Genius of Moving Image: Pt 3

1. How did Bjork and Chris Cunningham collaborate on the ‘All is Full of Love’ video?

Bjork originally gave Chris Cunningham a specific concept requirement for the feel and the look of the video, then after showing her the storyboard idea Chris did the production process himself before the end so she could see the results before the release.

2. What techniques were used on the ‘Portishead’ video to create the unusual slow motion effects?

To create the ‘Other Worldly’ look of the video, the actors and musician were shot in water tanks, it was in post-production when the careful process of removing the air bubbles took place. Then the footage was taken into the shot of the ‘dark alley’.

3. What other music video directors have gone on to direct feature films they have made?

Ø  Film Director and producer Michael Bay had worked at ‘Propaganda Films’ directing commercials and music videos, Bay’s  success in music video’s gained a lot of attention which eventually led to him directing his first feature film ‘Bad Boys’ and went onto becoming a famous director with well known feature films like ‘Transformers’ and ‘Armageddon’.

Ø  Another music director is David Fincher, who was set on a directing career also joined the video production company ‘Propaganda Films’ ,and started off directing music videos and commercials which also led to his feature Debut ‘Alien 3’  and other successful movies such as ‘The Panic Room’ and The’ Social Network’.

4. Which famous sci-fi film did Chris Cunningham work on before he became a director?

Cunningham had worked for over a year on the film A.I. before leaving to pursue  a career as a director working under the name of Chris Halls.

5. What makes his work different or original compared to other similar directors?

I believe his background in the film industry as a special effects artist gives him an option on things when it comes to creating ideas, he said that after being in the industry he wanted to improve on his drawing which led to graphic novels which came useful when creating storyboards and planning. The most major quality that he has is that he creates his visual imagery from listening to the music rather than the other way of approaching the music with a fresh new idea.

Genius of Photography: Pt 6

1. How many photographs are taken in a year?

80 billion photographs will be taken this year alone. Today photography is not only worth bidding for, it’s worth fighting for. It’s also worth faking for, the medium has never been more widely appreciated or more eagerly exploited and questions how much a photograph is worth these days.

2. What is Gregory Crewdson ‘modus operandi’?

It looks like a movie sounds like a movie and smells like a movie but it isn’t, all the activity portrayed in Gregory Crewdson work is to make a single photograph, Crewdson uses cinematic lighting to create one single perfect moment, and he is his own camera operator and director of photography. He has a strange disconnection to photography, he doesn’t like holding a camera and he doesn’t take the actual picture images Is what he is truly interested in and that the camera is just a necessary instrument. Over an eleven day shoot in a variety of locations, Crewdson team will make a series of multiple exposures which will be digitally combined to make 6 final images; he’ll produce an addition of 6 final prints of each image priced at approximately 60 thousand dollars.

3. Which prints command the highest price and what are they called?

Prints that command the highest price tags are usually the ones made the photographer themselves; closest to the times the actual picture was taken. Like fine wines these prints are known as vintage.

4. What is a fake photograph? Give an example and explain how and why it is fake.

The image of John Kerry and Jane Fonda at a anti-war rally is an example of a fake photograph, the photograph shows john Kerry and Jane Fonda standing together at a podium during a 1970’s anti- war rally was a hoax. As the original unaltered photo of Kerry taken In June 13 1970 documents the Vietnam war, veteran was sitting alone prior to giving a speech at an outdoor rally, and Fonda was photo shopped in at a later date tells about the troublesome combination of Photoshop and the internet than it does about the prospective  democratic candidate for president.

5. Who is Li Zhensheng and what is he famous for?

Li Zhensheng was red army news soldier, he was a photojournalist who in the 1960’s and early 70’s found himself covering the Cultural Revolution.

6. What is the photographers ‘holy of holies?

 In 1994 British photographer Martin Parr applied to join photojournalism agency Magnum, a prestigious agency, but Parr had to battle long and hard to bring his distinctive brand of photography into photojournalism’s holy of holies. Parr’s work was very different to Magnum, his photo’s have been said to be meaningless but Magnum has developed a reputation which has become known as the holy of holies of famous photographers such as Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier Bresson.

