lauantaina, syyskuuta 20, 2008

Tools and styles

I must confess that I´ve partly been wrong about certain matters. The fact still is, that computers, cameras, steenbecks, pens and brushes are all just tools to deliver a message and if a letter is written with a quill pen or with a computer the content stays the same. Or does some one disagree?

But, when talking about art and why not letters, there is still something that the tools and the medium delivers and contribute to the wholeness of the work. At an age when it is common to write a letter with email, what would it express if someone sent you a hand written letter, written with an ink quill pen? Well, atleast that he/she has possibly written the letter many times, if the text is clean and there are no errors. Or atleast the writer has thought about it carefully before writing it, and possibly concentrated much more to the actuall writing, drawing the letters, than it would have been necessary with a computer. But does this change the message? If the letter has some bad news
? If it is a love letter, then it could be understood, but almost any other letter would seem odd, don´t you think? So we live in a time when we can choose the appropriate medium for our expressions. Therefore the mediums have an effect to the content, or support it in a way.

So, the choice of editing with a steenbeck has been in line with the choice of shooting in 35mm, and unlike I said earlier, it brings a certain value to it. The only thing is that it might be a value that no one else is able to see, than me, the director and possibly other filmmakers...

Even though some might argue that recieving a love letter written w
ith a quill pen would me too melodramatic or romanticism, this is the problem with little style nuances, everyone has their own opinion about them.

I really look forward to seeing this film on screen, without hearing the sound that the steenbeck makes, and there is a sound every time a cut is coming, cause the tapes have glued to the film while being rolled to the reels, and now they are opening and streching, so I can hear every cut. So I hope that seeing it in a digital form gives me this feel of relief, cause now when watching it, every cut feels kinda bad.


Previously posted view of the digital age-director is much due to my own way of shooting and directing. There has not been a single thing I´ve directed that I´ve hadn´t thought trough editing. I mean, during the shooting I´ve thought "Oh, this I can use from this shot, this from the other one, and lets take few more if something else comes up". And ofcourse this is the way to make an outside editor crazy. I hope there will be a day that I have a chance to work with an editor. I really look forward to it and I am planning to use an editor I ever get a film done.

And as I some time a go stated during the shooting of my own short film, shootin a lot of material is not a sign of "indecisivines", sometimes that is the only way to get the look for the film that is carefully planned. So it is not like if the is a lot of shots and variation, that it means that director does not know what he wants, usually it is the opposite. It about the style of the storytelling. But I think this kind of style has grown with digital editing.

As I spoke about the clear and unclear material before, well, the situation was that the mechanics of using steenbeck took most of my energy and I might have been a bit frustrated about it, so this may have had some effect on my creative thinking :)

But, the experience of editing with film has given me insight more about my self as an editor, than it has about editing a film. Cause editing stays the same, but my attitude and my abilities to use the tools change. This has been interesting.
But I leave deeper contemplation for later.

Ei kommentteja: