# The Film is the Dance: A Webinar on Approaching Dance-Film With a Filmic Orientation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPtad44JhC8

[00:00] Hey, let's get started.
[00:04] Well, I'm Mitchell Roe's associate professor of dance filmmaking in the Department of Dance here at the Ohio State University, and I appreciate you people showing up from all around the world to hear me profess a little bit about dance film today.
[00:21] Let's just like to start by watching a movie, and then we'll, and then we'll I'll start my yammering.
[00:24] So let's start by watching Dear John.
[00:29] Now, before we do that, here's a couple of international gestures that you should know so we can communicate silently.
[00:33] This is the international gesture for the video is over, okay?
[00:39] So that's, that's important to know.
[00:43] This is the international gesture for your microphone is muted, okay?
[00:47] Something that will really get my attention there.
[00:51] So, so I discovered that, okay?
[00:54] So anyway, let's begin.
[00:56] Take, take a look at Dear John.
[01:08] There goes everybody Jared, you were the first to click the link because you finished first, okay?
[01:16] So let me give you a brief bio about who I am.
[01:20] So I started college in electrical engineering, but in my sophomore year I needed phys ed credit, and I thought it would be a good way of meeting girls.
[01:26] So I signed up for a choreography one.
[01:29] I had never seen modern dance before.
[01:32] I didn't know what the word choreography is.
[01:38] But within two months I'm choreographing my first dance, having never seen modern dance.
[01:45] So I threw in yoga, I threw in sports, everything that was coming out was completely coming from my voice.
[01:52] I didn't know the conventions of the field.
[01:57] I didn't know that in modern dance you're supposed to like come in out of the wings on the bold diagonal, and then at the end you're supposed to like huddle down into a little ball beneath the spotlight.
[02:08] Didn't know any of those things.
[02:11] So everything that I did had to totally come from me and that artistic sensibility has, I think, pervaded all of the work that I've done, first as a choreographer and later as a filmmaker.
[02:24] It has that aspect of beginner's mind.
[02:28] And I'll be getting to that more in a little while, but that's an important point that I wanted to get across.
[02:35] So after college, I moved to New York.
[02:38] I started a dance company that specialized in humor, did pretty well, and for 15 years my company toured and performed in New York.
[02:51] And after 15 years, I thought that was done.
[02:54] I didn't have any more work that I felt compelled to have to do on stage.
[02:57] I had made 75 pieces and I wanted to move on.
[03:02] So doing a lot of soul-searching, I decided to go into filmmaking.
[03:04] So I disbanded the company, moved to Hollywood, went to the American...
[03:09] Film Institute as a directing fellow in their conservatory and for three years that did that.
[03:15] And then for 10 years after that I was in Hollywood during the Hollywood hustle writing screenplays and having meetings with producers and things like that.
[03:32] Then UCLA had a fellowship called the dance media fellowship.
[03:33] It was a two-month program for six people ways of exploring dance and trying to capture dance's aliveness in a two-dimensional medium.
[03:41] I didn't think hey this will be a new direction for me.
[03:43] I just thought it'd be fun after all this time to go and revisit dance and and synthesize these two loves of dance and film.
[03:53] I didn't mean for this to become a life path.
[03:55] Now I'm going to become dance film guy John Lennon says life is what happens to us well with me well we're busy making other plans.
[04:07] So I then got commissions from dance companies to begin making films with them and then I got a gig.
[04:11] Teaching dance film at Cal Arts and then I did that for four years.
[04:15] Then I got this gig here at Ohio State teaching dance filmmaking here.
[04:22] I've been here for nine years.
[04:25] So let's watch another film.
[04:27] So we're gonna take a look at Advance now.
[04:30] Let me know when you're done with Advance.
[04:40] All right, I'm going to give a talk now on my particular orientation to dance film.
[04:46] I think that my particular background of having been in dance but then having a film career gives me a unique position in the dance film field.
[04:57] A lot of the work that's being done is done by dance artists who then decide to make a film but approach it with dance thinking.
[05:10] So I'm going to do a PowerPoint now and excuse my focus.
[05:13] Disconnect, but I have to look at the script which is over here.
[05:18] Many of us here are dancers, and so we love dance.
[05:24] In fact, for many of us it might occupy most of what we think about.
[05:26] And so, being dance centric, it can be easy to jump to the conclusion the dance film is dance that's on film.
[05:38] But while it does convey an experience of dance, dance film is film.
[05:44] In fact, I've had an article published in which I arrogantly insist upon calling it dance film because it's film, as opposed to screen dance or dance for camera or similar terms which seem to be somehow trying to make it into a form of dance.
[06:03] It's a form of film, and it requires film thinking.
[06:09] Because of our possible predilections for seeing dance film as a form of dance, I think it's important to step back from.
