Seeing 'Disorient' by Fiona Tan at GOMA showed me how powerfully a voice-over and moving image could work together. Her piece used an opulent reading of Marco Polo's travels alongside an idealised, and a brutal contemporary vision of the east. This made a comment on the process of orientalism, by I was more interested in the poetry of this effect. The unexpected collision of a certain word with a certain image on one screen seeming entirely planned, but this synergy was largely taking place in my mind. The Trick Brain by Ed Atkins was another reference for the philosophical possibilities of a voice-over.
Two Years at Sea by Ben Rivers gave me confidence in slow pacing. Seeing this film at the cinema I tuned into gradually, and by the end I was operating entirely on its terms, zoning in and out. We are plastic to our environment after all. This was permission to linger. Andrei Rublev by Tarkovsky had a similar effect, with the addition of the same gently surreal imagery I found in Clio Barnard's The Selfish Giant. The horse, and all it comes with, it's historical aura, a shorthand for everything, came with  these two films. I knew early on I wanted a horse in my film, something living to clash with the almost living of the museum.Â
Cinematographic-ally I was most inspired by Post Tenebras Lux, by Carlos Reygadas. At one point I attempted filming handheld, but technically the standard was not high enough. This film gave me confidence in my disparate settings and images. It is poetic and kinetic.
The book, Broken Screen, which was an education in multi-screen film making in itself was a practical assistant throughout. A repeated concern throughout the project was whether this would just be too much information for an audience to follow. I didn't want cognitive overload, but I also didn't want it to be too easy going. Watching Timecode by Mike Figgis among countless over tips from the book, was a confidence booster in this format. If 6 was 9 by Eija-Liisa Ahtila for technical ideas about how to edit in a multi screen format, as well a the poetic potential. My editing of the film depended a lot on intuition either about the words, the image on the other screen, or some sonic incident that suggested certain cuts.Â
Equipment choices, such as the Slider, also informed the look of the film. Once I had opted against handheld, I knew it was the only was to get dynamism into the environments and atmospheres I wanted to capture.
The list of influence is somehow endless, but I hope this snapshot is useful in looking at some of the ways I achieved the look of the film.Â
kianamaiart
stormborns
gracieabrams
origamiaround
discoholicmusic