Filming over!

Finished the filming today, think it went well, There were some very nice shots - especially the ones we did inside where I could control the lighting. It was surprisingly easy to work wth someone else - I don't know whether this was becuase Lauras my friend anyway, or shes used to working with people like that but I found it quite encoraouraging - I was dreading working with someone!
This is for one of the where I'm chasing her down the road. Obviously we were very careful and we were in the safe hands of our stunt driver.

This is the carefully constructed and thorough filming plan:

I'm deciding to use Blue Orchid by The White Stripes, its got a very clear, constant beat and I think it's a very exciting song! I'm finding it alot easier to imagine how the video might look and type of movements I want now. Christoph Stoltenburg said to me that I have got to plan EVERYTHING out exactly and you've got to be able to just tell people what to do becuase you know whats got to be done which I thought was good advice however I didn't have an actuall idea of what I wanted to shoot.

This is a rough plan, looking at the structure of the song.

These are some rough storyboards so I've got bit more of a clue on wednesday:

Planning the Shoot.............

I'm planning on filming on the 28th and 29th, this week. Me and Laura are going to Jo's derelict mushroom farm. These are some photos of around the farm to explain why I got so excited:

I've been trying to find potential songs I could use. I want something quite rocky, lively, lots of guitar. I want to use somthing that isnt instantly associated with dance (more classical instrumentals), I've also been looking at songs with singing in them - I havn't seen many examples of dace films which use songs with lyrics in then (see Still You by Mijke Dejong). Having a song with singing in it will make it seem more like a music video rather than a dance video, which is what I want becuase the people I'm going to be showing will be more familiar wth this format, therefore, wont be put off by something they think they wont understand (which is the reaction I normally get when I talk to people about dance).

These are some of the songs I've narrowed it down to:

Secret Eyes Fear of Flying

Stranded The Mutts

Eyes Only The Cherubs

Blue Orchid, Seven Natin Army and The Denial Twist The White Stripes

Break on Through The Doors

Baby The Drones

Uncle Johnny The Killers

I Feel You Depeche Mode

These are just some vague ideas of what I might to include:

Idea 2

I've found a dancer now (one of my friends in the end) for my main idea, I just wish I did earlier becuase she really wants to work on this collaboration. Shes a dance teacher at the Laban Contemporary Dance school. She's interested in combining contemporary dance with parkour (this is where I know her from).

She said something that I found interesting; she doesn't enjoy videos of dance becuase she keeps expecting the dancers to stop dancing and speak as in normal films. I would really like to experiment with using some sort of dialogue in the peice - whether that be words from a poem or just the dancer talking to me. I've got to avoid it seeming too casual though - I dont want to just show two freinds out somewhere having a chat whilst one of them is dancing!

Thinking about the parkour influences we want to include, I was thinking about suitable locations we could film. I can organise t film in one of my friends barns (yes, one of my freinds has a barn!) with electricity in it so I can control the lighting. I'm also gong to have a look along the Thames at the industrial areas and docks for anywhere around there. I want a very cold, industrial look to contrast with the movemets the dancer will be making. Also, there will be oppurtunities for some parkour-ness to go on if it has interesting surroundings.

Idea 1

The other night I went to see the Rambert Dance Company at Sadlers Wells. In the last performance Infinity choreographed by Garry Stewart, I particularly noticed the lighting.

Ballet Rocks

I watched a behind-the-scenes documentary of this dacne film Ballet Rocks performed by the English Naional Ballet with costumes designed by Giles Deacon and music by Bloc Party.

hmmmmm, re-thinking

After meeting and talking to a few dancers and being let down by a few dancers, I'm considering other possibilities for my film. I don't nessarcarily need to use a professional dancer, the movements can be fairly simple and still be classified as "dance". I'm going to focus more on creating impact through the filming techniques I use, and less on the actual movement. I could include different componants (as in Pull by Bruce Mclean, David Proud, Ashley Page, Jane Thorburn and Mark Lucas).

"What the Body Does Not Remember became a very physical performance. It won a Bessie Award in New York and suddenly everybody called it 'dance', while actually the piece was not created by professional dancers, we were not working with the 'contemporary' dance language from that time. The result was a movement language created by the performers and myself. Over all these years, and with the different crews I have worked with, we have kept on developing this language." - Wim Vandekeybus

These are some photos I found on a flyer I had for the Rambert Dance Compnay's perfrmance of World View. I really like them, I'm not entirely sure how they are done.

Wim Vandekeybus

Wim Vandekeybus' mainly draws his inspiration from the world surrounding us and life in all its aspects. Encounters with nature, people, different movement forms and styles, music, film, literature, theatre, … form the seeds for his creations.

interview with London Dance:
You originally trained in psychology. What impact has that had on the kind of work you make?
I studied psychology at university during 2 years, but never finished these studies or practiced it professionally. So, in fact I only got the theoretical part. My work is more the result of intuition, the intuitive psychology that everyone has in his/her way.
Who, or what, are your main influences?
My youth experiences, writers, photographers (koudelka), cineasts (Kalatozov, Cassavetes, Imamura, ...), encounters with people, the world around us, ...
Film is often an integral part of Ultima Vez performances - and the films also stand alone. What is your process? Do you consciously make two works - a film and a performance - or does one emerge from the other?
This depends, I made several short films as part of my performances, in which the themes of the performance were approached from a different angle, or that were part of the scenography. With film you can create a strong context/past of the people on scene and thus enrich there existence. Next to the short films, I also made dance films adaptations of my performances.

Becuase of all the faffing about with dancers, I hadn't actually produced any actual work so I made this video today just to play around really.

MOTION CONTROL

Choreographer: Liz Aggiss
Director: David Alexande Anderson