#benji corless

BEAM in the Bar

After heading out of the late lounge filled with confusion, adoration and sheer witty randomness, we were keen to see BEAM perform to help keep our good mood going. Bristol Exchange of Arts and Music (BEAM) was launching its project on friday night which aims to send artists from Bristol to Brooklyn as a sort of talent exchange.

With a combination of urban beats, graffiti visuals and a VJ set from Scott Hendy (Visual set) i couldn't have been more eager. I'm a huge fan of dj's adding visuals to their work and was interested to see how it would throw down, although the event was void of Bristol darling Inkie whose recent work is closely linked to the project.

After an hour of throbbing beats and a slightly awkward-dad introduction from Mark Cosgrove who perhaps seemed like he was in the wrong place, the evening kicked off.  What followed was frankly a mild disappointment. From Mark's introduction, it was clear the visual comparison of Bristol to Brookyln was somewhat tenuous, dwarfing the festival and making Bristol seem unusually small-fry.

Musically the set was incredible (although astronomically loud for the meagre audience) mixing popular rap with heavy baseline beats. Unfortunately the visuals let the entire thing down. The projection was very stuttered (a bugbear for music visuals) and even missing content in places, leaving the audience with "MISSING FILE" text. 

It was quickly apparent that the video content was playing on a loop and was really only a small sideline to accompany the DJ set. It's a shame that things weren't quite as listed. The graffiti, motion graphics visuals combined with light painting projects were very well prepared and once they got going (and stopped being a Banksy slideshow) there was some stimulating material. Footage from Bristols recent See No Evil exhibition was a particular highlight, cutting night and day visits and showcasing both the incredible skills of the artists but also the scale of the community that Bristol has brought together.

Frustrations aside, i want to wish all of the BEAM guys the best of luck with their project and i hope it utilises the potential that was shown at the launch party.

NEXUS - Forms Installation

Film festivals for many are about the big names, catching premieres and getting to meet their heroes in person. Unfortunately many events often fall by the wayside, this year that seems to mostly fall upon the fringe events like the outdoor screenings and live acts.

Perhaps you managed to get over to the Arnofini for a screening? Perhaps you even managed to watch Bob being animated live or find the Aardman sculptures from long ago? After some investigation (and some very uninformative staff), i discovered there was an installation on physical motion on the top floor of the Arnofini. After taking a long walk to the top of the building, i found a member of staff engrossed in his mobile who looked vaguely shocked to see me. 

I followed the sound of slowly shattering glass into the darkness and was amazed at what i saw. Nexus - Forms Installation showcases the work of Memo Akten and Quayola whose work was commissioned for the Olympics this year.

Go and find the exhibition.

Go and sit in the space.

It's a short film (around 3/4 minutes) but watch it at least 3 times and allow it to wash over you.

The film stylistically combines the work of Muybridge and Duchamp, creating an abstraction of movement not unlike the Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2. The animation is both playful and powerful to watch, showing the varying stages of design from the original source video (of Olympic sports) all the way through its computer design. The end result is a colourful tidal wave of balls, lasers, swirls and needles creating the impression of the original movement but extrapolating it and heightening the movements to generate a powerful recreation of human motion, removed from the personality.

The level of detail here is vast and one could watch for hours, as human forms drift in and out of correlation, getting lost in the chaos. For anyone seeking something different at the festival and doesn't mind a lack of narrative, I wholeheartedly recommend this, although you will never be able to look at your screen saver the same again.

Forms can be found on the top floor of the Arnolfini until 6pm today and is entirely free so I urge you to see it in person. If you're outside of Bristol then head on over to... http://www.nexusinteractivearts.com/work/dQ/forms

Paranorman Review

After speaking to Sam Fell at the festival and with Bristol's strong links to Aardman, I was keen to catch Paranorman at the Arnofini. Sam was giving a Q&A afterwards as well, making it an opportunity I couldn't refuse.

Context and viewing experience are paramount for cinema regardless of a films format. In "To Score or Underscore" one of the panelists mentioned, "A film can never recover from its opening". Paranorman has slapstick, wit and campy Scooby-Doo horror right out the gates. Hitting its audience with a 4:3 Universal Pictures parody, the film plays a movie within a movie, setting up the protagonist's taste in cinema and the film's overall tone.

Although the hook caught the horror fan in me (for reference Night of the Living Dead spent a long time as my all time favourite film), the film's projection left much to the imagination. Broken surround sound, buzzing speakers and a combination of low audio with an excruciatingly loud high pitched frequency, left many with fingers in their ears. 

But we made do. 

The entire audience was leaning forward, desperate to give the film a real chance but honestly it never recovered for me. From these technical difficulties, one is left to concentrate on the lacklustre projection and the lip synching which felt to me a little too clunky.

After the film was fixed, I was left soaking up the golden era hour vibes and taking note of the intelligent references that carefully never crossed into parody territory (children after all are too young to recognise parody anyway). After my short film vs. feature epiphany yesterday (see my review of "Hold on Me") i feel I was doomed to shoot this film down but i appreciate it is created (largely) for children and thus I suppose my opinion is moot.

Paranorman does a lot of things right. It twists the idea of zombies and utilises the horror genre as a motif rather than its genre. The film is witty throughout (with a striking belly laugh at the end for me) and provides tactile slapstick that children will adore. Sam has passionately worked on the title, keen to retain its "edges", which i feel is incredibly apparent. In the Q&A afterwards he discussed how he really didn't care so much about the age of his audience or the specific demographics, instead intending on telling a story visually and working with a format that he admires.

Sam said that using stop frame made him "an old git going back". The animation industry has grown stale in CG, he discussed before lording the new technologies in stop frame such as 3d printing and Microsoft's Kinect cameras for lighting rigs. The movie's look could quite easily be mistaken for computer graphics which may put off some die hard fans but the photography here simply captures the pristine smoothness of design by combining Maya graphics with 3d printing to replicate each digital movement physically (although producing a colossal library of printed plastic heads).

Paranorman is a fun movie which doesn't outstay its welcome. The film's conceit is a little thin in places and Norman's power is quickly forgotten amongst the mayhem but overall I would much rather see a smart character drama with a message over most of the low grade CGI sequel feature films being released in the recent months.

Paranorman is in theatres now and for a more in depth look at Sam Fell, delve into our blog's video content!

Stay tuned!

Thursday Stream of Conciousness

Lost in an endless stream of shorts. Interviews from far away. Not enough Falafel. A lengthy panel with programmers from all over. The need for caffeine. Too many submissions. Free DVDs. Magazines. Smiles from interviewees. Are all filmmakers men? Underwire, underground, under appreciated. Lol Crawley. Keep it simple. Do less. Think i've written more. No discussion of Four Lions. Nachos again. Videogames and media theory dissected at length. Broken sound surrounded by a high pitched tone. The gentle, gentile Sam Fell. Flushed away was rubbish. Cutesy undead, walk home like a zombie. Its a long walk. Exciting things on twitter. Imagine i'm at big top with the cleaning women. What?