Thursday 6th December Zero screening, final thoughts.

Situated in the midst of the rest of the Zero projects I was happy that the reflective pacing of the film worked as I had intended. I had some nice feedback from some viewers that the film made them think of their Grandparents. More importantly for me I felt that I had done the subject justice within the time requirements.

I was also able to enjoy the experience of having the subject of the film attend the showing.

This project has pushed me to reconsider what a film is, the form is not fixed, the rules are set not because they are inherent but because we have become comfortable with them. Challenging the rules of presentation doesn’t result that the content of the film also has to be challenging. For me the most successful of the zero projects were those that forgot about trying to tell us a story and allowed us to spend time with someone. I was reminded of the sensory filmmaking techniques that we discussed earlier in those films that allowed us a window onto a different world. The only similarity that I noticed between these films was that the camera and edit reflected the subject. The intensity of a kickboxer’s training was echoed in the fast repetition on the hits and saturated colours, while a cat was nursed back to health in neutral colour palette and thoughtful pacing. In both cases the emotion of the moments dictated the rhythm of the cuts.