French filmmaker Cyprian Gaillard collaborated with composer and former opera singer Koudlam to make Desniansky Raion (currently showing at the New Museum in their exhibit, Younger than Jesus)
The video above shows one of three parts of the film:
“The first section of the video shows a pitched battle between two hooligan gangs on the parking lot of a housing project in the suburbs of Saint Petersburg, filmed from a neighbouring building. Blues against reds, some wearing white gloves, the two compact groups move forward in an organized manner, then dismantle under shock before regrouping for a new assault. Calling to mind a battle scene in a medieval fresco or a classical painting, the outburst of violence, both savage and codified, is as repulsive as fascinating” (source)
I’ve never been in the middle of any sort of battle or fight but I can imagine, in some way, a sort of strange intoxication surrounding the scene - the rushing of bodies, of blood, thoughts…..
It reminds me of a quote by Elias Cannetti from the book Crowds and Power:
“There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown…It is only in a crowd that man can become free of this fear of being touched. That is the only situation in which the fear changes into its opposite….Suddenly it is as though everything were happening in one and the same body…..the feeling of relief is most striking where the density of the crowd is greatest.”
Right now I want to walk through a crowded New York City street. Stand one in fifty aboard some packed subway car, catch a strangers eye. Brush up against others. Be pushed gently.
I once ran out and bought the perfume Noa by Cacharel after seeing its commercial (which sadly I cannot find online anymore, or else I would share it). Since I cannot smell, this is the sort of thing I base my choice of perfume on….the visual cues (and Noa had some fabulous packaging in my opinion. Unfortunately after buying it, I was told by a friend that it smelled like ‘old lady’)
Anyway, today I saw online the commercial for the new Gucci perfume, Flora. The commercial was surprisingly directed by Chris Cunningham (who has directed well known music videos for the likes of Bjork & Apex Twin)
I have to say……
……I’m sold.
With Donna Summer’s eerie new recording of “I Feel Love” and the sweeping 20,000 fake flowers, I think Cunningham + Gucci have done well.
Wow. I am just finding loads of good stuff on Vimeo today - I am completely in love with this song by Edward Guglielmino. The video for it, created by James Loveday (Jaymis), is phenomenal.
Both the song and the video are released for free download and use under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
A little bit about the process behind the video from Loveday:
“Shot in my screening room, I used stage blacks instead of a green screen to keep the shoot simple and compact, tiny low powered LED lights from Ikea, and recorded the video to hard drive in Onlocation to obviate capture time.
The shoot itself took about 2 hours. This was followed by 3 hours of fast editing in Vegas‘ efficient workflow, and then transferred to After Effects for around 8-10 hours of post-production. To keep production, preview and render times down I steered clear of keying, noise-reduction and other processor-intensive effects, instead focussing on the quickest techniques I could find to produce the video I had in my head. Despite having up to 20 layers of HD and SD video on screen at various times, the project only took 2 hours to render at 1920×1080, 25FPS (After Effects CS3, Windows Vista 32bit, 2.4GHz, Quad-core, 4GB ram).”
1080 30P using the latest H264 video codec at a data rate of over 38 megabits / second. That’s pretty hot. The recording rate on this thing is faster than on some pro video cameras. Actually, I’ve lied - that is not all I want for Christmas — I want that camera, and a few weeks of free time to be able to play with it. And a brand new Mac workstation
Photographer Vincent Laforet (who I am pleased to announce will be in the upcoming exhibit I am curating, Such Great Heights) got a weekend to play with the new EOS 5D and made a small high-def commercial “Reverie” (this has been blogged and talked about a million times over by now, but fun to check out if you have not seen it yet) The ‘making of video’ is up over at SmugMug and it makes me incredibly jealous.
The computers only make me tingle.
Here is a short video taken of Vincent talking with PDN products editor Dan Havlik about his weekend experience with the new Canon camera
For just under $4,000, one can now create high-quality short videos. My head is swimming with all the delicious possibilities…..
Obsessive, perfectionist-types always intrigue me (probably because I share both of those traits. I can spend hours, even days, on such tiny details of a project…its enough to drive you mad really.) From the first time I saw one of Stanley Kubrick’s films I knew I loved him - for his highly detailed style and obsessive work habits. It was a pleasure to come across a documentary tonight, called Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes, which explains further, the workings of Kubrick’s mind.
Filmmaker Jon Ronson was invited to the Kubrick estate to go through his insane collections of boxes (which number into the thousands!) The contents of the boxes are extremely varied - from photos to fan letters, and they illustrate what a detailed and interesting man he was. No facet of a film was overlooked or too small - for example, hundreds of photographs of doorways and costume shops and gates were taken to be sure that every scene in Eyes Wide Shut was perfect and accurate. The immense research he would undertake for a story is completely inspiring. And the the depression that would ensue, had he no story that interested him - the constant search for that magical thing.
I loved the bit about how Stanley had no idea of what a holiday or vacation was and how his colleague found it hard to explain to him why one might want to ‘relax’. One does not create masterpieces, or build up a lifetime worth of work by relaxing.
Not a total aside, but on the subject of boxes, and the elusive magic of inspiration, a story about J.J. Abrams (creator of LOST), was given at a T.E.D. conference a while back:
When JJ was very young he was totally into magic and that interest led to his infatuation with creating mystery. During his presentation JJ showed a “secret” magic box he was given as a child that he hasn’t opened yet, and not knowing what’s inside continues to inspire him in what he does today. He said, “mystery is more important than knowledge.”
You never know what might fuel those flashes of inspiration. Tonight, for me, it is the grand wall of boxes lining the walls of Kubrick’s archive - I hope I might be able to one day amass something as impressive.
Things I like
:: :: :: old books dramatic pauses fancy dresses mid 19th c. design photography secret rooms beautiful words video + film mix cds :: :: ::
welcome to a collection of my obsessions