[06:14] Our patterns of thought and take a fresh look at things.
[06:21] So let me ask you what is dance?
[06:22] Meaning the performing art form.
[06:26] So if you have a feeling of about what dance is, that thing that you spend so much time doing, then unmute yourself and tell the world.
[06:39] Dance is a way of expressing yourself through motion.
[06:44] So is sign language a form of dance?
[06:49] Or is mime dance?
[06:51] Okay, let's step back even further.
[06:54] Let me ask you what is art?
[06:57] Anybody like art out there?
[07:01] Well, I was gonna say about dance that it's ephemeral.
[07:06] And what I was art, and this would cover dance too, is that there's intention behind it.
[07:12] I like that.
[07:12] Let me ask everybody to take a look at a.
[07:15] French translation a translation of the French poem don't leer ooh by Simone Corday.
[07:20] It's a simple four word poem so take a look at this for a few moments and then I'm going to ask you to give me an interpretation of what it means to you.
[07:30] So take a look at this and tell me what you got okay.
[07:37] Well who'd like to venture an interpretation of this poem?
[07:43] I make the poem in my mind three characters a setting and an action ok fair enough.
[07:52] Anyone else?
[07:56] I'm visualizing lived experience as a person who has parents that have this sort of shared experience being immigrants and going through sort of this bridge across the world ok.
[08:15] Well here's the deal there is no Simone.
[08:17] Corday, this isn't a poem.
[08:18] This is four words that I just took out of newspaper headlines.
[08:22] But look what happened to you when you try to figure out this poem.
[08:26] You sat with these four words and went on a little journey.
[08:33] You looked inside and tried to figure out there's meaning here.
[08:38] What is the meaning?
[08:41] You turned up the level of sensitivity of awareness to eleven.
[08:44] And humans are riddle solvers, so you knew that there was meaning here.
[08:49] And you tried to find the meaning for yourself.
[08:53] Our best selves want to understand.
[08:57] And when we go inside on a journey of art, we evoke those best selves.
[09:03] Hey, I've been working on a visual arts piece for six months, and I think I've really got it.
[09:11] It means a lot to me, and I'd like to share it with you now.
[09:21] How do you like it? See how there's all this emptiness over here and there's a big green field. Green means growth. It could also mean represent money. So are we saying that our society is consumerist? Do we have a dependency on power? Is this a light switch or is it some other kind of switch? There's meaning here. I want to figure out what this meaning is. I'm glad I could share that with you. In art, we put a frame around a piece of life that identifies the thing inside as hyper life. This frame, whether a proscenium arch or a rectangle of a rectangle of projected image, demands of the spectator the contents of this are special. Turn it up.
[10:24] Look within yourself and identify the specialness.
[10:27] The key element that differentiates art from some stuff on the wall is intentionality.
[10:36] And that's what you see.
[10:38] You said there that before a person declaring I made this special thing to be considered in a special way.
[10:47] Lip sometimes our view of the dance art form gets stiff from how much work we do on stage.
[10:57] Someone says I went and saw that new dance of that choreographer and we danced Centrex have this vision there.
[11:07] They are all those dancers in that rectangular volume.
[11:10] I can see all of them way over there.
[11:13] They're facing me and moving in sideways plains.
[11:20] I remain sitting here so they stay the same size.
[11:24] Sometimes they come and go from that.
[11:26] Rectangular volume and the light goes up
[11:29] And down and the time advances smoothly
[11:33] And unbroken
[11:35] And after some minutes the lights go down and stay down
[11:39] That's our reflexive dance thinking we envision whole bodies that stay the same size they move horizontally sometimes disappearing off the sides they stay in the same space with time progressing linearly for the duration of the piece
[11:58] And that thinking will not serve your filmmaking because dance film is film a different way to think in film the performers don't have to present themselves facing us they don't have to stay the same size and we don't have to see all of their bodies they can be a football field away or a foot away where granted incredible intimate access to
[12:27] Get right up to a person and look inside their eyes, those windows of the soul.
[12:33] They don't have to stay in the same space.
[12:36] They don't even need to stay in the same time.
[12:37] That's incredible artistic freedom.
[12:40] So to step into this different world, I think it's important that we loosen our attachments to long developed thinking patterns and see with first-time eyes.
[12:50] You know when you have a friend who comes to visit you from out of town, they've never been to your town before, and so you're driving them around showing them things, and oh this is the Capitol building, and you see the Capitol building for the first time.
[13:04] You're seeing it from behind their eyes, putting yourself in a state of empathy with them.
[13:10] So it's this concept of seeing things for the first time.
[13:18] There's the Zen concept of beginner's mind, to be open to all possibilities.
[13:23] And a Zen quote goes: in the mind of the beginner there are many.
[13:28] Possibilities in the mind of the expert.
