Project 1B: Film & Sequence
A man with a movie camera tells how the author Deziga Verto made a documentary about a day in Soviet life, a documentary about a documentary, and pictures of audiences watching the film. It was taken with his camera in the 1920s. There was no advanced drone technology at that time, and photographers had to go to many places in person (such as high places or under the train).
At the same time, "He(Deziga Verto) believed that in the new society the USSR was attempting to create, fiction film would just be reproducing stereotypes, character types, clichéd plots, all the bad scripts. His idea was that the camera doesn’t need any of this to explore the world, that he could create different arrangements of image and sound that could be completely interesting on their own.”(John MacKay,2015) so I chose the most basic way, using my phone to shoot on the media and tools, and then go downstairs to make a movie, trying to abandon the construction of a complete story first, but only through the arrangement of images to describe my life.
Symmetrical pictures and dynamic and static switches can often be seen in A man with a movie camera， so in the shooting process, I also chose a symmetrical composition to deliberately record the movements of people and cars. Also, I chose the black and white filter to focus on the light and shadow contrast.
As the early pioneer of the documentary film, A man with a movie camera as the pioneer style of experimental film is very obvious. "The experimental film is often found on" all-time best of cinema "lists and is a staple of introductory film studies courses today." (Kendall Teare, 2019) Dziga Verto uses very influential film techniques such as dissolve, slow motion, and so on. The content of the film itself is covered up by the form, which shows more of the visual feeling brought by the lens itself than the narrative.
In terms of shooting order, I didn't get a very clear answer from the original, so I started the film from indoor to outdoor. I chose the direction of the cat's eyes as the beginning of the movie, then I gradually walked into a farther environment, and finally returned to my room. After Week 3: Studio Presentation - Interim, I modified my lens order to make their arrangement better show my life and tried to take the phone out of the window or near the splash to show a perspective that only a camera could do. But I kept the name I chose for my film when I first shot-move because I wanted to describe the moving signs of life around me through the camera, and all the moving scenes are telling my life in their dynamics, which is more direct than any narrator.
At the same time, "He(Deziga Verto) believed that in the new society the USSR was attempting to create, fiction film would just be reproducing stereotypes, character types, clichéd plots, all the bad scripts. His idea was that the camera doesn’t need any of this to explore the world, that he could create different arrangements of image and sound that could be completely interesting on their own.”(John MacKay,2015) so I chose the most basic way, using my phone to shoot on the media and tools, and then go downstairs to make a movie, trying to abandon the construction of a complete story first, but only through the arrangement of images to describe my life.
Symmetrical pictures and dynamic and static switches can often be seen in A man with a movie camera， so in the shooting process, I also chose a symmetrical composition to deliberately record the movements of people and cars. Also, I chose the black and white filter to focus on the light and shadow contrast.
As the early pioneer of the documentary film, A man with a movie camera as the pioneer style of experimental film is very obvious. "The experimental film is often found on" all-time best of cinema "lists and is a staple of introductory film studies courses today." (Kendall Teare, 2019) Dziga Verto uses very influential film techniques such as dissolve, slow motion, and so on. The content of the film itself is covered up by the form, which shows more of the visual feeling brought by the lens itself than the narrative.
In terms of shooting order, I didn't get a very clear answer from the original, so I started the film from indoor to outdoor. I chose the direction of the cat's eyes as the beginning of the movie, then I gradually walked into a farther environment, and finally returned to my room. After Week 3: Studio Presentation - Interim, I modified my lens order to make their arrangement better show my life and tried to take the phone out of the window or near the splash to show a perspective that only a camera could do. But I kept the name I chose for my film when I first shot-move because I wanted to describe the moving signs of life around me through the camera, and all the moving scenes are telling my life in their dynamics, which is more direct than any narrator.
Reference list
Kendall, T. (2019, August 12). Yale film scholar on Dziga Vertov, the enigma with a movie camera.
Yale News. https://news.yale.edu/2019/08/12/yale-film-scholar-dziga-vertov-enigma-movie-camera
