Camera
Two years ago at the outset of my masters course I used my mobile for photos and any film I took stayed as a small disc impossible for me to transfer to any form of general use.
As a choreographer the development of both stills and video camera work is of enormous value.
Stills
My stills have been accepted for exhibition on two occasions and they are incredibly useful as a record of my work. I can see this will be of great value when I am applying for funding in the future and when talking about my work. It provides a fabulous research tool for dance and other areas in my working life and I am already using it to record teaching work in dance.
I would like to make a good quality photo book either now or after my degree using some of the stills from my work filming dancers. I would like to give one of these to each of the dancers who have assisted me. This will also be a good record of my journey. If I manage before the degree this is a way I would like to present work. Some of the photographs I have taken will be used hopefully in the final film...which may not be complete till after August.
I initially used college equipment but have now bought a good stills camera. It has been a very important part of my journey through the masters and helps me to reflect on that journey. I can see many uses for this skill in developing background slides and maybe for printing on costume for performance. I am now involved with a group of women artists ( which would not have happened without the masters I am sure) and I now am able to photograph some of our development sessions and creation...this is new for me. These roots of development will I hope grow in the future.
Video
The video camera work is probably the most dramatic leap for me however.
I chose the masters screendance course originally because I wanted to make dance film.
I have always been frustrated by the transient nature of dance work. A choreography is made and seen in public primarily on stage. The first way to record this was through an elaborate notation system ( Labanotation and Benesh notation both do this.) Filming is another way to make a record. This in itself is a good reason to learn to do it well. But I was interested in film as an art form in itself and using the film as part of the creative act. Norman McLaren made dance film...ahead of his time as usual...and it inspired me. Pas de Deux has an etherial quality beyond its choreography due to the way he worked with the film. Canon was also a dance film in a way, and Narcissus, his last film, was certainly a dance film.
I have watched many other dance films, in a completely different way. Some are of course merely a record of performance, others use the filming process as a creative tool. This is what I wanted to explore. I feel that my exploration of filming dance and making dance film is really just beginning, and I am excited about this exploration and where it will take me in the future.
My learning so far has brought about many possibilities for this with a variety of equipment and methods.
I can also identify ways of colaborating with film makers. As with all other technical aspects needed for performance work it helps greatly if you as a choreographer can empathise with the technicians.
If there had been more time I would like to have organised a placement with a film maker ...Ian Gardner or Katrina Macpherson or maybe Jessica Langford. Maybe I can do this one day anyhow!
Reading Katrina's book on making video dance has helped me enormously in developing my skills. some of the exercises she sets are perfect for building on learning and for ideas in experimenting with these new skills. Some of the techniques do not work for me however. ( they might come in useful in the future.)
Lighting
I did have some lighting experience before beginning the course but it was a long time ago and for stage not film. I have learned so much about lighting this semester. Which type of light to use...in daylight or indoors..angles for shooting...and in experimenting with all these options the learning goes further. My choice of lighting in the end has determined how I am working on my animation to add to the film. It has given me some problems however but I eventually found a good solution for this film. My aim is to have my own kit in the future which is lighter to carry but which I can use at any moment. When you are working in the way I have been...coordinating dancers, lights, space and camera you have to be ready to go at an hour's notice.
Photoshop
Having taken stills I am beginning to use photoshop as research, to make animation with those images.
In putting together images for presentation this has also been a skill to brush up on! I have managed to capture stills from my film too which I will need to work on.
Final Cut
This is one of the most difficult technical areas for me. I am not at my happiest in a dark room in front of a computer screen, and I have had to work extremely hard to get to grips with it! I am always reassured by the number of people who also find it hard. In the future I will have to make a decision about which edit software suits me best, purchase it and maybe upgrade my pc in order to accomodate this! I hope I will be able to work by a window looking out to the garden as I am now!!It has not helped that the edit suites in college are freezing cold even in mid summer due to the cold air fans directly above!! To someone prone to stiff neck this is a challenge. I have often found myeslf outdoors at 7 pm in 20 degrees hot sun wearing winter jackets after editing!
However the rewards are great. It has been a joy to see the film footage come together on screen and to play with qualities of time and light...and thus to choose the best film piece to work with. I have to come to grips with this but am aslo aware that in an ideal world I should have a team of people who are experts in the editing field. In the meantime, I am really enjoying using the edit process to create work in very different way from anything I have ever done before.
The final, and hardest challenge is to bring animation into my film in a way that does not seem out of place, but a natural progression of the ideas within the film.I have already had to re size my stills and to change the format of one section of film.
In the beginning I had not realised how hard it would be to log and capture if I had filmed using a variety of cameras.This was a tough lesson and I was so lucky to have expert help around when I needed it. I know I have given myself an almost impossible task in all that I would like in this film and that I will have to cut back on what I expect to achieve for the degree show, but I really excited about the future and working over the next two years to complete a longer version in time for the McLaren 2014 centenary.
En route it has been so tempting to keep exploring all the things final cut can do but I must hang on to those ideas for after the show. ( and to explore with the luxury of my own time and equipment)! For now I really have to make as complete a film as I can and try to convey the ideas I set out to explore!