7. How does Ben Lewis see Jeff Walls photography?

Ben Lewis thinks that Jeff Wall didn’t invent photography but he took photography back to the 19^th century to painting where everything is creative everything is constructed for a meaning, He fed in a lot of contemporary theoretical concerns , concerns about gender, about how men and women look at each other concerns about racial stereotyping.

8. Which famous photograph was taken by Frank Mustard?

French photographer Camille Silvy created the seemingly realistic photograph called ‘The River France’; it offers master class in 19^th century photographic manipulation. Silvy arranged where the people should stand so the working class people were in the common land on the right of the picture with an artificial sky that he added. But the actual photograph was not taken by Silvy it was taken by Frank Mustard.

Genius of Photography: Pt 5

1.Who said ‘The camera gave me the license to strip away what you want people to know about you, to reveal what you can’t help people knowing about you’ and when was it said?

In the early 60’s Dianne Arbus roamed the streets although charming and quietly spoken, Arbus quoted this statement. She spoke openly of photography’s power both to steal and exploit other people’s faces and lives, but in taking her pictures she tried in her own words, to be good. Arbus was drawn to society’s marginal characters prowling the side streets and the back alleys of the city in search of the fantastic.

2. Do photographers tend to prey on vulnerable people?

Photographers have always sought out some kind of marginalized subjects; it has been a controversy in recent years of the scholarship of photography whether or not photographers tend to prey on vulnerable people, people who are exposed socially, economically, culturally in some way because photographers could get access to these people if they were out on the streets. Their faces reveal the emotions that we feel when someone wants to take our picture. However the person behind the camera can either feel compassion for the subject or are simply driven by their hungry eye.

3. Who is Colin Wood?

In 1962, Arbus took a picture of a skinny 7 year old boy Colin Wood in Central Park, an image that is once funny, tragic and ghastly, she took many pictures of him that day but chose the one shot in which he clutches a toy hand grenade in one of his tense claw like hands as if seeming to have answered a decade of crazed violence in America. He was a curiosity for her, and captured an aspect of his life when his parents had divorced, but for Arbus she was merely seeking a reflection of herself in the pictures which was her genius.

4. Why do you think Diane Arbus committed suicide?

 Arbus photographed those who showed a genuine awe of those she often referred to as freaks but sometimes called them aristocrats people who in her estimation had already passed their test in life. She was not threatening she was curious her real native curiosity, or her awe of their original individuality that loosened them up to be present for her. She was articulate and poetic her work is unique and is all about her, her work tied into her mood which came along later, and she desperately wanted to be anybody but herself by trying on everybody else’s skin emphasizing the degree of empathy which was rare in any art and described that there was seriously something wrong with our culture. But I think Arbus had gotten too involved with the subject and who she was photographing that her work had portrayed her anxieties and vulnerabilities in her life .Arbus was herself connected to the many of the cities important tastemakers at the time but not everyone was behind her or agreed with her which could have had an effect on her death as well.

5. Why and how did Larry Clark shoot Tulsa?

Larry Clark first published his book ‘Tulsa’ in 1971; his took pictures of his own life which involved drugs, sex and violence of his life in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was an insider kind of like a photojournalist, in his hands photography became personal as confessional as a written diary because he was one of them not one of us he had opened up a whole new impolite genre.

6. Try to explain the concept of ‘confessional photography’ and ‘what is the impolite genre’?

Confessional photography is about the truth of real life and the misunderstandings of the world, intimate scenes that people ignore and don’t want to know about. Whereas impolite genre relates to photographs that are rude, descriptive and exposing that not everyone feels comfortable looking at as well as taking a photograph in that light and in that certain way. That is often disturbing and shocking at times.

7. What will Araki not photograph, and why?

Araki is a promiscuous photographer snapping everything around him, exploiting intimate detailed pictures of his daily life. Araki shoots photography to remember things as it helps you remember, he has come to use photography only to photograph things he wants to remember.

