art student
We did as many shots as we could think of so that we could choose the best ones. Some came out better than others, but with this sort of filming it’s all about trial and error.
We decided on which shots looked best at different times, and used our chosen three types of camera.
Filming style is very fragmented and confusing.
The main character falling into madness is very similar to our short film and I think using some of the techniques shown in this film will really help ours be effective too.
For example the very first scene is just blurs and voices, I, as a viewer felt disorientated and this is a good way to depict someone not sound of mind.
There is also overlays of images in some parts of the film, showing an inability to focus on one thing at once.
I think it’s also effective how we often hear the characters own breathing as it makes the viewer feel like it’s them- and having the camera see what he is seeing, and having it blurred and shaky- I would like to incorporate this into our video. This was a very effective way of depicting madness.
To clearly show the transition from sane to mad, we decided to put her in different clothes for the different states of mind.
When she is seemingly normal, we put her in very normal dark clothes and had her do normal things.
When the madness took over, we put her in the ‘artists top’ which is basically a white too covered in paint.
The two costumes represent the two states of mind.
Here I was playing with the movement of the paint, and what would make the most dynamic shot.
To tie all aspects of our artist video together I thought that we could begin and end it with an umbrella scene. The umbrella will represent repression, and the paint will represent madness.
The scene at the beginning will depict our artist holding an umbrella over her head with paint spilling over the umbrella. The scene at the end will be the artist lowering the umbrella and letting the paint fall on her.
Thus, embracing the madness.
We wanted a transition from mundane to madness, for the line to be slowly blurred between the two.
Therefore we plan to film scenes with our artist in her normal everyday life and have flashes of madness.
‘Normal’ scenes will include her in a classroom situation, and walking around campus maybe. ‘Mad’ scenes will include crazy painting, throwing paint, close up face shots, running around a forest, and random use of paint.
Ways we will merge the two mainly lie in the editing process, but we could also film scenes including quick costume changes from normal clothes to her artist clothes.
As a group we decided that our video would be about an artist slipping into madness. We decided on shooting scenes that look very worker-day, and also scenes which show the artist to be insane and edit it so that the line between reality and madness is blurred.
From further lectures I learned new ways of filming and different ways in which an artist film can be conducted. For example Tacita Dean’s green flash video was mainly dialogue based but still very effective.
I also really really liked Adam Buick’s earth to earth time lapse. Having no music or dialogue made it easier to appreciate the aesthetics, and the beauty of the scene.
I would like to incorporate a short time lapse into our short film.
As a group, we decided on the idea that our film will be about an artist becoming mad the further invested she gets into her art. We will edit it so the line between the real world and the art world is being blurred. We will start filming soon to get a better idea of the equipment that s available to us, but we already have quite a few scenes we are ready to try out.
Even though I don’t plan to make an animated artist film, I find them useful to look at. They have rich story lines, often using no dialogue at all. 
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I especially liked 2gether because of the story line, it was quite simple but it really made me think about communication in relationships today. Most of the short animations I watched had a twist at the end that would throw the viewer of which I thought was effective too. 
I also am looking at some student made films to understand more what is accessible to us.
these films are simple but very very effective. they have much deeper storylines as well which personally made the more engaging.
Identity was my favourite student film I watched. I loved the way it was shot, and the way some of it was edited backwards to reflect the backwards way people think. The message was a profound one about masking your true self, and they made that in a literal sense. Overall it was just a really effective film which relied mostly o story line.
Because I’m not familiar with artists films on the whole, I started by looking at the most well known artist films to get a good overview. 
For example Un Chien Andalou, Luis Buñuel, 1929. This surrealist short film was very odd. it relied solely on the extreme expression and the music. You can tell that this would be more at home in a gallery than a cinema.
Also Salla Tykka, Lasso, 2002, was introduced to me in a lecture. This short film had an odd feel to it as well, but in a different sense. While watching it I felt their was something bigger going on but I couldn’t quite put my finger on. (this is something id like to incorporate into my own film). The music in this piece I found to be very important as well, without it the whole video might have had a comical feel to it- but with the classical music behind it the video became quite beautiful and somehow profound. 
Paul McCarthy’s Caribbean Pirates, 2005 was a completely different example again, but still very weird. A bunch of actors/friends came onto a set that McCarthy had created and played around/destroyed it. with condiments serving as different bodily fluids. the whole thing was completely ridiculous and that was his intention. However I don’t like it and wont be taking any of his ideas on board. 
Lynn Hershman, Teknolust 2002.
This film included a much more sophisticated dialogue. It also relied a lot on colour to portray different things, where the others didn’t. But again it did have an overall strange feeling to it. Less so than the others though.
My personal favourite artist we were introduced to was Pipilotti Rist. In her exhibitions she plays with perspective. for example a giant video of an eye on the ceiling peering down at the viewer to make them feel miniature, or the lady in the top right corner had to be viewed through a tiny hole in the floor to make the viewer fell giant. this artist made me realise that presentation is very important to. So I’m excited to play around with it.
Rachel Gibson 