From: Zev Robinson (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Mar 05 2006 - 02:22:55 PST
I'm not sure if it was a freudian slip or typo, but thanks for pointing it out, db. I thought I meant to say better, but maybe I didn't.
and thanks for stating publicly that you upgrade your computer approx every one and a half years. I think it a bit odd that people on an internet list would be anti-digital. and would not take into account that everyone on this list have computers anyway. unless of course, to save the planet, people are still using their pentium 2 pc or go to an internet cafe to post to this list.
It's *all* consumerism, and it does bode ill for our species and for the planet, and it's all the same for the planet if the carbon emmissions come from the energy used by an art museum or a multiplex, the ny times or the ny post.
my consumerism is better than your consumerism.
Zev
----- Original Message -----
From: db
To: email suppressed
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2006 5:24 AM
Subject: Re: the word is out: experimental film is available for use on dvd by educators
On Mar 3, 2006, at 8:06 AM, Zev Robinson wrote:
digital technology is here, it's still very new and is changing many aspects of our lives, some for the worse, some for the bad.
Was the above a Freudian slip or a typo? If the former, it bodes ill for our species (and for the planet as long as humans are on it) if our only choice is to settle for worse or bad.
but it's only a tool, and it's what you do with it that matters.
It is only a tool, and what you do with it does matter, but that is not the entire story, as Philip and Brittany so beautifully expressed. Of course, I am typing this on my sixth computer in 10 years. :-P
Brittany (excerpt)
the digital answer to aging & fading is continually buying and throwing away, so we everything is always new & never dies. technological "progress" continues to ignore things like environmental destruction and human alienation. we can' t just disregard life in an effort to see avant garde films more conveniently. anyway, we are currently so overloaded with so many types of synthetic visual & aural options that they more & more only serve to distract us from our deteriorating world.
Philip (excerpt)
I was talking a bit ago to a one time friend of mine (who was clever in this respect) and he said that before so many video editing tools and etc, many film makers had to compose scenes and edit and do this and that all in their head, meaning they had to use more of their imagination and memory ...
This last statement reminds me of the beauty I found in "Roslyn Romance" and "Valentin de la Sierras" by Bruce Baillie. In the case of "RR" Baillie had me project originals (!!!) and in the case of "VdlS" he produced a film that is 10 minutes long from 5 rolls of Kodachrome. Both were heady revelations when people were telling me that 4:1 shooting ratios were unrealistic and that every filmmaker should budget for 10:1 or more. Those camera rolls of Roslyn Romance were breathtakingly complete. Little gems of... simplicity? innocence? history? humanity?
On the topic of shooting ratios, this is one of the worst sides of video (and big budget film) production in my opinion, at least in relation to clear and well conceived "artistic" vision. I would often hear early adopters of video praise the fact that they didn't need to make up their mind while they were shooting video because they no longer needed to worry about huge material costs of film or film roll length limitations anymore. So, instead, they ended up with lots of random, indecisive composition.
No opinion on good or bad from me about that methodology, but I personally like to be clear on what I want to TRY to accomplish before I pick up a camera. Which reminds me of Godard's segment of Wender's "Chambre 666."
In finding the duration of "Valentin" I came across this wonderful little blurb on imdb:
"Plot Outline: Skin, eyes, knees, horses, hair, sun, earth. Old song of Mexican hero, Valentin, sung by blind Jose Santollo Nadiso en Santa Cruz de la Soledad."
Now that's alchemical cinema.
db
__________________________________________________________________ For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.