This short film is particularly interesting as Hewis has created a piece seemingly about life, as a continuing force, using a life size zoetrope to convey his message, a zoetrope was an early device thought to have first been used in 180 AD in china, using painted panels spinning quickly to create the illusion known as persistence of vision, this technique has enabled film to become what it has today, it tricks the naked eye into seeing a moving image, what you are actually seeing is a series of still photographs in quick succession with film usually consisting of 24 to 30 frames per secondThe use of the zoetrope denotes Hewis's interest of film in its entirety, and it is refreshing to see such a landmark discovery sparking the beginning of the the film industry being updated and brought to modern day audiences in a way such as this.
As for the actual film itself, the narrative is the audio, a man speaks about his life from start to present day, played over footage as the zoetrope/spinning fairground circle. This technique connotes a circle of life theme, and could also represent the world spinning. There doesn't appear to be any breaks in the shot once the camera has reached the sketch book that becomes the moving image. This gives it an un-edited feel that could be trying to represent that life is unedited, and the speed of the people whizzing past in the background was dizzying to watch, i felt that they were left in the shot to show the speed that the zoetrope would have to go round at to capture the moving image, but also they could have been left in to represent the speed at which life flies by.
I was hoping to find out if the wheel was actually spinning as the photographs were taken, but i was unable to find this on the internet. but even if not the illusion was all the same, i really enjoyed the concept for this short film, and would look forward to seeing more from this talented young man.
What is interesting is that the film is actually built around the song 'Daybreak express' by Duke Ellington (1947)
It could be considered as the worlds first music video, but even more than the what is amazing about this film is the use of colour and the camera techniques are so far advanced for its time, The opening shots are a fiery orange shade, with black silhouettes of the city, they are static shots, and the only thing that moves in the first few shots is the train, then come the people and the music. The film was made around the time when trains were kicking off on a commercial basis, the every day working man could travel to work on them. The short punchy clips that make up this film could well have been out of artistic choice, although another explanation is that they were filmed on a new generation of portable 16 mm film cameras possibly the bolex (as pictured) that were small and handy but could also only hold 2 minutes of film. So the film would had to of been filmed with either multiple cameras at the same time, or you would have to ride that train up and down at early hours of the morning until you had enough footage.
Bolex 16 mm hand crank camera.The twisting and turning of the camera, and the kaleidoscope effects, were all very adventurous for its time, it also made me wonder whether it could have inspired the french new wave kids of the 60's with Francois Truffaut's 1959 opening scene for 400 blows, showing effectively a camera travelling around paris in a car, a similar theme to Daybreak Express.
Daybreak express was Pennebakers first film, and it sparked a widespread career in documentary film making, but his style has always remained much like his first film, simple and quietly contemplative. "Pennebaker told interviewer G. Roy Levin published in 1971 that "it's possible to go to a situation and simply film what you see there, what happens there, what goes on, and let everybody decide whether it tells them about any of these things. But you don't have to label them, you don't have to have the narration to instruct you so you can be sure and understand that it's good for you to learn." - wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._A._Pennebaker
Strange lights is a short art film by Joe King and Rosie Pedlow made in 2010.
http://vimeo.com/14732196 (30 second clip)
The film is an artistic piece, it runs for 8 minutes and features spooky UFO music and lots of beautifully shot time lapses, and scenic, for me the film seemed to show a use of all natural light as opposed to strange lights, this is interesting, as i am not clear whether i was supposed to have seen something out of the ordinary, or if it was just the UFO music and the night sky that was making me think that i was supposed to. The film was eerie and the static shots with surrealist lighting, the tone of the film was very ambient, quietly suggesting aliens, or UFO sightings in the sky. The time lapse of the stars moving in the sky, evoked a sense that something wasn't quite right with the film, like things were slightly out of sync with the world.
Overall i enjoyed the piece, but i thought it went on for a little too long.
Steel Homes was one of my favourite pieces, it was created by Eva Weber in 2008.
http://vimeo.com/19835851 (Trailer)
The film is a documentary piece on storage containers and the people who store their possessions in them. The opening of the film showed big industrial containers, the context is not clear, and i found that the beginning of the film for me brought to mind an institution of some kind, possibly a prison. But as the narrative comes in it explains the story behind the steel containers. The story is narrated by the interviewees the interviewers voice is cut out, this style connotes that the people are telling the story without the aid of an interviewer, it just gives the story a freer way of unfolding. The slow paced narrative, fits with the tone of the film, it has a sombre reflective quality to the pace, and it trails through the maze of containers. The camera never looks inside the containers, it is as if we are not allowed to look inside, as that is not what is important within the film, what is portrayed are the emotions of the subjects, and how their story affects the audience. The way the narrative works is as though it is an internal monologue, the shots don't show the people speaking, this connotes that the camera is filming what they are thinking inside their heads, and i think this works really well. Some of the themes the film explores are pain, loss and greif. And the way that it is filmed is respectful and thought provoking, it appears unbiased and does not portray the people as so called 'hoarders'.
I thought the way this was filmed was an interesting technique, and it is a style of documentary film making that i would like to explore for myself.
Additional information for this post;
All that is written is my own work, and everything i have quoted has been stated and linked underneath.
Thankyou for reading.
Jay
