day three: this has been probably the most intense day – again full of watching and discussion.
themes and subjects: think about the themes that excite you and that you are interested in – the impetus for your future films. what do you want to address in your work? in the ‘Art of Time’, Tarkovsky says making and creative act is a generous act of giving.
each of us described some of the themes we are interested in exploring and the following filmmakers were mentioned as sources of reference –
McLaren: canadian filmmaker Norman McLaren asks us to define the tangible materials of our practice.
Mick Leigh: british filmmaker suggest that film is a division between art, sex and life.
Herzog: german filmmaker interested in film as poetic diary form. uses improvisation of actors rather than script. themes include nature and environment.
landscape: filmmakers interested in landscape include Peter Hutton (study of a river) and Jonas Mekas (Lost Lost Lost) check out: https://film-makerscoop.com/filmmakers/jonas-mekas
Jeff Keen: playful approach to filmmaking, mixes the poetic, music, family and body in his work. check out: https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-jeff-keen-films-1983-online
perspective: from what perspective is your lens – human, animal, community based?
Franz Warthog: fuses body, makeup, theatre aspects
Derek Jarred: personal filmmaking, use of super 8 shorts, check out: ‘Blue’ and ‘Caravaggio’
Giles Deleuze: philosopher, writer on all things including film. discusses art and creative acts in the animal kingdom.
questions for ourselves: where was i? where am i now? where am i going? write a biography about yourself, nourish ideas.
homo sapiens project in relation to your work: adopt a cinematic mindset rather than a made film mindset. homo sapiens expands 20 years of gathering, up to 19 hours, the joy of working on things, continuous project, life long project of filmmaking, a work in progress, a scientific approach to filmmaking like Werner Herzog, dreams, surreal, often ambiguous. make films without names, don’t over direct the audience, think about when is the place for an audience to your making, make for the sake of making rather than an end point in mind. digest the history of filmmaking, explore how things work side by side. look at what things interest you and influence you. create an ongoing project, experiment, construct and deconstruct, remember chaos is a creative act, create an archive. is art about mortality and not forgetting? document all you do in a way that works for you. examine how ideas develop through your filmmaking, develop work just for yourself without an audience, use and reuse ideas. be eclectic. the context of recording will find its context. collapse boundaries between different realities, abandon the understanding of things, go to the source of your concerns, gather and play, something will emerge, something will continue. what do we do in an image saturated world – do we slow it down or respond to it, do we compete? experimental work if authentic and personal will connect with others. give yourself some parameters to work – e.g. explore split screen, inversion, light, shade, a particular colour, a movement, a viewpoint, analogue processes etc. embrace setting up rules – e.g. only 1 min long takes etc. funnel your ideas from general to specific through the material process of cinema. grasp the consequences of what you have lived. present your unseen self while searching for yourself. examine formats of film essays, film poetry. films are moments of experience. films are mixes of inner and outer life.
analogue processes: check out services and cooperative in your area, e.g. Labor Berlin (https://www.filmlabs.org/labs/labor-berlin/), The Camera Club Dublin, Telecine, Fotoimpex Berlin (online shop) play around with playing your work on a projector, go beyond the monitor – new things will emerge through this physicality. explore bleaching and decomposing processes to your analogue film. try projecting on different surfaces. watch ‘Forbidden Symmetries’ by Rashidi, Kavanagh, Le Cain.
language: William Burrows states that language is cinematic.
experimental film: a radical pursuit. watch: ‘free radicals’ by Pip Chodorov see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrsGVmuo6R0
experimental film society: watch ‘Anter’ by Hosseini – a film about immigration, alienation, transformation.
resources: sign up to AIMI (Dublin) for resources for experimental film
elaine crowe 
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