 8. What is the premise of Postmodernism?

The premise of postmodernism is that we now live in a culture so saturated with media imagery and media models of how people live that our initial idea of how one lives one’s life and who one is, is made up of that kind of media myth. In a sense it contradicts the idea of portraiture because the idea that you can dress up and go to a studio and somehow reveal your strength of character or your inherent humanity when that’s not the case. As we don’t have an inherent humanity in the post- modernist analysis of things as we are all these composites of a lot of myths or in other words narratives that are written by other people.

Genius of Moving Image: Pt 2

1. What is the role of the cinematographer in filmmaking?

A cinematographer is a visual psychiatrist, moving in the audience through a movie from here to there and so forth making you as ‘the viewer’ to think the way a cinematographer wants you to think. Where it tells you as the viewer where to look through the control and understanding of light, to compose and create movement these are the 3 elements of cinematography. The cinematographer is the author of light in the film and how it takes part in the story. Where you delve deep into the it, and become part of your subconscious to help develop an idea of how you visually represent a story.

2. Why did director Roman Polanski insist on using hand-held camera in the film China Town?

Polanski used a hand- held camera to shoot the film because it created an intimate and spur-of-the-moment response from the actors. With hand held he was able to get shots that would have had to be done on stages and moving walls. The extreme closeness of the camera towards the actors provides the viewer with an intense voyeurism perspective which was the intended response from Polanski.

3. Name two films which use color in a very symbolic way, and describe what they suggest.

1. The Wizard of Oz (1939) - It differentiates the two universes as Dorothy’s world is shot in black and white where as the world of Oz is shot in Technicolor. It shows major contrast between the two worlds and with this transition the world of color it became an unreal world, a happy place, a fantasy and in that sense Kansas became more real for Dorothy. Color conveys subjective states of perception or time, the metaphors of the everyday human world versus idealized worlds are not consistent.

2. Blue Velvet (1986)- Light had contributed a lot to the story, and the theme of the film was the idea of a polarized world, this theme is especially evident throughout the film which utilizes shadowy and dark cinematography portrayed in the film,  to depict some of the unseen aspects lurching behind the Utopic façade of the town. The use of color imagery throughout the film helps evoke the fakeness conveyed by the suburban town that it is in fact a wonderful place to live without a dark side.

4. In the film ‘Raging Bulls’ why was the fight scene filmed at different speeds?

By using different frame speeds in the fight scene the director was able to control the audience’s emotions towards the film drawing their feelings at a pace intended. The fight was filmed in real time which kept a pace to the action but the ‘over- crank’ side of ring shots were filmed in a much slower and dramatic way, drawing you into the role of the character by stepping into the characters shoes before being flung back into the action.

5. Who is the cinematographer for the film Apocalypse Now and what is his philosophy?

Vittorio Storara is the cinematographer for the film Apocalypse Now; he believes cinematography is a ‘community’ art not an art form. Unlike photography which he believes is a to be a ‘single’ art form like a painting or writing, his idea of working with light is that it is a group effort with the director leading the way.

Genius of Photography: Pt 4

1. Why did Gary Winogrand take photographs?
American photographer Gary Winogrand took photographs to see what the world looked liked photographed. As well as many other photographers believe, they have always had this as their mission statement.

2. Why did citizens evolve from blurs to solid flesh?

The street had always been an interesting place for photographers but approved to be surreal and was able to record the architecture/landscape because it kept still, where as the life of the street moved too fast for the long exposure times. The first street scenes showed artfully staged setups, but eventually the technology caught up citizens evolved from blurs to all to solid flesh and gradually a visual language left a blurs and grains that is unique to photography.

3. What was/ is the much misunderstood theory?

Henri Cartier Bresson’s much misunderstood theory was the decisive moment it was explored in photography that once you get the drift of it, the feel the energy of it you want to go back again and again because it’s where life seems to be going. Out on the street being in this river of humanity and seeing unexpected incidents occur makes you grab the moment and put meaning behind it.

