A couple of weeks
ago I filmed a 12 minute video called Thoughts.
The video was shot
pointing down at my feet as I walked along the river Mersey in Manchester
heading towards Didsbury. And that's it, pretty much.
The video came out
of three influences. The primary influence being an online review of Gus Van
Sant's film Gerry.
In the review, the
film was discussed in connection with things believed to be an influence on it.
They included: a long scene, shown only in part, of people walking away from
the camera from Béla Tarr's Sátántangó, which I have not yet seen; the long takes
of Andrei Tarkovsky; and the way in which characters in games often have to
walk from one location to another, the example given being Tomb Raider.
The first of these
was beautiful to watch, and appears to have been drawn as a comparison by
critics. Tarkovsky was mentioned more as an example of slow takes, rather than
a direct influence. Finally, the Tomb Raider and gaming connection is one drawn
by Van Sant himself in an interview.
I was particularly
struck by his insight that this process of getting from one place to another
often takes up a large part of games, but is usually omitted from films. This
made him interested in replicating that experience of gaming in his film.
Also memorable were
the shot from Sátántangó, and even more so, a shot from Gerry itself. In this,
the camera tracks alongside the two men as they walk through the desert. Only
head and shoulders are visible of the men, but their footsteps, rhythmic and propulsive
can be heard loudly on the soundtrack.
The second influence
was the films of Miklós Jancsó, in particular Red Psalm, which I had recently
seen. Like many of his films it features long scenes where the camera turns
around large groups of people, themselves often in motion or counter-motion to the
camera, frequently with other groups beyond.
The final influence
was Charlemagne Palestine's Island Song (http://vimeo.com/4377234),
in which the musician and composer rides a motorcycle around an island while
hollering and occasionally chanting.
My idea was merely
to make a reasonably long take of my feet walking. I wanted to capture the
rhythmic fascination of the scene from Gerry. I did so, and the result was
Thoughts:
Almost straight away
I thought it would have been more interesting to either have had more varied
terrain underfoot, or to have filmed myself walking barefoot - especially in
cold and wet weather.
In the event last
weekend I set out to do both those things together. The venue was Pomona Strand
and Pomona Island, and the video this time ended up around 16 minutes long.
The experience
itself was the coldest and most painful experience of making a film I've yet
had. Although I stood on a couple of bits of blackberry bushes, most painful to
walk on (or in) were loose stones and the pools of cold water.
Unlike Thoughts this
video, called Place, was more hesitant and less metronomic, as you might expect
from someone trying to avoid hurting his feet more than necessary. However, it
was also much more of a performance piece.
This may be
something I develop further, though I'm not yet sure quite how. I am pretty
clear that I don't want to just point the camera at my own feet again. There
are more variations on that theme I can try, but they don't particularly
interest me at present.
Anyway, Place:
