IM1 – Week Four Reading

Okay so speeding over these last few points before this post turns into a novel. (To be fair, the reading was pretty much a novel in itself first).
The remainder of the article focuses on different types of film.

Experimental film (Films that are independent of the big studio companies. They challenge the rules society have set for what a movie should and shouldn’t include. These films heavily involve the filmmaker exploring the medium. The film may or may not actually tell a story, if it does – it will question the viewer, challenging them as an audience.)

Types of form in Experimental Films:
ABSTRACT These films are “often organised in a way we might call theme and variations” (357). The film focuses on repetition, and grouping like entities, though they gradually begin to differ, slowly moving away from the beginning material. 

ASSOCIATIONAL These films are exactly that. They make us look for the association between seemingly random images, which at first glance have no immediate relationship. However, the fact that they have been grouped together causes the viewer to search for the connection. “The juxtaposition (between images) has no narrative connection, and the pictorial qualities are not as strongly stressed as they would be in (abstract form). Instead they evoke the idea of impersonal, routine sameness…” (363)

Then we move onto Animated films (work created in the production stage to show images that are usually not available to the viewer), and Documentary films, which are “organised as narratives” (342) and spoken about in two different forms. The first, categorical, are explained to be exactly that. Groupings of events, places, things… anything in order to make sense of the world. “In categorical form, patterns of development will usually be simple. The film might move from small to large, local to national, personal to public and so on.”
(343). The next form of documentary discussed is Rhetorical form, something seen regularly in the media today. This form tends to take the aim of persuading the viewer to the filmmakers opinion or argument.

So what does all this have to do with seeing what we’re aiming towards, you ask?
From this reading (which, as I said, despite it’s length was one of the more enjoyable reading we’ve encountered) I was really able to see a connection, not only to other classes we’re taking part in at the moment, but to what we’re doing in IM1. All these factors are what we have to think about when we’re creating out short sketches. Do they even have a narrative? Are we trying to convince the viewer of something? Are they even related? What am I trying to show? 
Honestly, until now, I hadn’t given the individual sketches much thought, but rather I had just been following the weekly constraints. Despite this, I do feel there is something that is similar between the sketches – something holding them together.
I wouldn’t say that I am trying to created a narrative. I’m not trying to tell a story through my sketches. (this would obviously have to have been decided at the very beginning before I even picked up the camera). If anything, the majority of us would be creating abstract or associational films.

(all quotes taken from http://vogmae.dropmark.com/163186/2953582)