[13:31] There are a few, and I'll make that connection back to my bio of the way I began dancing without knowing the conventions, and I was an absolute beginner.
[13:43] And I've tried to have that artistic sensibility pervade all of my work as a dancer, and then, and now as a filmmaker.
[13:47] Like, was I think it's good to have an open view of dance films' possibilities because it can be so many things.
[14:00] It's good to go back to the beginning, to a place before we began to become experts and our thinking began to become set, to have a fresh look at what dance is and what art is.
[14:17] But just to be clear about what dance film is not, from my perspective: simply shooting a staged dance.
[14:22] I don't call documentation dance film.
[14:26] You can turn a stage dance into a...
[14:30] Dance film, but it has to be adapted.
[14:32] The way in novel it's adapted into a screenplay when it's translated from one medium to another.
[14:40] Dance has long had a presence in cinema, but Busby Berkeley or Fred Astaire is also not the stance of dance film that we're talking about here.
[14:48] Those are examples of dancing that is filmed beautifully.
[14:54] My perspective of dance film is not merely recording some dance; the film is the dance, images choreographed from the ground up.
[15:06] So, what dance film is?
[15:09] This is my definition of the field: it's a visual medium that has as its content dance art that is solely meant for that medium or has the intentionality to evoke an experience of dance.
[15:26] The first originates with dancing; the second does not necessarily.
[15:29] It could be a randomly swirling piece of fabric.
[15:32] But the results of both are an experience of dance in the spectator.
[15:38] By experience of dance, I mean that while watching a dance film, one has an experience that feels like the experience one has while watching dance.
[15:48] This definition means that doesn't even necessarily have to be a human involved.
[15:54] Let me show you some video clips, and I want you to decide if these are dance films.
[15:59] See if they give you the feeling that you're watching dance, if they make you think about dance.
[16:06] So first, let's take a look at this.
[16:15] So dance film, yeah?
[16:21] Why would it be? There's no intentionality to it.
[16:23] It's my cat Marcel walking on a treadmill, okay?
[16:26] How about this? Hop hop.
[16:29] Look, birds go hop hop hop, just like you.
[16:32] Dancers go hop hop hop dance film no.
[16:37] Again, there's no intentionality to it.
[16:40] Okay, let's take a look at this.
[16:42] Here's some more bird footage.
[16:46] How about this?
[16:46] [Laughter]
[17:05] [Music]
[17:33] Dance film.
[17:34] I see nodding, hell yeah, and not just because it's longer or because there's music or some of the movements resemble human movements.
[17:46] This is an excerpt from Birds by British dance filmmaker David Hinton, and it conveys an undeniable experience of dance.
[17:55] When watching it, I feel like I do want to watch a dance.
[17:57] The same neurons are firing, but here the editing is the choreography, and it can only exist on film.
[18:07] In dance film, those same elements that make dance dance—motion, musicality, space, design—are melded with film language into a cinematic reimagining of the dance dynamic.
[18:22] And this reimagining of what dance is is where I'm stressing going back to the beginning in reassessing our fundamental imagining about dance.
[18:31] If you come at dance film with your old dance thinking.
[18:33] It's harder to come up with a wonderfully fresh reconceiving of dance.
[18:37] Like birds dance now has two paths: theatrical and filmic, real and artificial.
[18:42] Theater conforms to real time and real space.
[18:49] There it is the thing taking place right there before you as a whole, a phenomena logically lived experience happening in the same reality as you fifty feet away.
[19:03] But it's beautiful to have that real experience of real humanity sitting there sharing their lives with you.
[19:09] Huffing and puffing up, they're right there.
[19:11] Film isn't real life; it's hyper life.
[19:15] It doesn't have to conform to time and space.
[19:18] It takes different elements of them and creates an artificial construct.
[19:23] And I don't demean the word artificial.
[19:26] Magic is artifice, but it lifts the heart and wonder.
[19:29] Film is utter artifice, and I...
[19:33] Love spinning that magic Picasso.
[19:37] Famously said art is a lie that tells the truth.
[19:40] So here is the dance film spectrum.
[19:44] And I'm arranging this on a diagonal to try to not favor one end.
[19:47] This isn't good bad, it's different approaches.
[19:49] At one extreme they went to a location and shot that the entirety of a piece of choreography using perhaps various camera angles and interesting cinematography.
[19:55] This is what I call a dance in a place and its artistic engine is the choreography.
[20:05] And at this extreme is birds.
[20:12] It's a completely filmic construction using film language.
[20:16] The editing is the choreography.
[20:19] This extreme minimally uses the medium.
[20:22] This extreme is the medium.
[20:26] And then there's all the gradations in-between.
[20:29] Of my 35 films I've made one film in the dance and a.
