Pre Production Unit - Researching Experimental Film

As we are doing an experimental film I felt it was vital to research what experimental means and what is involved conventionally. Also referred to as ‘Avant Garde’, a military term meaning foreguard, an experimental film is something that seeks to break normal conventions that may be associated within cinema. This is done in many different ways singularly or over many aspects of the film. 

A common trend that runs through an experimental film is its use to explore a non conforming narrative structure. The films don’t usually follow a conventional cinema narrative of start, middle and end. They are told in their own unique way that usually delivers a message or believe in a way that can be interpreted depending on who the viewer is. A narrative can take its form in many ways to be classed as an experimental film. When experimental films are telling a story, they are often nonlinear. This means that as mentioned earlier, even if the story has a start middle and end, they will not necessarily be told in this order or may overlap and interchange with each other throughout the course of watching it. Alternatively, an experimental film may not have a story altogether. It could be a collection of scenes and images cut together and laid out to provoke a thought, mood or emotion. Lastly, the films can also use narrative forms from literature, poetry or abstracts of written material to display a message, sometimes cryptic or on a deeper level, that the film maker is trying to enlighten. Take a look at these two videos as examples. 


Dog Star Man

Siki 

Both examples are very different from each other in terms of narrative but are both classed as experimental films. Dog Star Man which was made by Stan Brakhage from 1961 to 1964 has the vague narrative of a man who climbs to the top of a mountain as he witnesses visions on his decent. The story is so vague that the film looks more like a collection of different images and visuals. With Siki, which was made by university students in the Philippines, has much more of a story but its still told in a nonlinear and abstract way highlighting a buried message of the human race as consumers and how we like to own everything even though its owned by a life other than ours. Both are experimental films just created in different ways. In terms of visuals, an experimental film would again set its self aside compared to main stream cinema. Different methods are used to express meaning and to grab audiences attention. Shots could be out of focus, over and under exposed, lens distortions or rapid camera movements amongst slow ones that appear to stand out when put alongside others. Art films that often resemble fashion have more exuberant and expensive looking visuals. They are beautifully enhanced with popping colour tones and smooth camera movements in a dream like, fantasy sense. Slow motion is another method that is widely used in experimental films creating a different effect from scenes being played at normal speed. 

With editing, rather than general cuts from scene to scene with the aim of seamless integration, experimental films tend to make their editing more present. Quick cuts and jumps of scenes with audio changes are often used to make the film exciting and alert. Its also common to see an experimentation of colour editing in forms of transitioning in and out of black and white. Here is another example of an experimental film:


An Addict Film

Although you may see this as an extended advert for ‘Dior’ lipstick, It can also be classed as a short experimental film. It has many different styles and techniques that would class it into the bracket of experimental. The colours are bold and strong to create that dream like state that I mentioned earlier. At 6 seconds in, the film already cuts really quickly to a blurred, black and white, CCTV image with a split second noise of a crowd as it then settles on a view of a city. It doesn’t take long before another jump cut is added in the same fashion a few seconds later. This is relayed throughout the whole film as the black and white clips are more elongated and reveal their relevance to the story thats being told. At 32 seconds in we get a shot of a dress seemingly floating up off of the floor into the models hand. The short clip has been played backwards to give a different effect that when integrated with the next clip, which is being played normally forward, it allows the backwards shot to seem as if it was an actual reality of what happened and the illusion that it was actually forwards. The scenes that are towards the end of the story are also all incorporated in short bursts throughout the whole film that allow the audience to journey back and forth towards the end point. This shows the nonlinear structure that this short film has undertaken.