October 3, 2011

Around (A Long Take)

A film I collaborated on in Montreal with my friends Sylvain Chaussee and Emilie Serri was never able to get edited because the film stock was too old and thus looked faded and gray when developed. It was planned as an eleven-minute take of continuous camera movement.

We did video rehearsals before shooting on 16mm. Sylvain edited some footage from those rehearsals and made a video instead of a film. I hope you like it.

Full-screen and headphones or a good stereo, please.

For more of Sylvain's work click here.
For more of Emilie's work click here.

7 comments:

Boyda Johnstone said...

I think this is really beautiful. I love how all the colors of the dresses and the lights flow together like a painting. The colors - esp. the pinks and greys - have a very tactile, pastelly quality that is extremely aesthetically pleasing. Yet the overall aesthetic is more unsettling than that, especially with the immediacy of your running commentary as you shoot, as you express pleasure or displeasure from moment to moment. I would imagine that this is what a single-take film should do: capture the viewer in the transience of time, holding him/her in one space while the world around constantly changes.

I also love how the spinning sequences evoke many other environments, like traffic lights or dark forests.

s$s said...

"traffic lights or dark forests." I like that.

Thanks for the words Boyda.

I've been thinking about you and David a lot lately, because of your proximity to the Occupy Wall Street protests. It's refreshing to see such a non-partisan, non-hierarchical movement. I wish I was there. It feels like something extraordinary is happening.

Now I just need to make sure I get my hopes WAY WAY WAY up.

s$s said...

Boyda, I watched a video on the BBC about the new High Line park in Manhattan. It looks pretty cool. I'm J-E-A-L-O-U-S.

Radical Emancipation said...

Yes, New York is a very exciting place right now. David is extremely involved in OWS, and I am following it closely. David has actually been part of planning the occupation, though he hasn't stayed down there - he told me that he wrote about it in his diary in July.

The Highline park is fantastic.

Come visit!

s$s said...

If the $ works out I might fly to Europe sometime this year to visit Joel. Maybe I could arrange the flight through New York and stop there for a couple days.

Who knows?

s$s said...

"Radical Emancipation." I like that. Any particular reason for the name-change?

Boyda Johnstone said...

Whoops. I guess I was in David's account. Funny given our conversation.

Yes, definitely stop over. I mean really, why wouldn't you?