[20:35] place side here's an excerpt
[20:40] [Music]
[20:46] swing through the stormy I see this
[21:17] woman was a student in our department
[21:19] and she showed this dance in a showing
[21:21] and I thought it would be great to film
[21:23] it in the snow it's a dance filmed in a
[21:26] place so that's one approach but my
[21:30] personal interest is on the right half
[21:32] of the spectrum in using constructions
[21:35] to tell movement stories and filmic
[21:37] dance poems that convey an experience of
[21:40] dance I'm going to break up the
[21:43] presentation now and let's take a look
[21:45] at another film contact
[21:55] okay sorry I'm waiting for you people I
[21:58] could just sit here forever
[21:59] I figured that man that's the longest
[22:01] three minutes 14 seconds ever thank you
[22:04] let me talk about three areas of
[22:07] interest that make dance film vital to
[22:10] the dance field and the world longevity
[22:14] economics impact when I first started
[22:18] dancing I thought one of the really cool
[22:20] things about dance is that it's a lived
[22:23] experience it's real humans being human
[22:27] up there playing before us right there
[22:30] in this gem-like moment and it exists
[22:35] only in the moment and that was
[22:37] fantastic when I was young and immortal
[22:40] then as I got a little older and I began
[22:43] to have thoughts of mortality I began to
[22:46] realize well where are my dances all
[22:48] those dances they don't exist anymore
[22:50] because I only have left is this box of
[22:53] dusty lousy videotapes because one of
[22:57] the bad things about dance is that it
[22:59] exists only in the moment but my films
[23:03] are in the cloud and as long as yeah I
[23:06] don't even have to pay my Vimeo bill
[23:08] that the films are already up there and
[23:10] they'll last forever
[23:12] longevity speaking generally it's
[23:17] expensive to put on a show if you're a
[23:20] dance artist and you have something to
[23:21] say you can get a bunch of dancers
[23:25] together you can give them some money
[23:27] for rehearsal you can hire a performance
[23:31] space and have some posters printed you
[23:36] die get a you pay a graphic designer and
[23:39] then you print up the posters do you put
[23:40] them around now you hire a lighting
[23:42] designer maybe you rent some lights it's
[23:45] really expensive to put on a show if
[23:47] you're a dance artist and you have
[23:49] something to say it costs almost nothing
[23:50] to make a dance film you've got your
[23:54] camera you probably already have I move
[23:57] me iMovie on your computer you can make
[24:01] a dance film for almost nothing put it
[24:05] on the web and probably
[24:07] have more people see it in a couple of
[24:08] weeks then we'll have saw all of your
[24:11] performances that you were going to do
[24:13] dance film is incredibly democratic
[24:16] people can do it and people can get
[24:18] their works seen around the world
[24:23] there's the question of why are movies
[24:27] popular and I'd say it's because film
[24:31] provides a deep mythic need story and I
[24:35] think for our purposes we can loosely
[24:37] define story as a sequence of human
[24:40] events that can be related to by the
[24:42] watcher something that resembles their
[24:45] lives hopes beliefs this is why dance
[24:49] film has impact because it triggers a
[24:52] response in the spectator that they've
[24:55] experienced to these life things too we
[24:59] come into the world as babies totally
[25:02] blank slates we know nothing and and we
[25:06] have to learn how the way the world
[25:08] works it's for our safety we need to
[25:12] know the way things are so we go
[25:14] crawling around exploring everything and
[25:16] oh look here's a pebble what's a pebble
[25:18] oh look there's a hinge on this cabinet
[25:21] oh it's so smooth and shiny we know
[25:24] nothing and we need to fill our
[25:26] experience all databases and story tells
[25:29] us the way things are
[25:31] so we crawl into bed and we beg tell us
[25:34] the way things are well there what
[25:37] there's a magical kingdom oh well there
[25:40] once was a magical kingdom and there was
[25:43] that the way it is oh that's that's good
[25:46] information Thanks we are sponges for
[25:50] experience and with that need doesn't
[25:53] even doesn't leave us as we grow older
