The first part of this reading by Brakhage was a bit confusing to me. Not because it wasn’t well explained, but let’s take the part about loading a projector for example. Had Andre not taught me how to do this in class last week, I feel I would have been extremely confused while reading about how to do it. While I liked how he explained what all of the different parts were, I know had I not done this hands-on previously I would have been completely lost. This is why I certainly believe film to be a very hands-on learning experience. A book can only teach a person so much in this industry, and while I have learned a lot about film by reading books, I know that I won’t be able to go out and create anything worthwhile just by reading and not by having any hands-on experience, something I know I am getting every week in this class.
This idea of hands on learning is also displayed in Part II when the letter-writer starts to talk about splicing, and then goes on a tangent about glue's and what-not. I had quite a bit of trouble following what he was talking about due to the fact that I had never handled many of the things that he was talking about so I had trouble grasping the specifics. I believe the overall concept was gotten across, but it seemed his goal was to present specifics to an audience, which certainly did not get across to me.
On another note, later in the letter the author writes that although he can not help Gregory in his efforts for his new film, he certainly does not discourage him from doing it. I truly believe in the idea that if you really want to do something, you will certainly be able to do it if you put enough time and effort into it. Especially pleasing to both the author of this letter and myself is if one of these seemingly impossible ideas any individual filmmaker might have will present something new and exciting to the film community, please, by all means, do it! Share it, and maybe others can help to perfect it. And true that if this new creation does turn out to be impossible to project it will be more of a wall hanging or a necklace than an actual film, it certainly wasn't a complete failure. As a film, maybe, but not as a learning experience and insight into how you might go on to create a successful new form that will work as a film.
In part three Brakhage explains how to create a rayogram. I am assuming the "Rayogram" image that Brakhage talks about in the "dark room with a magic wand of light" is an exercise that we are going to attempt in class tomorrow. Whether this is a correct assumption or not, I'm not sure. I'm going by the mention of tiny objects in the reading, and the e-mail that Andre sent us asking us to bring in similarly small objects for an “x-ray” like effect.
Going back to the learning hands-on is better than reading it in a book idea, I don’t know if I would have fully understood this portion had I not gotten that simple e-mail from Andre asking us to bring in these objects and saying they would be used for an “x-ray” effect. Simply using the word x-ray made the whole concept so much easier for me to understand as opposed to Brakhage’s longwinded and somewhat complicated explanation of it all. I can understand why he had trouble explaining it, because again, film is a visual medium and more often than not must be taught as such.
On an ending note, I would just like to note how times have changed since this article was written, for I wish I could just “come across” or go out and easily find an 8mm camera for a mere $10-15.
No comments:
Post a Comment