Train Songs

From: JEFFREY PAULL (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Mar 29 2009 - 05:32:32 PDT


On Thu 19/03/09 09:27 , Ted Sonnenschein email suppressed sent:
> Hello there,
>
> I mentioned and pointed towards my work earlier when we were talking
> about the reconstruction of Bill Brand's subway installation but I
> wanted to share a recent collection I put together and open it up to
> any criticism on- or off-list. Here is a sort of write-up that I have
> been working on and any thoughts or criticisms would be appreciated. I
> haven't had much response from festivals and such and not that it
> is discouraging me from working, it has been a bit discouraging. I
> guess I am just wondering what people make of it--if anything, and if
> it inspires anything to share. The shots that you will say are all
> recorded with sound but I have started to take it off as I am feeling
> it is a bit tiring, first of all, to hear the stations being called
> off and the opening and closing of doors, but also that it takes away
> from the visual impact. Well, anyway, here is the link:
> http://www.vimeo.com/3383756 [1]
>
> my millionth attempt at trying to write something up:
>
> In January 2008 I began to film the city of Berlin as it appears
> through the windows of the S-Bahn. This ongoing project is not only
> about the city, as it changes over time through the lens of the
> camera, but also the train, which reveals itself to be a cinematic
> devise, capable of producing and presenting images for the passengers.
>  The recording of these films all follow the same procedure. They
> begin as the train leaves one station and ends once it arrives at the
> next. There are no post-production changes or effects made to the
> images and the films are only what the train itself presents within
> the glass. The camera, a digital still camera operating under its
> movie functionality, records in what is considered to be low-quality,
> a type typically found in cellular phones. The camera allows minor
> adjustments to be made to either exposure or focal length but only
> before the recording begins. Each shot can last a maximum of three
> minutes, similar to a roll of movie film and enough time to travel to
> most stations. Video, both digital and tape, is hardly considered a
> medium for artistic cinematography, but it is in this category that I
> concentrate concerning the framing and the selection of the exhibited
> takes.
>  This project is a tribute to cinema and the dying medium of
> celluloid motion picture film. The influences come from different eras
> of filmmaking. Early cinema and the first one-shot movies take
> precedence. These films, typically made with a stationary camera, were
> of a particular moment in time—a train arrives into a station,
> workers leave the factory, etc. Also, the impressionistic
> documentaries of cities made in the 1920s and 1930s blended creative
> stylization with contemporary significance--two factors that also play
> a role in how I am regularly working on the project. Finally, but
> equally as important, the amateur medium of 8mm color home movies
> plays an important role as model for the look and quality of the
> shots.
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at .
>
>
>
> Links:
> ------
> [1] http://www.vimeo.com/3383756
>
>

__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.