[25:57] and we march into the darkened theaters
[25:59] and we sit there and the flickering
[26:01] light hits us and we go into this place
[26:04] of semi hypnotic receptivity going where
[26:10] am i this probably happens to you all
[26:13] the time that I need to do a reality
[26:15] check while watching a movie but oh I'm
[26:17] just in a movie
[26:19] you we forget our sense of time we
[26:22] forget where we are we even forget our
[26:25] identity oh that person isn't me up
[26:28] there
[26:28] my life is an endangered that's
[26:30] incredible
[26:33] him that's a real impact I mean it's an
[26:36] incredible level of transcendence I also
[26:39] think there's a physiological effect
[26:41] that there's something about the
[26:43] flickering of light that our retinas
[26:45] have this itch that like moving light
[26:47] satisfies so here look at this campfire
[26:51] for a moment you've probably done this
[26:54] you have it gazed into the fire in the
[26:57] fireplace or at a campfire and you go
[27:00] into the zone it's a very visual place
[27:04] you begin getting in touch with memories
[27:08] so combine the deep mythic need for
[27:13] story that humans have with flickering
[27:16] light and that's real impact and if you
[27:19] look at box office numbers for movies
[27:21] versus dance performances I think you
[27:25] can understand why let me show you a
[27:30] scene from a short dance film called
[27:35] outside-in directed by Margaret Williams
[27:37] choreographed by a Victoria Marx it's a
[27:40] wonderful film but I'm just gonna show
[27:41] one singing and we'll talk about it on
[27:43] the other side
[27:44] [Music]
[28:27] [Applause]
[28:29] [Music]
[29:22] it's a beautiful film but let's take a
[29:25] look at the organizing principles that
[29:27] are dance knicking based and film
[29:29] thinking based in this scene alone first
[29:32] those that are dance thinking based it's
[29:36] continuously frontal with proscenium
[29:39] like orientation it happens in
[29:42] continuous time in the same space the
[29:47] choreographic engine originates only
[29:50] from the dancing not from filmic
[29:52] construction and there are theatrical
[29:56] effects of stage lighting and fog and
[29:59] now the film language in the scene there
[30:03] are cuts offering us different
[30:05] perspectives
[30:06] there's repeated action with puncheon's
[30:09] to close-ups to allow for intimacy but
[30:13] overall that's it this scene is a dance
[30:17] filmed beautifully in a place in fact an
[30:20] audience could have sat in that
[30:22] warehouse and watched it with largely
[30:24] the same experience I left dance to
[30:28] become a filmmaker
[30:29] and I rejoined dance as a filmmaker in
[30:32] my work I strive to convey an experience
[30:35] of dance through cinematic grammar with
[30:39] my films advance or contact the
[30:42] experience of dance on the screen could
[30:44] only happen because it was constructed
[30:46] from the ground up using film language
[30:48] if you're coming at dance film as a
[30:51] choreographer
[30:52] ready to make a dance rather than as a
[30:54] filmmaker ready to construct a film the
[30:58] film frame can start to become a
[31:00] surrogate for the proscenium there are
[31:03] other possibilities to find them dispel
[31:06] yourself of your expert dance thinking
[31:10] become a beginner
[31:18] so let's take a look at the next film
[31:21] now this is called and so say all of us
[31:24] so you don't have to watch all of the
[31:28] credits at the end when you see directed
[31:30] by Mitchell Rose
[31:38] okay it looks like people are getting to
[31:41] their credits you don't need to watch
[31:43] their credits just suffice it to say a
[31:45] lot of wonderful people helped to make
[31:47] the film so I'm going to talk about the
[31:50] process of making and so say all of us
[31:52] this film came from three areas of
[31:56] interest for me first is what I call
[31:58] hyper match cutting films where every
[32:01] adjacent edit is perfectly aligned in
[32:03] position and continuity five of my 35
[32:07] films have explored this first was
[32:10] advance the linear dance that you
[32:12] watched then came contact which you also
[32:16] watched and I should say that there's
[32:19] nothing new in this here's Buster Keaton
[32:21] aka God doing it so brilliantly 95 years
[32:26] ago in sherlock jr.
