Scores for Project 3

Hey everyone.  As promised, I'm posting several scores by both filmmakers and music composers as examples of what you might do for your own scores. 

I took several examples from here:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/5-12-examples-of-experimental-music-notation-92223646/?no-ist

Kubelka

"Twenty-four frames, which you feel , which you always feel" - Kubelka
I had never considered the commonalty between frames per second and notes per measure. They share the principle of rhythm. "Cinema is not movement"  -Kubelka Most would respond with, No it is movement. Kubelka explains that each frame is a still image. We are simply viewing still images, not actual movement. The still images are show to a rhythm found in the flow of twenty-four frames per second. Each second is the equivalent of a measure of music. The emphasis of your own reality and understanding that you cannot truly understand any other reality really stands out in my mind. I am a creator and with each creation I find a meaning behind it. If you create something based on something in your reality, it won't necessarily be completely be understood by someone living a different reality. "The danger in film-making lies in thinking that bringing nature to people will be useful"-Kubelka. Film making brings the creator's world. This world is different for your own reality and can be interpreted in an infinite amount of ways by viewers.

Creating something locked to our own reality is not a hindrance, it's a reality~
Filming at 24fps (or any fps really) won't ever be the same I think, thanks Kubelka!

Kubelka's Rebellious Pragmatism

Kubelka’s most interesting statement in this article is that “cinema is not movies,” which conflicts a bit with the previous Eisenstein article.  While Eisenstein made movies delving into experimental techniques, Kubelka is harkening back to the ideas previously communicated by true avant-garde arbiters like Brakhage and Smith.  Kubelka seems interested in bucking trends and defying expectations yet adhering to some formulaic means of doing so. 

The story surrounding Schwechater is the best example of this.  The struggle between creative expression and corporate interests is a long fought bout.  Every new company wants to be “edgy,” but when a corporation seeks out the assistance of an avant-garde artist to communicate their vision, the result very rarely results in an eye-to-eye meeting between the two.  While Kubelka was not concerned with creating a “coherent” publicity piece for the titular company, he still used a system of rhythm and loops to create a complete piece that also used aspects of the product at the heart of the film (i.e. – the color red, film shot on site at a restaurant of models drinking the beer, etc).

While there is a focus on the “metrical” aspects of his films in the breakdown of his frame-by-frame systems or frame-to-whole ratios, Kubelka’s rebellious attitude is what fascinated me most in this reading; his rebellious attitude and the last bit that explores ideas of the ecstatic in filmmaking (and art in general). 

It’s interesting that Kubelka equates the ecstatic with death, to break free of the routine dirge of life.  It is even more odd then that Kubelka seems to believe he achieves some level of ecstasy from a pragmatic, repeatable structure to making his films.

Methodical Montage in the Realm of Experimental Film

Eisenstein’s Methods of Montage seems more inclined towards an analytical filmmaker’s technique than the previous mystical musings of artists like Smith and Belson.  Using various analyses that break down the rhythm of a film as expressive if its themes or tone, Eisenstein shows us a means of communicating to a viewer without explicitly showing us in explicit, conspicuous terms. 

I experienced this in the creation of my second film for this class as I became pretty caught up in the ide of creating a film frame by frame, inspired heavily by previous examples or the “flicker” films we were shown previously.  The process became extremely tedious, but viewing the final product did create a very unique sensation. 

I wonder however if this is more from the rhythmic tone of the piece or due to it being tethered to a very cacophonous, blast-beat soundtrack.  This relationship between film and sound is very interesting to me, and reading this piece by Eisenstein makes me wonder what the final result would have been without the connotation and weight of a soundtrack.

Although looking at some examples of Eisenstein’s work, soundtracks seemed to play a critical role in his films as well.  He also was perfectly tied to the time in which he lived and the area he lived in relation to his theories on editing.  Invariably tied to Marxist ideas and a culture propagated on propaganda, Eisenstein undoubtedly pulled from these ideas in his own work.

These ideas made me think to a scene from one of my favorite movies, Pan’s Labyrinth.  In the scene the protagonist enters the lair of a character called the Pale Man.  The scene transpires with mostly equal measured clips until the aforementioned creature chases after the protagonist.  There is also a smaller instance within this scene that I would argue is somewhat indicative of Eisenstein’s “intellectual montage.”  When the Pale Man grabs and eats the fairies that accompany our heroine, it is a direct and obvious recall to William Blake’s painting Saturn Devouring His Son.”  While Guillermo del Toro doesn’t flash the painting as a frame within his movie, our mind’s eye recalls it in a split second and the montage transpires within our own imagination.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSICJJq86ic