As part of my preparation for my final project Robin has given me a series of scenes, or stimulus paired with a set constraints. A few took my interest in particular, they provided me a good challenge and here they are

the first

Charles Bukowski wrote

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I have seen dogs with more style than men,
although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance.

Shoot a scene that explores this notion

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I found this really challenging, partly because I could not seem to fully grasp his concept so I sought out the full poem.

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Style is the answer to everything.
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing
To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it
To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art

Bullfighting can be an art
Boxing can be an art
Loving can be an art
Opening a can of sardines can be an art

Not many have style
Not many can keep style
I have seen dogs with more style than men,
although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance.

When Hemingway put his brains to the wall with a shotgun,
that was style.
Or sometimes people give you style
Joan of Arc had style
John the Baptist
Jesus
Socrates
Caesar
García Lorca.

I have met men in jail with style.
I have met more men in jail with style than men out of jail.
Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.
Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water,
or you, naked, walking out of the bathroom without seeing me.

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Now I’m not really one for poetry reading but It seemed to me that there was a pattern in the middle three verses. In the last line seems to in some sense contradict the rest of the verse, but I think it is in this contradiction, or distinction that actually helps define Bukowski’s concept of style. For example the line Bukowski states that doing something dangerous with style is what he calls art, then listing boxing, bullfighting, loving and opening a can of sardines. Opening a can of sardines does not seem dangerous in any sense. Joan of Arc had style, John the Baptist, Jesus, Socrates, Caesar, García Lorca,  I had to google this last one, Garcia Lorca seems to be a french poet, another anomaly in the list. This leads me to my selected verse, ‘Cats have it in abundance’ now it seems there is something more in this line than Bukowski simply noting stylish nature of a cat. Although what I’m still not sure, I think I found this task a little to abstract, or perhaps I just needed to give myself some more constraints.

This brings me to the next task, which was

depict a man shaving his face and/or a woman shaving her legs as a

1:An explanation for aliens;

This one really took my interest, as I’ve been thinking about it over the last couple of days my thought process has felt different to that of a dramatic scene, solving it seemed to pose more of a logical problem, or perhaps a riddle in which  the tool to solve it is the camera.

Here a few of my thoughts on the scene

the problem it poses is :how to convey a sense of an alien without props or any special effects.

I felt that using a voice over might be considered cheating, but may need to resort to it in some sense to explain, however if I do it should be indirect otherwise it would defeat the purpose.

A: through using association, somehow pairing the act of shaving to an alien movement. potentially by juxtaposing movements

B: by manipulating the action somehow, could potentially include filming the shaving in an abstract was to distort human features

C: As a mini narrative, in which we see an the alien watching someone else shaving, then in an effort to assimilate attempting to recreate the action himself.