[32:29] [Music]
[32:52] the second area of exploration that
[32:55] entered the third of the series of five
[32:57] films is my long term interest in remote
[33:00] collaboration I've always been
[33:03] fascinated by the idea getting people to
[33:05] do complicated things remotely via
[33:08] instructions in Globetrotter I wanted to
[33:11] make a film that would portray fractured
[33:13] but continuous choreography and that
[33:16] would be shot by many remote filmmakers
[33:19] Beebe Miller choreographed to dance and
[33:23] I broke it down into two-second segments
[33:25] that I farmed out to 54 filmmakers in 23
[33:29] countries representing all seven
[33:31] continents each filmmaker would find a
[33:35] non dancer on the street and worked with
[33:38] them until they had learned their two
[33:40] second phrase here's an excerpt
[33:48] [Music]
[34:07] there's an art game called exquisite
[34:10] corpse in which an artist too draws on
[34:13] accordion folded paper and then a second
[34:15] artist picks up the drawing from there
[34:17] and eventually the totality is revealed
[34:20] there's also a literary form of this I
[34:23] want to make a film version using a
[34:27] corps of dancers exquisite core I
[34:31] invited choreographers I knew and others
[34:34] I didn't and started building it in
[34:36] sequence a choreographer had to repeat
[34:39] the final movement of the PERT of the
[34:41] previous person and from there they
[34:43] could take it wherever they wanted for
[34:45] two to ten seconds here's an excerpt
[34:50] [Music]
[35:26] the film did well having a millionaire
[35:29] half views online and everybody and his
[35:32] mother is copying it right now but with
[35:35] globetrotting two years and exquisite
[35:37] core taking another two years I was
[35:40] totally done with these hyper match
[35:41] cutting projects and that brings me to
[35:44] the third area of interest that inspired
[35:47] this film money let's face it the real
[35:51] reason that anyone gets into the dance
[35:53] film game in the summer of 2017 I got a
[35:58] call from the Brooklyn Academy of Music
[36:00] their executive producer of 30 years Joe
[36:04] Melillo was retiring and they were
[36:06] throwing him a huge bash the next year
[36:09] they had seen exquisite core and they
[36:12] wanted to commissioned me to make a
[36:13] version for them featuring bam alum
[36:16] choreographers that Joe had felt
[36:18] particularly close to even though in
[36:22] exquisite core coordinating all those
[36:24] people and their schedules was painful
[36:27] BAM would provide producers from
[36:30] pomegranate arts to keep the machinery
[36:32] humming along and with that and the
[36:35] opportunity to work with some great
[36:37] artists there was a lot more potential
[36:39] for fun with exquisite core dozens of
[36:43] people had declined to my invitation but
[36:46] with this BAM film in many cases Joe had
[36:49] made these people's careers so even the
[36:53] big names could hardly say no if they
[36:56] ever wanted to perform at BAM again but
[37:00] in truth they all loved Joe and they
[37:02] wanted to do it in terms of methodology
[37:06] I had already done a lot of the R&D in
[37:09] Ex Wizard core so it wasn't that hard to
[37:12] get started I wrote a manual that every
[37:16] dancer and camera operator would get the
[37:19] dancers parameters can be boiled down
[37:21] simply wear a red top for visual
[37:25] continuity repeat the preceding ending
[37:27] movement precisely use a visually
[37:30] interesting location
[37:32] the length is four to twelve seconds
[37:34] really hard for people and don't do any
[37:38] of the know knows which I'll get to in a
[37:40] second camera person checklist and then
[37:44] the fuller dancer descriptions of the
[37:46] above and the no nose don't direct
[37:51] messaged Joe holding up and I love Joe
[37:54] sign or something don't exit the frame
[37:57] don't sing or speak no one else in the
[38:01] frame no commercial music playing I shot
[38:06] seventeen of the 52 people and a former
[38:09] student of mine who's now a dance
[38:10] filmmaker in New York shot another
[38:12] seventeen and the international dancers
[38:15] provided their own camera person this
[38:18] was the section for the camera operators
[38:21] how to position and align the dancer in
[38:24] the frame how big to have the dancer
[38:27] I'll get to that later how to move with
[38:30] the camera to match up to the camera
[38:32] movement of the previous shot and more
[38:35] tech info to get everybody on the same
[38:37] page because there were all levels of
[38:39] expertise involved and everything from
[38:42] Blackmagic cameras to iPhones BAM
[38:45] prepared a list of choreographers many
[38:47] of whom had been in X wizard core and we
[38:50] began coming up with a sequence the
[38:53] dancer that began the film would end it
[38:55] to book in the film and I wanted to
[38:57] start with a subway train arriving at
[38:59] BAM so I used David Dorfman an old
[39:03] friend and someone who's always game
[39:05] particularly since after every take
[39:08] David had to take the train to the next
[39:09] station crossover and then come back and
[39:12] taking 15 minutes and working with the
[39:15] timing of subway trains can be
[39:17] unpredictable just ignore those people
[39:20] and cue the doors close the doors just
[39:27] hold it David keep it real cue the doors
[39:32] magic magic magic yeah just forget it
[39:38] see you in 15 minutes and the process
[39:42] began for each dancer besides being able
