Tuesday, 11 December 2007

DISSERTATION - CHAT WITH DAN PRYDE JARMAN

In yesterday's session I managed to have a quick chat with Dan about the Dissertation i aim to write this year, I took many notes which really helped so I have included them in this blog.

We had a look at my proposal for the dissertation which I handed in at the end of last year and expanded upon the ideas of postmodernist views and its effect on film and society.

References (in no particular order):

Francois Lyotard / Lacan - False Memory Syndrome -
films becoming hyper-real, living other peoples fantasies e.g. crowd in x-factor crying when their favorite gets evicted off the show.

Saul Bass -
-Casino Credits / title sequences

Lars Von Trier
-Simplifying films - minimalism

Blair Witch Project
-Age of the Amateur, Non-professional look, Different way of filming, grainy, dark - v.postmodern

David Cronenburg
- Films like 'They fly' and 'Videodrome'
- Villains main character of a film (rather than heroes)
- Technology taking over the body
- Man Vs Machine
- Nature Vs Technology
- Dystopia

J.G. Ballard
- Films like Crash (not the new one)

David Lynch
- "Blue Velvet"
- "Twin Peaks"
- "Razorhead"

- Portrayal of industrial landscapes - new technology

Frank Miller / Robert Rodriguez
- Sin city (First completely Digital Film? - Research)


Action Plan:

- Look into surrealism / modernism (how do they relate and differ)
- Psycho Analysis / Understanding ourselves (research)
- The limits of technology in the past compared to the possibilities now (research)

- Simplify the question do something that I am truly interested in

Potential Questions:

- What is the effect of surrealism on post-modernist film?

- How has the development of Blue Screen techniques affected film?

- How has the Hight Definition affected film?

- How has CGI Effected Film?

- How has digital technology affected film?


This session was extremely useful and I should be able to get a first draft done by the end of January, this will be hard considering we have this design for interaction brief as well. However, if i manage my time sufficiently and keep an even balance between them both I feel I can complete both to the best of my ability. Dan has also sent me a useful power point presentation on various film references so this will also come in handy for this dissertation.



2 comments:

SV said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
SV said...

I just noticed you had a link to Lars von Trier with simplifying films next to it. I suspect this was partly refering to Dogme 95. I know all about these films as they are danish, and the movement started in denmark. If you want to look at some dogme films I think the most interesting ones are:

- "Festen" also called "The Celebration" by Thomas Winterberg

- "Idioterne" by Lars von Trier

- "Mifunes sidste sang" by Søren Kragh-Jacobsen

Look at this website
http://www.dogme95.dk/menu/menuset.htm
and read the manifesto section.

Speaking about Lars von Trier, I can really recomend you watch "De Fem Benspaend" also called "The Five Obstructions" this is an experimental film, but brilliant.
Dogville and and Manderlay are also worth looking at.

Italiensk For Begyndere
by Lone Scherfig

and

Et Rigtigt Menneske
by Åke Sandgren

are also very good dogme films.
Sorry to overload you , but I love these films.