Inferno! from nowhere london on Vimeo.
Showing posts with label summer school. screening event. Show all posts
Showing posts with label summer school. screening event. Show all posts
Wednesday, 30 July 2014
Wednesday, 16 July 2014
Learning how to use the Rostrum Camera
"A rostrum camera is a specially designed camera used in television production and filmmaking to animate a still picture or object. It consists of a moving lower platform on which the article to be filmed is placed, while the camera is placed above on a column. Many visual effects can be created from this simple setup, although it is most often used to add interest to static objects. The camera can, for example, traverse across a painting, and using wipes and zooms, change a still picture into a sequence suitable for television or movie productions.
The controls of the camera differ considerably from those of a regular motion picture camera. The key to its operation is one or more frame counters. These enable the camera operator to roll the film backwards and forwards through the film gate, and to know exactly which frame is being exposed at a given time. Also key is the way the operation of the shutter is completely independent from the film transport, so a given frame may be exposed a number of different times, or not at all. Very long exposures are also possible, so that title streaks, zooms and other special effects can be created by keeping the shutter open while moving the camera head up and down the column; rotating or moving the lower platform from side to side; or doing both at the same time. For some of these types of effects, the artwork may be a transparency, which is back-lit by a light source below the table surface.
The camera's film gate is also different from that of a regular motion picture camera, in that fixed pins hold each film frame in place while it is being exposed. This "pin-registered" gate means that the film can be wound backwards and forwards through the camera head many times, but will always return to exactly the same place without any shifts of the film frame. Such precise repeatability is required for multiple exposures, traveling mattes, title superimposition, and a range of other techniques.
The camera is connected to a mechanism that allows an operator to precisely control the movement of the lower platform, as well as of the camera head. The lower platform is often called an animation compound table.[1] In a modern setup a computer controls the horizontal, vertical and rotational movements of the compound table, the "zooming" (lowering and rising) of the camera head on the column, and the lens bellows."
The Rostrum camera at no.w.here
Six Characters In Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello as interpreted by the Summer School Participants
Six Characters In Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello as interpreted by the Summer School Participants working with instructions set by the artist Cally Spooner.
Instructions set by Cally and Ed to group A
Group A interpret the play and translate it for group B
Group B perform the interpretation for Group A
Member of Group A writes the following:
A performance written.
Okay, so this is our material.
These are our instructions.
And this line says your 'on stage'.
So...what have the other group been doing all morning?
Well, I guess they have been meticulously preparing this bit of script for us, really taking it seriously you know?
Well! They definitely got the good end of the stick didn't they?
It shouldn't be a fully prepared and planned play, but a play that 'happens'
A play that simply happens?
So maybe that means we improvise, we just kindof go for it.
Hey but what about the characters?
'Some of the characters will be played by the same person.'
Benito! Why are you running around? Calm down.
You should definitely be the director!
'A tree, a butterfly, a woman' – I am not reading that one!
What about this part, what about if we say this part in unison, stairing at a member of the audience. What about we turn this on its head, make them feel concious, afterall they really deserve it!
Yes yes, stare at someone while saying 'and then she took off her braisserie.'
What about if we sit and have this conversation in front of them?
Don't be defeatist!
I'm not!
I'm sure we have parts that we can play naturally, ones that we have to play everyday, like at work, do you have one?
Of course.
What did Satre call it, 'In bad Faith'
'Would you like any desert with that?' (Cheri smiles falsely)
Benito: To make a movie all you need is a gun and a woman
The camera is like a gun!
A feminist once said that.
How shall we begin.
Laura walks to the other side of the room, 'This is where the audience comes in'
Yes Laura, do that! Do exactly that.
If we make one promise it has to be that, we start the play like that.
Adam, are you okay?
I'm fine.
I don't like this game.
Okay, lets share the texts out, everyone take two parts.
Did you just?
Did you just?
Did you just throw your texts out of the window?
Yes, I did.
Really?
Yes, yes I did, this is not how I live my life.
Benito didn't I tell you were meant to be the director!
The audience are there but the group are not paying any attention
Two cast members are lying on the floor talking about canals and ice rinks.
