...or TERRY GILLIAM (i'm probably alone on this one, he is polarizing)
haha that's aside the point, ok to your short. i also appreciate that you're doing your own thing, it's important for us creatives to have the personal drive outside of making money and gaining popularity. this is another discussion entirely, but there is a balance that must be struck for professional creatives to work for themselves, work for the man, and work to advance the art form.
so how do we advance moving pictures as an art form? how do we focus on it as an art? does the art still entirely lie in the medium itself? what is the medium now? is it solely moving pictures still or are there elements of, audio, 3d, what about smellovision or the Willy-Wonka-miniturizing-food-o-vision? and what about monetization, isn't there are art to combining sales with movies? this is a can 'o worms that you've opened that i'll gladly pursue an argument (or discussion if you're more civilized than i, but i do have lots of thoughts about this and if nobody else is interested in it, pm me so we can get an email thread going or something) in, if you're keen haha
as far as what you've created specifically? i see it as something of a concept against montage and how we've been told stories/given meaning for the past century of filmmaking. you've taken the cut entirely out of what you're doing. this does force the viewer to stare and contemplate your subject matter and consider what you're trying to say/do with it. i wish you hadn't prefaced this video with saying your intention because i'm in the camp that thinks the creator and the viewer create meaning together, so i don't like that you took some of that away from me in this context (others not part of indietalk wont have this, so i think that's good). i think the biggest weakness is that you added the audio track, i think that so often filmmakers rely too strongly on their soundtracking choices (i do this too), but this is not to say that audio isn't important. for this piece, i think it'd have been better with really crisp audio from the room because then i would have been more focused on the subject matter rather than letting the audio push me into any sort of decision as to what you're saying-again this question of who makes meaning arises, you could have allowed for more meaning making collaboration between viewer and creator if you'd have made a different soundtracking decision. now, your subject matter is interesting for moving pictures because it is something moving at a high speed, fast moving this has always been a fascination of filmmakers (think muybridge/horses). think of it like maybe a hummingbird, there are a million different ways to shoot this, mainly the change of shutter speed will really affect how this looks, and each has it's own reason. this is something i think you could have played with more (very subtly of course) to get across your intended meaning (rather than your soundtracking choice). oh boy i have a lot of thoughts about your piece, it is very intriguing dissecting art films critically, but i think what my opinion boils down to is two things: 1) you should be more conscious of who makes meaning and how do we do this and what is the filmmakers responsibility, 2) you have two themes you worked with on this short, overstimulation and hallucination, i see where they intersect when you describe it in your post, but i did not see much of the critique of a over-arching cultural stimulation in the piece. the hallucination, letting an image take its own form, i do see, but not so much in connection with overstimulation.
wow, ok i hope that made sense. if not, you can at least be happy i'm taking the art seriously, right? haha anyway, looking forward to the next!