[39:45] to walk
[39:45] the entirety of the Edit to that point I
[39:48] would also send a rehearsal video of the
[39:51] previous person's ending like this this
[39:57] would be accompanied by a lengthy email
[39:59] in which I'd suggest ideas for concepts
[40:02] and locations and I would also describe
[40:04] the movement in words a dancer can watch
[40:07] a video and think I got it but they
[40:10] probably don't have it well enough for
[40:12] these purposes so by having them use a
[40:15] different part of their brain with
[40:16] language it makes them look at the
[40:18] movement deeper here's what I wrote to
[40:21] Martin Zimmerman for this shot when you
[40:25] start the roll you're 90 degrees to the
[40:27] camera the left arm circles back the
[40:30] right arm is relaxed to the down forward
[40:32] diagonal you're now facing the camera
[40:35] with the focus down for camera when he
[40:39] starts his roll he's in the upper middle
[40:41] section with his head on the left a
[40:43] gridline tilts straight up somewhere the
[40:46] time he stands his waist is on the upper
[40:48] grid line you really have to go into
[40:52] that level of detail and then when they
[40:54] edit the two shots cut on motion it
[40:57] makes the Edit motivated kinetic and
[41:00] most of all transparent cutting from
[41:03] stillness to stillness calls attention
[41:04] to the editor making choices with this
[41:08] shot the next person aurelion bori and
[41:11] his camera person did a terrific job of
[41:14] matching seamlessly cut on motion dancer
[41:22] by dancer the process ground along every
[41:26] so often I'd fly to New York to blitz
[41:28] through seven or eight people in a
[41:30] weekend it's much easier when I can
[41:32] shoot it myself and coach the dancer and
[41:35] edit it right there on my laptop to make
[41:37] sure it works otherwise typically I get
[41:40] footage sent in one person a week here's
[41:45] how I line up the shots you can see that
[41:47] built he Jones is smaller to the right
[41:50] and low so put in a cross-dissolve
[41:53] between the two clips so I can see them
[41:56] both
[41:57] then scale up the smaller clip so
[42:00] they're about the same size then
[42:04] reposition the scaled up clip until
[42:06] they're overlapping then delete the
[42:09] cross dissolve and they're kind of lined
[42:13] up good enough of this demo given this
[42:17] technique I'd ask everyone to shoot 85%
[42:20] of the size of the preceding dancer so I
[42:22] could scale it up and have some latitude
[42:24] to move the image around once the
[42:28] editing is done there is an endless
[42:30] post-production magic to improve on
[42:33] reality those pillows are ugly and
[42:36] distracting so put in a wall to cover
[42:38] them or little tweaks like Meredith monk
[42:43] is next to a lovely babbling brook but
[42:45] you can hardly see it
[42:46] so superimpose some sparkling over the
[42:48] water that fuse box in Lucinda Child's
[42:53] kitchen is boring so do a little
[42:55] interior decorating and what I said
[42:59] before about always cutting on motion
[43:01] was hard here because she was moving so
[43:04] slowly and the cut was clunky so we
[43:07] added in the birds a split second before
[43:10] the Edit to have an EEG spike of
[43:12] distraction and it worked much better
[43:16] the film premiered September 13th 2018
[43:20] and Bam's Harvey Theater okay let me
[43:24] stop the presentation of that now and
[43:26] let's move on to the the last film so
[43:30] I've been sitting here endlessly
[43:33] stating the Pro dance film point of view
[43:37] and it's really unfair that no one is
[43:39] here to give the a fair and balanced
[43:42] contrary point of view so I'd like you
[43:45] to now watch the case against dance film
[43:48] so that we get both sides of the story
[43:50] so take a look at that now and I'll see
[43:52] you in a few minutes
[44:00] okay and we are back
[44:03] [Music]
[44:05] so let's duel or Q&A now well thank you
[44:12] so much for doing that I have a couple
[44:15] of questions one is that of course their
[44:17] their hat I mean I show your videos all
[44:19] the time your excuse me your dance films
[44:21] or whatever we call them today but to my
[44:25] students all the time and of course now
[44:27] with this online dance education
[44:31] situation all anything on film is
[44:35] becoming you know those those resources
[44:37] have become even more important and of
[44:40] course there have been a lot of people
[44:41] who are as you said using your idea and
[44:45] taking off with it the idea of the
[44:47] exquisite core which I'm just curious
[44:49] number one how you feel about that like
[44:53] is it is it okay with you is it cool cuz
[44:56] we were kind of thinking of doing
[44:57] something like that I think you deserve
[45:00] credit for it of course but I also
[45:02] wonder what simple I guess I want to
[45:08] know if you have a recommendation for
[45:11] what program to use for people like me I
[45:16] want to say us but I can't speak for
[45:18] other people
[45:19] okay alright so two questions there if
[45:21] you mean like editing editing software
[45:23] it doesn't matter
[45:28] what you have to learn is editing not
[45:32] not software you could do this on Final
[45:37] Cut which as I did you can do it on
[45:38] premiere you can do it on DaVinci
[45:39] Resolve you can do an avatar it doesn't
[45:42] matter the only thing that matters
[45:44] really is the art of editing software
[45:47] doesn't matter software is just a tool