4. Who was the Godfather of street photography in the USA?

Gary Winogrand became a pack leader of hungry young street photographers he was driven and he was a nervous energy and things responded to this energy, things were always happening when he was around.

5. Who was Paul Martin and what did he do?

Paul Martin was a British photographer, in 1896 he went to Great Yarmouth seaside using a camera that he disguised as a brown paper parcel the pictures he took show the magic of the beach at work.

6. Who said ‘When I was growing up photographers were either nerds or pornographers’?

Edward Ruseha had stated that photographers were nerds or pornographers as there was no redeeming social value to somebody who has a camera who takes pictures. They were about things rather than people, surface rather than soul and not the human drama of the street but the taken for granted backdrop against which the drama plays out.

7. Why does William Eggleston photograph in color?

Eggleston took color at face down, because pictures need to be structured but structuring a colored picture is different because color is more dominant. Color can twist the whole content of the picture.

8. What is William Eggleston about?

William Eggleston’s pictures contain all the acute observation of a mater street photographer like Winogrand but the brightly colored surfaces made them unreadable. Eggleston was a man of few words; he called his pictures democratic adding that he was at war with the obvious. Wherever he goes the world travels with him.

Genius of Photography: Pt3

1. What is described as one of the most familiar concepts in photography?
In 1933 something was captured in Paris by Henri Cartier Bresson armed with a revolutionary new camera, he had shot a moment that took only a fraction of a second to shoot but came to be known as a ‘decisive moment’ that is the most familiar concept in all of photography. It has become a strategy that has illuminated photography’s potential for everyone. His decisive moments transformed the faces of photography.

2. Should you trust a photograph?
Trusting a photograph was probably a huge mistake from the beginning, however people still believe photographs.

3.  What was revolutionary about the Leica in 1925?
The Leica was a revolutionary development in camera technology launched in Germany in 1925,  it was a compact, quiet with the latest lens and technology it gave birth to a whole new style of instant photography and allowed you to be present in the moment as well as glide through the moment.

4. What did George Bernard Shaw say about all the paintings of Christ?
People believe the pictures it’s the photograph that’s in your passport not a painting because paintings are less visually expressive than the actual photographs. As for George Bernard Shaw he  said that he would exchange every painting of Christ for one snapshot which is what the power of photography is.

5. Why were Tony Vaccaro’s negatives destroyed by the army censors?
The ten roles that Vaccaro developed were destroyed by the army censor as they had contained images of dead GI’s that were decisive moments that the world wasn’t yet ready to accept during that time.

6. Who was Heinryk Ross and what was his job?
Heinryk Ross along with a 160 Polish Jews had works at the site of the infamous ghetto in Woodge, Poland. It was incarcerated for 4 years until the ghetto was shut down in 1944, Ross was a photographer who kept a unique record of what happened there. Among his many duties as the ghetto’s official propaganda photographers Ross had to document the production of goods by the inhabitants of Woodge sold to make money for their captors.

7. Which show was a ‘Sticking plaster for the wounds of the war’, how many people saw it? And what cliché did it end on?
The ‘Family of Man’ was an exhibition held in New York in 1955; it was a public statement on behalf of humanity and was photography’s big response to a world rapidly moving from hot to cold war. The show was comprised of over 500 images that were selected from millions of images, from 273 photographers both amateur and professional. The show had over 9 million visitors by 1964; it was a sticking plaster for the wounds of war and represented everything photojournalism’s deity Henri Cartier Bresson stood for. It had concluded with an optimistic cliché that it was the beginning of the sentimental journey through life.

8. Why did Joel Meyerowitz photograph ground zero in color?
Joel Meyerowitz photographed ground zero in color because photographing it in black of white would have kept it as a tragedy because it had a tragic element in photographing not war per se but the collapse of it, but only resulted in destruction. Our human hard drive creates a series of still photographs within our brains, if they were domestic, international or of family of birth or of death but what Meyerowitz was trying to achieve was to record history as it is too important not to and that making direct contact with the human hard drive helped record for all time a sense of what happened during 9/11. Shooting in color helped show how the destruction and chaos was at the time.

