Field Report: Handmade Emulsion and Crab Cages

“The Planning” of Film

The planning of a film is something that has always sort of interested me. I have recently been enrolled in a film studies class where it was stated that ALL films are very carefully planned. Down to every attentive detail. When this was said it was actually only (for the purposes of the class) in reference to pop culture cinema. I think that this was just said to provide an easy outline to look at a film for the first time film students. It kind of distressed me though. It was not a wild or necessarily wrong statement but personally, I believe that some of the best stuff in cinema comes from accidents and coincidences or randoms that occur during the filmmaking. That's what can make magic. It is sometimes the planning that can outline a film and create a frame for something beautiful. An outline that is willing to accept what the medium and its influences can add to a piece. Like in the case of Robert Schaller or David Gattens What the Water Said nos 1-3.. It seems to be precisely the mix of careful planning and the acceptance of accidents.
At the Robert Schaller screening a man from the audience remarked that one of his films seemed very calculated. (The film that had been screened featured a musical composition with dancing woman and 3 sideways projectors.) He was wondering what Roberts plan had been. Robert had in fact worked very closely with the choreographer (who also danced in the piece) to present their interpretation of another written work and use a series of complicated math equations to evoke and pull from the readings. They did this through dance movements and the insertion of lines chosen from the previously written work by this complex math equation. They worked very had to create this framework without necessarily knowing how it would actually all come together and speak through the screen. It was this very deliberate set up to allow random seeming magic to happen.
David Gatten set film out in crab traps, let it wash along the beach etc. to get the marks that he show up in his film. He also recorded the water sound. Here he planned out these creative ways to bring movement and marking to film. He had no real way of knowing how this would turn out. What the water said was probably just as interesting or new to him as it is to an audience, yet he lined up a way to make this happen I think there is this parallel between how the two artist mold and allow their art to form,