My creative focus is in cinematography - in shooting and producing digital cinema. As such, I am most inspired by videos and other digital media that captivate the audience. First and foremost what draws my attention is a great image, shot creatively and with purpose; but secondly such a piece of art must be enforced by a story.
Joe Simon is a wedding cinematographer, and his piece entitled "Kristin + Justin's Wedding" displays to me a masterful use of active and didactic storytelling. Through the use of didactic narration by the pastor and couple, the audience is told the story of the wedding day, and the backstory of how the couple met. However, information is also transferred through the active use of visuals. As the pastor talks about memories and remembering the wedding day, the video rewinds, moving backwards. This subtlety impacts the audience, suggesting the act of revisiting the day and replaying the events over and over again. That, coupled with the visual chemistry of the two, informs the audience of the compatibility of both Kristin and Justin. Filmmaking that successfully marries both active and didactic storytelling are my favorite type of movie, which is why this particular piece is interesting to me.
"The Butterfly Circus", directed by Josh Weigel, is one of my favorite short films. It makes great use of tension and release. The film starts with a travelling circus that decides to visit a carnival. They observe a man with no limbs, and the manager of the circus steps closer to interact with the man. The tension rises as the manager makes a remark to the man, who spits on the manager, releasing the tension. The manager leaves, and the man with no limbs is rebuked for upsetting the man with the greatest circus in the land. The cycle of tension and release occurs twice more in the film. The second time begins when the man with no limbs (who has joined the travelling circus) is at a swimming hole with his new family. He tries to cross the stream, but no one will help him. He manages to balance on a log, but falls into the stream - increasing the tension. The action rises as no one can find the man - but release arrives when he surfaces, surprising himself and the rest with his ability to swim. The third example of tension and release is at the end of the film. The man with no limbs is at his first performance in the circus, and is climbing to the top of a tower to dive into a pool far below. Everyone watches in silence and expectation - tension rises as he ascends - and we are relieved when he dives and swims to the top with a grin. As my focus is in narrative filmmaking, the use of tension and release is crucial, and films that pull it off well are films that I review time and time again.
I also enjoyed "Chat Roulette", a short documentary created by Casey Neistat. The film uses objective and subjective views to discuss the internet sensation. The backbone of the film is made up of objective material. Casey puts a lot of research into defining the use and purpose of Chat Roulette, and creates a study group of 90 individuals he chatted with to create statistics. This information includes the percentage of gender of those he interacted with, along with the average time it took people to "next" him: 2.9 seconds. The film ends with a subjective train of thought that, while opinion, makes the viewer pause and think about the program. Casey is glad that Chat Roulette is stuck on his laptop - in his subjective opinion, he wouldn't like a world where you could "next" someone and make them disappear forever. This influences me by making me ponder - often narrative work is only subjective. Why not include some objective information to make the material relateable to more people?
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