[45:49] it doesn't like make art for you I could
[45:52] teach you how to drive and you could
[45:54] become a good driver
[45:55] and you could then drive a Toyota or a
[45:58] Ford and it would be the exact same
[46:00] thing or just be like oh it's over here
[46:02] oh I didn't think this does never stick
[46:04] shift it doesn't matter you know how to
[46:06] drive right so software doesn't matter
[46:08] okay the other question is how do I feel
[46:11] about everybody making these films at
[46:15] first when this I was irritated when I
[46:17] saw people doing this because I'm this
[46:20] is my intellectual property you can't
[46:21] just begin doing it thing is you can't
[46:23] copyright an idea so it doesn't there's
[46:26] nothing I can do about it
[46:27] so only this morning actually or yes
[46:32] yesterday morning I began thinking you
[46:34] know what I can't control it I might as
[46:37] well if you can't beat them join them so
[46:39] I think I'm actually gonna do a webinar
[46:41] on how to do it and just ask people to
[46:45] say inspired by exquisite core by
[46:50] Mitchell Rose I mean that's probably the
[46:52] best I can do but people are just gonna
[46:54] do it anyway so my two options are to
[47:00] try to get on board or to sit here and
[47:03] grouse about it I'll get enough things
[47:06] that grouse about so I think I'm
[47:08] probably in the next like week or two
[47:10] I'm gonna do a webinar on how do you how
[47:13] do you do that misty yeah I pop reckons
[47:18] I had to leave before the QA last time
[47:20] so my question is kind of in reference
[47:23] to something you were talking about
[47:24] there which I'm sure you talked about
[47:25] here which was is it a dance film or not
[47:28] and you talked about what invokes you
[47:30] know the idea of movement in the body I
[47:31] guess I'm wondering does it
[47:33] matter who the spectator is if it's a
[47:36] dance film or not and are you are you
[47:39] how much do you think about who's gonna
[47:41] be your viewer or your audience when
[47:43] you're making so first it doesn't matter
[47:47] who the viewer is I don't care if it's
[47:50] at somebody who is familiar with it or
[47:52] not
[47:52] I mean Ida I put some thought into that
[47:56] but not a lot is and I I don't want to
[47:59] have that privileged or you know the
[48:04] point of view of like I'm just making
[48:06] mine for the for the literati or the
[48:11] cinema T so I don't care and my view is
[48:18] that I don't I try to make my work
[48:22] accessible I want everybody to be able
[48:24] to enjoy it I mean some pieces are a
[48:27] little bit more cerebral than others but
[48:29] I but I want work that can that
[48:31] everybody can like and I I try to make
[48:36] work which is entertaining and I don't
[48:37] think that into entertainment and art
[48:40] are mutually exclusive I try to I think
[48:45] a lot of my films have a hook in them
[48:48] that goes beyond dance film like let's
[48:51] take a look at Dear John
[48:52] so Dear John is a guy dancing with this
[48:55] excavator people a lot of people who
[48:57] aren't dancers can first of all just go
[49:00] like hey look there's like this truck
[49:02] and the guy thing is and and and that's
[49:04] enough but the bigger story of Dear John
[49:06] is a story of longing and longing is an
[49:11] Animoto an archetype an emotional
[49:14] archetype that everyone has experienced
[49:16] everyone has experienced I wanted I want
[49:20] this object you know the object of your
[49:24] desire how can I have union with this
[49:29] thing that's a universal sensation that
[49:33] anybody can relate to even if you have
[49:34] no dance experience so that's the bigger
[49:37] story of Dear John isn't there like oh
[49:40] look he's dancing with the thing it's
[49:42] like it's a story of longing that
[49:45] everybody has felt in fact
[49:47] my frequent collaborators in with a lot
[49:52] of my films is body Vox Dance Company
[49:54] which is in Portland Oregon Dear John is
[49:59] with them advance is I don't know what
[50:03] else we saw today but in contact was
[50:06] yeah so those were all made with a body
[50:08] box um its to artistic directors Jamie
[50:12] Hampton and act and his wife Ashley
[50:13] Roland
[50:14] Ashley had said when I first became a
[50:16] filmmaker he we should do a solo on a
[50:21] John Deere excavator you know what to
[50:23] the dying Swan we should see you know
[50:25] the habit you know look at all the
[50:27] different things it can do okay that's
[50:29] fine that'd be great so now it was time
[50:31] to actually when I was doing that the
[50:33] UCLA fellowship to actually make the
[50:35] thing and they and I felt I could do a
[50:38] thing of look the machine can do this
[50:41] and the Machine can do this and there's
[50:43] graceful music playing and isn't it nice
[50:45] that can be interesting for about 45
[50:48] seconds look what it can do but if I
[50:51] said it's dancing with another person
[50:53] and there's the story of longing that's
[50:55] a big story and you can then get people
[50:58] to be interested for three minutes you
[51:01] know by by having it become a the story
[51:06] of a person and and the object of his
[51:08] longing thank you sure
[51:14] did I convince you with with the case
[51:16] against dance film to then hate dance
[51:18] film no ok fine ok everybody well thanks
[51:25] so much for joining me today it was fun
[51:27] talking with you and um see you on the
[51:32] Internet
[51:33] somehow so long
[51:35] [Music]