use and explore BBC archive. The works showcased a diverse range of approaches to television and the archive, revealing along the way some favourite and some forgotten moments and voices from times past and present.

Fowlers take was to use all of the archive footage to create an alternative and more real version of the truth of the Scottish highlands nature, people and politics of those living unconventionally as travellers from the BBC archives. This films universe uses actual archive footage so at the same time was the real subverted and made more real. It shares few similarities with London (1994) by Patrick Keiller and is equally interesting in the fact that it creates a parallel place, space and time that allows comments on the reality. The narrator this time is a mix of voice over and sound from the BBC archives.

The film attempts to restore some dignity to the images of the communities of the Scottish highlands readdressing patronising and biased BBC documentaries and news features from the 70’s and 80’s. The film repurposes footage from the archives of the BBC and sound from the School of Scottish Studies to create a film about differences and dichotomies. It pits science against superstition, near against far, and the community against the individual.

David Toop commented on Fowler and in particular Depositions. "Luke Fowler’s films dwell on potentiality: what might be, what might have been, what might still be if the world were to turn in a different direction? But film time runs in many directions, as do arguments. Film made only recently can be easily confused with the archival vintage of washed-out or saturated tones and blurred edges. Only the disjunction between sounds that live close within the ear and rich voices from a fading past distinguish archive from present. Gradually the pieces converge: our nostalgia for ancient folkways, traditional song and the romance of freedom, all undercut by scientific rationalism and the pressures of normativity bringing law to bear on lives resistant to conformity. What is an archive if not a collection of letters to ourselves?"




WHAT I WILL TAKE FROM LUKE FOWLERS WORK

• Weaving and reinterpretation of archive footage to create a new meaning.
• The passion towards the causes he believes in.
• The mix or archive, shot and his own footage to create a message.
• The hard cutting style often makes for a hard watch but does expose the techniques he is applying warts an all for a sort of honesty.

https://www.themoderninstitute.com/artists/luke-fowler/about/

BEN RIVERS

In exploring the work of filmmakers whose work blurs the distinctions between fiction and fact I was drawn to the films of Ben Rivers (born in 1972) an artist and experimental filmmaker based in London. His work has been shown in many film festivals and galleries around the world and has won numerous awards.

His work ranges from themes about exploring unknown wilderness territories to candid and intimate portrayals of real-life subjects. It often involves following and filming people who have in some way separated themselves from society, the raw film footage provides Rivers with a starting point for creating oblique narratives imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds. His subjects are often people who have in some way separated themselves from society, the raw film footage provides Rivers with a starting point for creating oblique narratives imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds.

He states "I'm interested in worlds people have created – very specific, hermetic worlds that haven't needed to conform to perceptions of the way we should live."

Rivers uses old hand wound Bolex cameras and hand develops the 16 mm film, which shows the evidence of the elements it has been exposed to – the materiality of this medium forming part of the narrative. Like many of those who he follows for his work he is as self reliant as he can be shooting, processing and editing his films himself to stay in artistic and technical control of his work. His narratives are loose as he comments "Too much exposition is the kind of thing that makes me bored with Hollywood movies," he says. "I like films that leave a lot to the audience."

The following quotes are excerpts from an interview for his film The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers, for the BFI he offered some insight into his working methods and preoccupations with particular reference to this film.

"Some years ago, I started thinking about joining the small and relatively unsung genre of behind-the-scenes films. This may have come about through reflection on my own practice as a filmmaker, questioning the urge to create worlds, and the obsessiveness that can cause you to disregard other aspects of life. Filmmaking consumes my time, and my whole life revolves around thinking about them, travelling to make them, editing for months in dark rooms, working on soundtracks, and then travelling to show them. It makes sense to me that, at some point, I would want to directly make a film about this obsessive construction."

"For my film The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers, I wanted to move among different realms of reality – storytelling, songs, observation of a film being made, fiction – so that, in the end, the viewer is uncertain about where the fiction begins and ends. There were a number of films that I thought about while developing the project that were either observational documentaries about films being made or fictional recreations of a film set. What ties them all together is that they each show the darker side of filmmaking and its repercussions. I’m interested in the question of why filmmakers want to expose the dark side of filmmaking. There is something perversely compelling about seeing someone who is a mirror version of yourself being taken down a road of obsession and disaster, finding what at the end?"

THE SKY TREMBLES AND THE EARTH IS AFRAID AND THE TWO EYES ARE NOT BROTHERS - TRAILER from Ben Rivers on Vimeo.


A Spell To Ward Off The Darkness is another from the Rivers canon of loners living outside of society. It follows an unnamed character through three seemingly disparate moments in his life. With little explanation, we join him alongside a 15-person collective in isolation in the majestic wilderness of a small island off Northern Finland, and also during a concert as the singer and guitarist of a black metal band in Norway. Marked by loneliness, ecstatic beauty and an optimism of the darkest sort, A Spell is a for the existence of utopia in the present. A Spell also lies somewhere between fiction and non-fiction, it is at once a document of experience and an experience itself, an inquiry into transcendence that sees the cinema as a site for transformation.



A SPELL TO WARD OFF THE DARKNESS (TRAILER) from Ben Rivers on Vimeo.

Terror 2007 is a real step away from much of Rivers traditional themes and styles relying on archive or found footage as Rivers describes it. It constructs a forced narrative from a huge variety of sub-genres from the horror genre using them to provide a critique of the terror that these bring to audiences. At the same time he is exploiting their shock value and exposes the structuralism, smoke and mirrors and tropes that haunt the genre. The film is Rivers self proclaimed "love letter to the genre"

Noel Lawrence from Provocateur pictures sums it up thus “This masterfully edited compilation documentary analyzes the morphology of the horror film. Stringing together the most common tropes and scenes of slashers, zombie flicks, slumber party massacres, etc. into a single meta-horror opus, Rivers not so much deconstructs the genre as provides a tribute that reveals its limitations but also its visceral power."

Terror! from Ben Rivers on Vimeo.

WHAT I WILL TAKE FORWARD FROM BEN RIVERS WORK.

• The quality of some of the images. Style over substance never but often achingly beautiful cinematography that provides style to support the substance
• The "blending" of fiction and fact. He operates often in a parallel universe at once here but outside of the mainstream. These are seamlessly woven together to show an abstract alternative version of reality that at the same provides a mirror or flip-side to contrast with reality.
• The fascination with character and narrative. Often characters at the fringes of society and he shines a light into the "walled city" worlds and environments and created societies they operate in.
• The creation of myth from reality and the magical qualities he develops in his work.
• The fact that he is by and large a one man band which affords him the luxury of creating the work he wants to.
• The fact he is not bogged down too much in technology. Wind up 16mm Bolex forTwo Years at Sea.