Saturday, April 4, 2009

Metamorphosis of my Metamorphosis project...


I began with graphite sketches onto cut pieces of plywood, then decided rather than carving IN the face, I would paint the skin with white acrylic paint.  I played around with ways of arranging my panels, until ultimately deciding that vertical is the way to go.  I wanted to then take advantage of the grain of the wood, so I used my dremmel tool to carve away the negative space around the heads.  I really liked the results of this because the plywood consisted of three shallow layers with woodgrains perpendicular to each other.  When I carved into the wood, the woodgrain shifted, really making the figures stand out.  

The Five Obstructions

        My first impression of the The Five Obstructions was not a positive one.  I was completely bored throughout most of the film.  It wasn't until AFTER finishing the movie and thinking more about the motivation behind making the film, that I started to appreciate it a little more. 
I was blown away that Jorgen Leth, an experienced filmmaker would actually go along with being bossed around by a less experienced artist.  I began to wonder Leth's motives behind allowing himself to be at Von Triar's mercy.  I think that Leth may have wanted to rekindle his carreer, or maybe feel more involved with modern filmmaking.  He may have just wanted to step out of his comfort zone.  
Though watching the five different iterations of The Perfect Human was quite dull, I learned that being given limits to work around can really stimulate man's imagination.   For example, even though Von Triar tried to make Leth create bad movies by giving him miserable limits, Leth worked WITH these limits to create truly original, quirky films; films that had he not been given these limits, he would have never been inspired to make.