Notes on Film art

3 points from the Film Art book:

1. “When we watch a film that tells a story or surveys, categories, or makes an argument, we usually pay little attention to the sheer pictorial qualities of the shots. Yet it’s possible to organize an entire film around colors, shapes, sizes, and movements in the images.” This is a very inspiring remark for me because I have never carefully thought about what differentiate an experimental film from conventional genres.
2. Abstract films are often organized in a way that we might call “theme and variations”. Abstract films also usually depend on building up greater and greater differences from the introductory material. Experimental filmmakers often start by photographing real objects.

This analogy of “themes and variations” that was originally a music term. “Theme” ,an important tune of the music piece, correspond to the real objects photographed as a starting point in an abstract film. “Variation”, a repeated but majorly changed version of the “theme”, correspond to the cinematic and conceptual manipulation of the original/real objects.

1. Many experimental films draw on a poetic series of transitions that create what we may term associational form. Associational formal systems suggests ideas and expressive qualities by grouping images that may not have any immediate logical connection.

So far, two terms are described in the chapter- “abstract” and “associational”. These two forms have a number of similarities and differences. Similarly, neither involve narration; both lack order in which the images are sequenced. An abstract film is usually organized around visual features, in the way of “theme and variations”, while associational films share some qualities with abstract film, it involves interpretation-they often have a general meaning behind them but the viewers can interpret it their own way.