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Showing posts with the label Free Radicals

Jean-Luc Godard: "Every Edit Is A Lie"

Radical French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard is still one of the leading figures in the movement to challenge and transform traditional forms of so-called Hollywood filmmaking. Last year, as an exercise in two parts, I created these two video mash ups (essays?) on Godard's own work. [Beneath each video is the original description that was published on its Vimeo page.] SOURCE: Pierrot Le Fou dist. Pathé Contemporary Films MUSIC: "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye (MAKING MIRRORS Album)   Unquestionably one of the most audacious and simultaneously problematic tracking shots in cinematic history, this sequence from Jean-Luc Godard's Week End (1967) succeeds in visually demonstrating a chaotic cross section of human existence. The downside is that we have to (annoyingly) hear cars honking on the soundtrack for nearly eight minutes. In reaction to this, I have manipulated this portion of the film by way of arranging the visuals to ...

Poverty, Pluck & Perseverance: The Life Of The DIY Artist

"I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick." - Maya Deren There is a negative sentiment shared by some in the industry these days toward the term "DIY": For those individuals, going DIY can be a precursor to failure . Of course, that kind of connotation doesn't benefit anyone of us who are plugging away at our own DIY endeavors. As DIY filmmakers, we're prone to suffering. We can take it. This was never going to be easy. Besides, whoever said that the DIY mindset/route was the ticket to becoming a conglomerate movie-producing titan? Or that anyone of us could become blockbuster filmmakers? The line in the sand needs to be drawn. DIY, at its core, is the lifestyle of the true independent artist. It's about risking life and limb (and that's not an exaggeration) to attain a truly fulfilling work-flow of creating engaging and valid content, without compromise. And if we can somehow leverage today's new media tools ...