Yanfei Chen
Making a real scene in painting
(Arts as conversation)
Working with film director Dequan Zhang
(Script for Interdisciplinary Practice Presentation)
In my interdisciplinary research, I want to make a conversation to the film director, and create a scene of my painting based on film.
As I am interested in space, so in this project I chose to pay more attention to the scene in film to explore.
Before doing this project, I learned about the preparation for a film. The shooting and production of a film can be divided into early stage, middle stage and late stage. Specifically speaking, before starting the machine, it belongs to the early state, including planning, screenwriting, shooting, scene, the construction of the studio, the choice of actors, equipment, camera and field affairs. The middle is from about to seal the machine stage, is the process of filming. The focus is on the actors’ performances, filming, recording and material collection. Post-production starts with material , including editing, sound, special effects, packaging and composition, and production. In addition, my research topic is related to the shooting drawing in the film. While working in the clothing department and art department, the director department will also carry out a very important work-shooting drawing. In a large environment, the director hopes to complete the expression of a plot through what kind of picture, scene, angle and machine position, which can be previewed through the method of shooting. Split-shot drawing guides the staff in the field work in the form of visual graphics.
At the beginning of my research, I choose three directions to do my research, firstly, this paper takes a film stills( Aki Kaurismaki and the Chinese director wongkarwai’s film choosing one of them as a template to analyze how the filmmakers will arrange the scenes in the play and how the painter will arrange the scenes in it. Secondly, I picked a work by Edward hooper
As how the filmmaker will arrange scene in the picture. As a painter, how do I arrange the scene in the picture? Thirdly , I choose one of my work to analyze. And I will through these acknowledge to create a new work.
In mid-March, I connected a friend from Beijing film academy, he is a film director, we chose wangkaiwei’s film “Mood Age”as our analysis. In his movies, he used to different shooting methods to highlight the full heart of the character. As the film maker, Zhang told me some academic information about wang’s film style. firstly, handheld stabilizers create a strong sense of movement, secondly, slow shutter shooting, creating a blurred scene of the picture. Thirdly, good at using irregular composition to create a complex psychological atmosphere.
Forth, blur foreground, build peep angle. Fifth, cool and warm color contrast adds mystery.
In particular, we choose a frame, then we chose one of aki’s movie to do some research, “lights in the dusk”and compare to Edward hooper’s painting. In this three of artists, they have some same style, aki’s fims always seem to tell a story, and his films never lack a tavern, a band, a record player, a dog, and his trademark colors. He is always good at depicting the cruel stories of the little depicting the cruel stories of the little working class people in Finland, who have the unique interpersonal distance of Finns, and often have a cold look and eccentric behavior, but their lives are still warm and bright. Like hooper’s painting, his characters always stand still in those colors with srtange expressions. Therefore, these movie images always remind me of hooper's paintings. Maybe it is the juxtaposition of the same loneliness and strong colors that makes me have similar feelings. Strong color is always fresh, it will bring us a lively and full of vitality of the imagination, the summer vitality of the sun, the bright urban night, it is far from the loneliness. Perhaps it is precisely because of such a contradiction in the same picture, those lonely colors will be like a dose of poison, so addictive.
In the next stage, based on what I know about the setting of the movie and my previous painting theme, I hope to create solid three-dimensional space in the plane space. I get a inspire of wang’s movie, I want to make a scene in my work, then Zhang described the script for a small scene, then I make a sketch and talk to him.
Finally, we chose to use ready-made cloth in the picture.
We went to the fabric shop, there are different textures of cloth, considering the visual effect of the cloth in the picture, we chose a cloth with a slightly stronger texture, at the same time, for the atmosphere of the picture, wo chose the dark blue color. I arranged the cloth on the picture in two pieces, leave some space in between to paint. After I fixed the top end of the cloth in the picture, I realized what my friends who had come to my house to see this work had done, they all happened to pull back the curtain made in the picture. My first thought was that this curtain wouldn’t pull, then I stuck them all together with glue to create a sense of mystery. After this process, I started make some drawing in it.
Based on my previous painting, I continue to choose stone as the main object in the picture. In middle of the picture, I drew a plie of stones in the foreground of the picture, it’s like the way the director sets the scene in a movie, I drew a single stone to create a near, medium, and distant effect. Due to technical and professional limitation at this moment, in the future, I want to extend this idea, and hope to get a script of a story to continue make this work.
Through the different dimensions to create.
