Cinema seminar about video art forms
The alphabet for a substantial video art by Kyriakos Chatzimichailidis
«small, poetic and visual»
Text - Script – Direction
Narration – Image – Sound – Editing - Completion
A 4-day direction seminar with a total duration of 20 hours in 6 meetings, about gaining insight into very small video art projects inspired by poetry. “Breaths”, a modular project in the video art form and aesthetic, consists of 18 brief, standalone pieces about Greek poetry and will be the basis for the condensed teaching regarding their creation process, including the selection of texts, narration, editing, selection or creation of image and sound, completion, and promotion.
Film language grammar and the aim of such a creation, distribution of the pieces along with the deeper philosophy of such a project intertwines poetry with image and sound, risking a conjunction where the dangers against the essence of creating are far greater than the safety of a conventional approach.
Seminar structure:
1. Introduction to the concept of poetic speech. Poetry through the pen, poetry through the microphone, poetry through the lens. Poetry in cinema.
2. Screening of the “Breaths” film. Discussion about the film, as well as its individual pieces.
3. The text matter.
4. Acting and the matter of narration.
5. Time in poetry and cinematically narrative time.
6. The image problem. Accompanying? Contrapuntal? Supplementary? Distant? Emotional? Complex? Plain? Dictating? … Image as “clothing” of the poetic speech. Attention always on the visual aesthetic result.
7. Filming. Introduction to the Computer and the editing programme.
8. A sense of satisfaction or disappointment. Continuation or interruption. Repetition.
9. Emerging inner time. Necessity of sound.
10. Music. Editing or creating music. Combining music pieces. Attention always on the visual aesthetic result.
11. Leading poetic creation to a new cinematic creation.
12. Silence, rhythm, style, atmosphere, environment, thoughts, meanings, the observer and the observed, the final correlation.
13. Titles.
14. Colours and sounds. Effects.
15. Completion, distribution of the material, its modifications, the final film, its promotion, printed material.
16. Many issues arising from the questions and the creative discussions during the seminar will be the subject of study and discussion.
The seminar is coordinated by Kyriakos Chatzimichailidis (director, producer, and creator of “Breaths”).