After Effects
I have realised that although you attend an introduction to any process you will never fully absorb and learn until you need to use it. I look back and wish I had known early on which tools I would need, but also am aware that if I had learned eveything in great detail I would need another year!
After effects have allowed me to test effects I need and then decide how to achieve them. I am again just at th biginning in terms of the amount that might be used but this is a continuing process of learning and discovery.
Drawing
My drawing skills have developed hugely since embarking on the masters course.
My first drawings were quite stiff and heavy and I took quite a long time to make them. I also was quite sore!! In the beginning I was using them as a way of re-learning how to look at the human form, but it soon became obvious that here was a skill uniquely suited to me as a choreographer with a steady hand and keen sense of human form. As someone who observes movement all the time both as a choreographer and movement teacher and in my work as a massage therapist, my experience of drawing the body and movement seems to combine all my skills together. Drawing certainly affords an opportunity to look and see the world differently. When I draw I am looking beneath the surface of the everyday...seeing movement in a new way. I have also noticed that I use my muscle memory not only to remember where my hand has been drawing (a skill McLaren and others suggest is essential to animators) but also to remember the dance moves I have practiced myself in class. Soetimes I actually felt I had joined in the class!!Since I know that not everyone has developed such an intense muscle memory, this discovery has made me think about how I might use this in future. I have formed some ideas about leading movement classes for animators. I also have some plans to work on drawing and movement together within one class, for dancers and artists. It would be a great way to introduce each to the other's art form!
I have spent some time at Scottish Dance Theatre drawing class and rehearsal and will continue with this in future. Some of the dancers have said that they really enjoy having me there. I feel very connected with them while drawing, not least because I now know them better. I want to develop some of these sketches into more finished work, which I may offer to be used by the company in some way. Some of the dancers have expressed an interest in this idea.
Animation
As part of my programme of study I wanted to introduce animation into my dance film. I was not fully aware in the beginning that I might be able to do this myself, but this is a skill which I have been working on.
Although my animation will be quite simple, I am choosing to work on something which I believe will enhance the emotional quality in my film. Norman McLaren began art school in the interior design department but once he discovered film he said he could not imagine wanting to back to 'still' art. The natural progression was to make moving drawings...for me as a choreographer to try to make animation has been really interesting. This is reminding me of McLarens interview where he said that his language was movement and if he had been a dancer he would still have been creating movement but in a different way. Again I am discovering how much my internal awareness of movement helps me. The technical leap from drawing to animating is challenging, however. But there would be no point if it was easy!
Animators and dancers both make and study movement... and I have so much still to learn!
For example, I had not really thought about the way gravity affects bird flight and the action of the wings. It now seems obvious to me, but when animating in 2D you have to think about timing in frames per second and movement divided into these frames. So slower movememnt requires more frames. ( slow dance movement requires more muscle control too interestingly enough!) This is akin to movement engineering it seems to me! I am really enjoying the process. In particular the way I can use this skill within a film which deals with movement. It is a real journey of discovery and again I do not want to curtail the journey after August!!
Engineering skills run in the family, tho my father only passed the obvious (car) engineering on to the boys! I did, however inherit an ability to work things out for myself and a curiosity about the world around me. My father, Norman Mclaren's cousin,was an endlessly inventive human being and always keen to use things in unusual ways.And Norman's nephews also display this trait! I think of McLaren trying to work out all these(film) problems and discovering new techniques on his journey. I have learned to trust in myself much more on this masters journey and to try to be honest with my process. I would have liked to discover some new technique but I feel what I am doing is new.
Research
I have always loved reading, and exploring history, and finding out how things work. I have not had to write in such depth about research for a long time ( and certainly not on a computer...now I am showing my age!)
I have learned to be methodical in my research, again not being tempted to stray too much from the point. I know in the early days of my masters my fertile imagination was a a bit too overwhelming, even for me! It was great to be so excited about studying. Ideas come to me all the time, and one of the first things to draw me to Norman Mclaren was the little drawing he made on an xray of his head, illustrating some of the inner workings and thoughts in his brain. I remember thinking...my brain is a lot like that!! we are related so maybe that is true! But many artists have that kind of busy brain. I know it scares me how many ideas and thoughts race through, and when I am reading I have had to be very selective about what is relevant to my project and to find a way to store for the future what is not.
My first task has been to research Norman McLaren and during that process to try find a new story about him. I found this in a letter he wrote home sbout a skating experience he had in New York during a severe winter when the Hudson River froze. I found this fitted really well with my ideas of combining dance and film so set about writing the script. I feel that as time has gone on I have become better at selecting material from my research which will enhance my story. I found images of his house near the Hudson, realised that like me he loved views of water (and swimming it seems). I also found images of that view by matching up addresses that he had lived at. As part of the research process I feel I am now able to link things together quite quickly and to assimilate that new knowledge and to write about it. In teeling of my story I have discovered that I am good at telling stories and plan to use my research to begin a book about Norman.
I have recently been encouraged by the response from others about my ideas and the discovery that others want to know more about this story. This would be a huge departure for me...but I feel it is something I could tackle with excitement! I would never have dreamed of this as something I could do before this last year.
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