Genius of Moving Image: Pt 1

1. List two specific key relationships between Sam Taylor Wood's photography and film work.
Sam –Taylor Wood’s work expresses a juxtaposition of photography and moving image, her work purely consists of people and the emotions that people and the state of being. The photographs she produces examine through the highly emotional scenarios, and the social or psychological conditions in terms of a split between being and appearance.
2. How does the use of multi-screen installation in her work reflect narrative?
The use of multi screen installation in her work reflects narrative in a way that shows it is constructed rather than one that is being dictated to you. By piecing it together it can result in dysfunctional narratives that sometimes don’t work, but film is highly influential in her work as her influence is based on idea that film makes you feel as if you are entering a magical mystery tour of someone’s mind, which is what she interprets in her work.

What other photograaphers use film as an integral part of their work? List two with examples.

Gregory Crewdson an American photographer who makes images in small town America, he is best known for elaborately staged scenes which are quite dramatic and cinematic, although his work doesn’t consist of moving image, his photographs filmic settings that feature often disturbing but surreal events.

Another photographer who recently integrates film as part of his work is my favorite Fashion photographer Tim Walker; he brings all the fancy and intricate scene-making so fundamental to his renowned fashion photography. His first short film ‘The Lost Explorer’ is an exception to his creative work.

Research three video artists and explain their working philosophy.

1. Tim Burton an American filmmaker and artist, is famous for his dark, quirky themed movies such as Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate factory and Alice in Wonderland. Burton’s work is expressed through artistic visualization which he had discovered in his childhood, through his sketches and photographs Burton brought together all forms of art and cinematic ephemera to his films. His strength lies in his unique style of thematic fantasy life and emotional core that is captured in his work, it creates a sense of feeling of being in a dreamscape or in someone’ s mind is his visual theory that is integrated in his work.

2. Another filmmaker is James Cameron, who from early childhood had a huge interest in science fiction stories and fantasized about the making of motion pictures. This is what his main focus to the day is. He integrated his interests of science and art into his work which makes his work unique and effective, his films create a sense of a dreamscape of a world that revolves around science fiction, and his films like Terminator, Titanic and Avatar explore his unique interest.

‘I love the idea of being in another world and anything that transports me to another world is what I’m interested in’- (James Cameron).

3. Guillermo Del Toro is a director, producer, novelist, screenwriter and designer. He is best known for his creative fims such as Hellboy and Blade, his films draw heavily on sources as diverse as weird fiction, fantasy and war. He has always had persistant interest in fantasy and drawing monsters from his imagination. He has made action hero comic book adaptation to historical fantasy and horror films. His interpretations of mythological creatures and monsters is higly influenced within his films he believes monsters have multiple values and how you use them determines how they are portrayed as symbols of great power. He believes that all creatures, like angels and demons, vampires etc are characters that are living breathing metaphors which he has created from his own personal beliefs and values on life and religion.
As a screenwriter Toro beleives that 50 percent of narrative is the audio/visual storytelling, screenplay is the basis of it all but doesn't tell the movie it tells the story but doesn't tell the movie it tells the story but doesn't tell the whole movie. A lot of the narrative is in the details. Also he thinks:

Fairy tales tell the truth, not organised politics, religion or economics, those things destroy the soul, that is the idea from Pan's Labyrinth and surfaces to some degree in all my films'.

Show an example of a specific gallery space or a site specific location where a video artist or filmmaker has created work specifically for that space and been influenced by it.

An example of a specific location is Alnwick Castle, it has been used in number of film and tv programs including the book adaptation films of Harry Potter by author J.K. Rowling and producer David Heyman. It is probably best known as being the location of Hogwarts, the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The exterior of the castle is used for the exterior of Hogwarts shots, the famous Quidditch match and the broomstick lessons is set within the ramparts portrayed in scenes from the harry potter movies. It has also been used for other featured productions such as Elizabeth Taylor and Robin Hood the Prince of Thieves. It's an imposing place and can help you imagine the area around to be considered the famous town of Hogsmeade.