You want me to SING?
No no no. Stay.
Gabriel is eating his lines.
Cheri reads something about being a butterfly and a woman.
Don't you remember the part where I said we should all speak in unison and stare at a member of the audience.
Joel, Amy and Cheri sit together in a huddle.
Joel: What was the line again?
Cheri: 'Slowly she takes off her braisserie'
In unison 'Slowly she takes off her braisserie.
Benito is running around,
Laura is seated.
Adam is seated.
Gabriel is going bonkers.
Cheri and Adam have a moment.
Are you okay?
Have I upset you?
Did you really through your lines out the window?
No, they are here.
Oh just say it.
No you say it.
No you say it.
Someone say it.
Say it.
Lets say it together.
(What you didn't know, is that the group have a safe word, a get out of jail card, one word to put an end to all this)
Someone in the audience starts clapping
Don't let him finish us!
SAY IT!
'despise him, despise me'
'despise him, despise me'
'despise him, despise me'
despise him, despise me'
(applause)
Programming as Distribution - What goes into Putting on a Screening
This is the outcome of a number of discussions leading up to a screening event organised Summer School Participants working with Cinenova. Below is a text written to introduce the screening event:
Firstly
we would like to thank Irene, Charlotte and Louise, the members of the
Cinenova working group with whom we worked, for their time and access to
the archive. For those who might not know, Cinenova is a non-profit
organization dedicated to distributing films and videos made by women.
Two
weeks ago, at the beginning of the Summer School, we were invited to
spend the afternoon with the Cinenova archive and the working group; we
spent two days in total watching films, and a morning finalizing the
program.
As
a group of 15, negotiating between us and committing to a selection was
a challenging task; it was difficult accommodating varying expectations
and tastes, as well as working through such a vast and varied archive.
Our selection tries to reflect the variety within the archive and the diversity of the group.
From
this starting point, the films we chose are different solutions to the
representation of community. Home and Dry is a short film made by the
Leeds Animation Workshop in 1987 that addresses different housing
experience and social exclusion. Veronica 4 Rose is a film made for
television, commissioned by Channel 4 in the early 80s and made with
young lesbians aged between 16 and 23 from Newcastle, Liverpool and
London. And B-Sides made by Abigail Child in 1996 is an experimental
film about the Lower East Side.
Whilst
selecting the films certain questions arose: Does there need to be a
parity between the scale of the problem and the scale of the solution;
what form does it take, what does it actually look like. We have picked
three kinds of films that take on different kinds of forms and hope to
represent a community’s struggles and efforts: the boundaries, both
physical and societal, that these communities face.
How
do you represent political urgency? All of these films are to some
extent historical reflections on issues that still exist today.
Finally, we wanted to address some of the themes of the summer school.
Below is a list of the films we ended up screening:
HOME AND DRY?
Leeds Animation Workshop
8 mins colour 1987 UK
Four women fall into conversation in a launderette. As the machines whirl and the powder flows, they talk about their housing experiences, hopes and expectations. None of them would describe themselves as homeless - after all they've never slept out on the street. However, as they listen to each other's stories they begin to understand that homelessness is indeed something they've all experienced.
Home and Dry? analyses the inadequacies of housing policies and examines the political thinking that lie behind them. It reveals how women's housing needs and requirements must be given priority as a vital and neglected component of today's housing crisis.
VERONICA 4 ROSE
Melanie Chait
48 mins colour 1983 UK
Made with young lesbians aged between 16 and 23 from Newcastle, Liverpool and London, this warm and engaging film explores the ups and down of being lesbian in a predominately heterosexual and homophobic society geared to wedding bells and boys.
The young women interviewed speak openly about their experiences of coming out to friends and parents and how in many cases they were told it was only a 'phase' they would grow out of. "If you can go out with boys at 14 and that's OK, why can't you go out with someone of your own sex without it being a crush?" asks one of the young women.
B/SIDE
Abigail Child US 1996 36min
An experiment in entering imaginatively the delirium of the Lower East Side, a poignant and beautiful vision of late twentieth century urban life.
For more Information on Cinenova: http://www.cinenova.org/