Unit 2: Externally Set Assignment

Theme: Rhythms & Cycles

Unit 2

Unit 2 is an externally set assignment. Through a series of lectures, discussions,

visits and workshops you will develop ideas, experiment with techniques/resources, Record your work and discoveries and finally present your final outcome/s through the creation of a moving image work and supporting materials (sketchbook).

Assessment Objectives

Develop your ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.

Experiment with and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining your ideas as your work develops.

Assessment Objectives

Record in visual and/or other forms ideas, observations and insights relevant to your intentions, demonstrating an ability to reflect on your work and progress

Present a personal, informed and meaningful response demonstrating critical understanding, realising intentions and, where appropriate, making connections between visual, oral or other elements.

Preparatory Studies

As before your preparatory studies will be your pre-production materials and Film tasks/experiments. (sketchbook & Portfolio DVD).

Preparatory Studies

Your sketchbook should show Your development of your personal response to the theme

(Passions & Obsessions) The continued development and progression of your ideas Test shots or photographs of techniques of filming or conceptual

ideas Critical review and reflection, recording your thoughts, decisions

and development of ideas Wide and thorough research into appropriate sources (artists,

artworks, films, photographers, etc) Visual and written analyses rather than descriptive writing or

copying.

Exam

Your preparatory studies will be used to produce an outcome/s under exam conditions.

This will take the form of an 8 hour editing and post-production exam.

Examinations will commence from 03/05/10 ALL FILMING SHOULD BE COMPLETED

BY 30TH APRIL

The Theme: Rhythms & Cycles The Cycles of life, death, decay and rebirth have

continuously provided a wealth of inspiration for artists, designers and craft workers.

City skylines are transformed as buildings are torn down and then rebuilt, cranes stand like sentinels over the rubble and steel skeletons of architects’ new visions. Urban cityscapes pulse with neon illuminations as the evening’s entertainments begin. The streets throng with partygoers before the bustle dies away in the early hours to give a brief moment’s peace before the dawn breaks with the rumble of recycling lorries, crashing and clanging through the deserted streets…

Tension and Release

One way to look at the theme is to consider the effects of different editing speeds or patterns.

Karen Pearlman suggests "All of the tools, the choreographic processes, and the editor's sources of intuitive knowledge about editing a film's rhythm are used by editors in service of fulfilling rhythm's purposes in film... What are the functions of rhythm in film? … the functions of rhythm are to create cycles of tension and release and to synchronize the spectator's physical, emotional, and cognitive fluctuations with the rhythms of the film."

(Karen Pearlman, 05 March 2008, The Art of the Guillotine) http://folksonomy.org.uk/?keyword=1363

Rhythmic cutting

‘Music videos do not need to have plot changes or character changes to feel fast paced; instead, they can have lots of cuts and/or lots of camera moves’.

‘In “ Come Together ” played by The Tinku Band (Luke Eve/More Sauce Productions, 2007), these six stills, and ten others, all flash by in the first second of the music video at a rate of one or two frames each’.

‘The editor, Katie Flaxman, weaves together diverse ideas (expressed in simple graphics) into a sequence of lateral associations with the song’s lyrics that is almost subliminal on first viewing because of its extremely fast pace’.

(Karen Pearlman, 05 March 2008, The Art of the Guillotine) http://folksonomy.org.uk/?keyword=1363

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY_YPPSFDpM

Henry Hills

A more experimental approach to rhythmic cutting can be found in the work of American filmmaker Henry Hills.

A New York filmmaker, Henry Hills formed a strong alliance with the Downtown improvisers and the "Language" poets in the 70’s. These musical, language based and improvisational influences, guided his film work toward a rhythmic, multi-layered works filled with unpredictable changes and a striking improvisational edge.

Below is a collection of his work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi3Bwwa5-hw

Elephant, 2003 Dir. Gus Van Sant The Director Gus Van Sant relies on long takes,

stedicam shots and minimal editing to reflect his characters who are often trapped or facing inescapable fates.

In his film Elephant a 2003 American drama film Sant uses these techniques to chronicle the events surrounding a school shooting, based in part on the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.

The film takes place a short time before the shooting occurs, following the lives of several characters both in and out of school, who are unaware of what is about to unfold.

Elephant Clip

Watch the clip from Elephant. Note down how the pace of the film creates a particular mood.

Think about the use of sound/music Does the filming style allow you to see any details or

reflect on the story in a different way? Would a different rhythm have created a different

effect? Why do you think the film is called Elephant? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaHDf-m1sSo

Accumulation

‘In Elephant the ‘deliberate calm’ ‘creates a certain tension, without […] any perceptible change in the rhythm or […] pace of events’ in the film tension builds, threateningly, in anticipation of a future event’.

‘Fragments upon fragments of minute, ordinary actions are performed and shown in an unhurried pace that fills us with increasing suspicion. This feeling is hard to define. What is the source of this increasingly chilly atmosphere that surrounds us? Of course, we know the story. We know what’s coming. This is why we can register certain signs here and there (the spleen, the sadness, or jealousy of the kids), then the more explicit, short little flashes of viewing Nazi documents, of getting weapons through the Internet, and a rather ominous moment when the kid with the most gentle face is writing down notes, sizing up the cafeteria with a view toward a future use. Of course, all this illustrates the mysterious nature of accumulation: how odd that we should hardly perceive the approach of danger (turbulence), yet somehow we do sense it, experience it. We collect the signals that anticipation can feed on. Not one of these is strong enough to serve as a direct explanation of the massacre. These scattered moments mentioned above blend into a faceless time of other time-killing projects’.

Referenced from: http://unspokenjournal.com/i-tarr/vital-rhythms/

Capturing Time

Our experience of the world is made up of our acknowledgement of the rhythms and cycles of life.

Film, the documenting of time is ideally placed to reflect on our conception of time.

Mathew Moore

Mathew Moore is a Visual artist and a farmer. His work seeks to reflect on the effects of modernization on individuals and on our landscape. Overtly, he reflects on our desire to change the natural rhythms and cycles of our world for the sake often of convenience.

‘Within five years, my home (this land) will transform into suburbia. As a farmer and an artist, I display the realities of this transition in order to rationalize and document my displacement from the land on which I was raised. The trials and tribulations of American agriculture, its roles in contemporary globalization, and its questionable ecological practices create a foundation for my explorations. By displaying the past and future of the farm, I have used our land to explore similarities between commercial agriculture and suburbia, which reveal their social, cultural and economic impacts locally, nationally and internationally. Documenting the reality of land and appetite from agriculture to suburbia, the decisions of our society reveal consumer models that make us disobedient to our relationship with land and time.

Lifecycles

Watch the clip of Lifecycles by Moore. He uses Time-lapse photography to reflect on the changes and transformations of an area of land from his farm.

http://www.urbanplough.com/work.php

You can find more about the artist here http://www.urbanplough.com/work.php

Task & Viewing

Task – Look at the work and career of Doug Aitken and reflect on how his work could be seen to reflect on Rhythms and Cycles

Watch and make notes on Electric Earth. Read the handout to help you. Complete the analysis for homework and

add it to the notes section at the back of your new Unit 2 sketchbook.

Mind mapping

Think how you want to address the theme and begin to create a mind map around your ideas

Have a look at the link below for inspiration on creating interesting mind maps.

http://www.mindmapinspiration.com/top-10/

Other Artists to consider

Stan Brakhage Bill Viola Mathew Barney Godfrey Reggio