Tag Archives: GetTheBallRolling

Can a forgery be art? Thats something that I came out of this film wondering. Is the art or the artist more important? It seems, in the eyes of the collectors, that the value of the artwork comes from who drew it, rather than what the artwork says or is. When explaining the problem with a forgery, pure aesthetics cannot be considered. The mere existence of forgeries existing that have fooled art critics/experts reveals that the aesthetic value of the painting is not what brings the value of a forgery down. Any critic who holds the opinion that forgeries are somehow inferior pieces of aesthetic work are exposed to hold an absurd opinion every time a fake piece of art slips through critique and makes it into a collection or a museum or a gallery.

So if not the aesthetic value, what is so wrong about a forgery?

Last year, The Etienne Terrus museam in Southern France was discovered to have 60% of its collection as forgeries after an art historian was asked to rearrange the exhibits. That the many townsfolk and tourists alike were fooled by these forgeries was labelled a disaster by town officials and museum officials. But was the beauty, inspiration, awe and excitement that these paintings awakened in people somehow lesser because of the artist? I would imagine that, had those paintings been actually done by Terrus, the reaction to them would have been identical. Its certainly a talent, one that is trainable, to be able to paint in so many different styles so believably.  Perhaps these forgeries are an artistic discipline in their own right. It just remains to be seen whether any of these forgeries will ever become famous enough to garner monetary value in their own right as fakes, rather than pretending to be painted by someone else.

I think, first of all, the most important thing is hands on. A few of my studios have been very minimal in terms of actual filmmaking, and the project brief from this studio seemed to indicate that there would be a lot more actual filmmaking for the assignments. The news that we would have a filmmaking/photography/podcast etc task every week to work on in the studios on top of the film assessments was music to my ears obviously, thats the kind of thing I was hoping for out of this studio. I’d also like to perhaps bring my outside corporate filmmaking experience into the studio for the photography weeks. This sort of realistic, biographical photography that we explored in week 1 coincides well with my experience in the marketing film industry because these sorts of shoots would definitely be at home in that world. The podcasting elements are interesting as well, I’m very limited in terms of experience in producing any kind of audio outside of music, but the medium itself is something that I sink a lot of time into, and have always thought about perhaps producing/creating my own podcast.

But my passion, and what I want to explore most throughout this studio, is creative filmmaking in all shapes and forms.

In terms of a tangible goal, I’d like to get to the end of the semester with a film that I’m happy to put into my portfolio and use to advertise myself as a filmmaker. There has been a significant lack of that in this course, last semester being the first time that my studio was actual completely focused on filmmaking and produced two pieces of work that are welcome additions to my folio.

When I saw these three girls laughing their heads off I knew that they’d make great subject for this Eve Arnold inspired photo essay. The girl on the right was very tentative about having their photo taken, but the other two were completely unphased by the shots. Especially the girl in the middle, who wasn’t camera shy in the slightest. Their conversation eludes my memory, but the three of them continued to share an honestly impressive amount of laughter throughout the time it took to take the photos.

The girl on the left drew my attention, she was somewhat separated from the other 2. They were laying back, leaning on each other while this girl sat with her legs and a bag between herself and the conversation. All three girls seemed to be great friends, through the conversation I never got the feel that any two girls were closer with each other than the third, but her body language somewhat distanced herself from the ongoing laughter.

This shot is the only real evidence of any nerves in the shoot. Outwardly, she seemed absolutely unconcerned by the presence of the camera lens. Her hand however nervously played with her lighter throughout the shoot after she lit another cigarette. She went through two in the 5 or 10 minutes that we were shooting. Her bracelet caught my eye too “It Girl” is strangely apt considering she was the girl that immediately stood out to me, among three girls that themselves stood out to me on the steps of The State Library.