| Experimental Documentary

Consider spatial relationships and explore how they can be used in filmmaking to take viewers on an unexpected and profound journey.

Guided by award-winning filmmaker Lasse Lau, we will collectively examine the notion of space and how it relates to filmmaking as a place of silent dialogues. In documentaries, we not only document space but also create space and time. We will explore the zone of complex interactions in the living world, where the human and the non-human coexist and share an uncertain future. We often think of space as something absolute and Euclidean instead of transitional, fragile, and constant in flux, changing with the blink of an eye. This class is about looking outside the box and connecting ideas of space with experimental filmmaking and language and how we place ourselves in the world with our cameras.

As we experiment with expanded visual language, our filmmaking will playfully apply the knowledge we glean from readings and discussions on spatial relationships, reacting to how a range of thinkers and artists have challenged our perception of the subject. Over the course of the week, we will seek to make objects come alive, magnify the unknown, tell stories between the lines, and use time, sound, and sometimes opacity to tell stories from what we see and do not hear – and what we hear and do not see.

Through a kaleidoscope of daily video exercises, we’ll examine temporality and what happens when objects in our films take agency, how we can make their untold stories come alive and become social agents in external and internal processes, and the relationship between reality, body, and representation.  We will also explore space as it relates to location, nature, and sound. In addition to individual and small group exercises and critiques, there will be tutorials, readings, discussions, case studies, and viewing experimental films.

After dinner on Friday night, we will screen our series of exercises before an audience.

Note: This is an intermediate workshop, and you will need basic camera and editing skills to participate. You don’t need to bring your equipment, but we don’t mind if you do.

Come prepared to think and play, and leave with a whole new way of looking at space.

Please note: An hour-long training session on Set Etiquette and Safety will be required of anyone registered for a workshop that involves production. Students only need to participate in this session once during their time on campus.

Header image: The Raven and the Seagull – A film by Lasse Lau.