Training

SAR_act_2.1.2

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Above: FP SAR BL 30K-training. SAR [ act 2.1.2 ] : expedition.

Reflections

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Kennemer Dunes 360° today. Spring [ birth of a nation ]

Min/max temperature: 4°C/23°C; humidity: 76%; precipitation: 0 mm; sea level pressure: 1031 hPa; wind: WSW 5.0 km/h; visibility: 14.0 kilometres; Clouds: few 2700 m.

"Our preoccupation with numbers, preferably growth figures (polls, ratings, stock market figures, budgets, salaries, penis length et cetera) hides the underlying fear to actually having to think. Before people start a discussion within a so called consultation council […] at first figures need to be produced and made visible; once read, every discussion is unnecessary. The figures are supposed to tell the truth about a certain supposed transparent reality automatically. Equal fear for the process of thinking appears in the well-meant suggestions to people 'in trouble': 'You just do not have to think about it too much, it serves no purpose, it makes matters only worse.' The next logical step is towards thought-restricting drugs of which the French designation -- 'des stupefiant' ('stupefying') -- speaks so much more clear than the semi-soft name calling 'tranquillizers' […] What we experience today is the degeneration of the importance of language on a broad social scale. When thinking can be understood as an externalised act, then the inability to think must lead to the occasion to act in itself. In this area infantilization takes place, which does have an effect on the aspects that characterises being human, namely the delusion of providing meaning. In this case: the effects of the inadequacy of providing meaning. The consequence then becomes agitation and acting [ that ] out. According to the classic formula, taking action will elicit a reaction."

Paul Verhaeghe in 'Het einde van de psychotherapie', page 222, 223, 224, 225, first published in 2010 by De Bezige Bij, The Netherlands (unauthorized translation from Dutch)

"Movies are written in sand: applauded today, forgotten tomorrow. […] I foresee no possibility of venturing into themes showing a closer view of reality for a long time to come. The public itself will not have it. What it wants is a gun and a girl. [on sound movies: ] It is my arrogant belief that we have lost beauty."

D.W. Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948)

"In a Hollywood movie, after the movie is over, there's nothing more. There is no relationship between the screen and the spectator. There's just a duration. If you don't like it, you go to sleep, the way I do. [ The ] movie is not on screen. The movie stems from moving. The movie is a mover. The move from the reality to the screen and back to the reality. And the screens are nothing, just shades. It's like a swimmer doing a crawl until he arrives at the end of the swimming pool and then turning and going back again. This is the screen. […] When you arrive, [...] the moviemaker [ is the swimmer ] ; and when you start, it's the spectator. […] I don't think you should feel about a movie. You should feel about a woman, but not about a movie. You can't kiss a movie. […] Let's have a look and talk about it, but certainly not feel about it. That's what the Church says, feel about God. [ I ] can't [ work for television ]. You get more mystified than ever. Unless you think you can address 20 million people and you have something important to say and think you can go through all this mystification to get to the people, it's very difficult. [ I ] make very small movies to show to fewer people more often. More movies to fewer people but much more often. So [ I ] can survive […] it's very natural. I couldn't do anything else. You have to know how to survive. You have to be optimistic, because the world situation is so bad. Marx said that. The very pessimistic situation makes me feel optimistic. I'm an optimist because things are so bad they must get better because they can't be worse than they are. It's the same today."

Jean-Luc Godard in 'Jean-Luc Godard: The Rolling Stone Interview A look behind the lens at the famed French new wave director of 'Breathless' and 'Band of Outsiders' by Jonathan Cott, first published in June 1969 by Rolling Sone, USA

"Trough the reading of the script and the impressions given [...] by the director, slowly one starts to realize what [ needs to be done ]. In [the ] hot Los-Angeles burning sun -- we had to make the [ 'Barfly' ] interior acceptable, though being able to look outside at the same time to see what happens there. You need to take that into account, it [ can be ] difficult to stack those small rooms up with light. They need to remain out of frame. And the interior scenes required a certain ambience. You need to take that into account. I had ordered these huge rigging-towers -- with reflection screens -- with 12Kw's that bounced inside. Always reflected, never direct. […] Would I have said in these multi-billion dollar film: 'guys here we should not use any [ additional ] light, it needs to be dark' -- then they would go with that. The hardest part is to get the team to go with that, they are all crusted heads. So when we arrive at a street-corner, daytime, to shoot a car driving by -- only that -- all kinds of equipment is brought in. The script car and electricity trucks, and they all stand in the way, they take a lot of space. I've experienced that! [ I ] have always said to students -- when I had them in a workshop -- : '… the case is, when looking at the rushes and everybody applauds you because they look so great, when you think for yourself that it is not so good, than it is not so good. Because other people tend to believe pretty quickly that things look great. They see a sunset and it looks nicely orange, but you did not have to do anything to accomplish that, it always works. But there are also more complicated situations. With Friedkin, that was good working. He knew how to listen. We then had a complicated shot, with a car. It arrives at a terrain getting into a hangar. Shot with a crane, from top to ground. I then said: '… but why cover it in different shots? It can just drive in and we pan with the camera and the car can drive trough. […] Theoretically there are three possibilities. Dusk is short. Shoot a shot at dusk with the exact perfect light. One before that in touch over and one afterwards, which will just be doing fine. In twenty minutes we have three takes to shoot.' He understood that, and then started to organise very strictly the whole situation. We then immediately shot the first take and you get it all within schedule. But you need people who know how to react."

Robby Müller in 'Interview Robby Muller (2007)' first published in 2008 on the Netherlands Society of Cinematographers website (authorized translation from Dutch)

" [ Unless ] you know how [ a style ] is done, you say, 'What the hell is the idea? Where is it?' You keep looking for some kind of justification. Our brains are designed to see signs and put them together into a story. [ The ] brain always tries to read stories into things, and as every edit is a story in its own right, the brain can't accept it and begins to link them all together."

Lars von Trier in 'Framing, A Symposium on Cinematography; On Random Framing -- Automavision', page 142, 143, edited by Andreas Fisher-Hansen, Igor Koršič and Tina Sørensen (unpublished manuscript)

SAR_7_along_the_way

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Above: FP 30K SAR BL training. Training at BL (Best Level) automatically introduces recovery and healthy behaviour into training experiences: overload exceeds BL-territory (leads to injury and drifting away from BL). SAR training is trail-training, focussed upon improvement of technique and effeciency. NO MATTER WHERE, NO MATTER WHAT: create optimum character-exposure and accelerated progression (run, built, jump, plunge, climb, fall, swim et cetera). Evolve alert and creatively and efficient and technically sound. Trough strategic use of available resources, including time, terrain, weather, technical-support (and injury treatment, food and rest).

"Do today what others won't. Do tomorrow what others can't. Hooyah!" - Mark Divine

*) "The task of the lighting technicians is an extremely creative one. A really good lighting man has his own plan, though he of course still needs to discus it with the cameraman and the director. But if he does not put forth his own concept, his job becomes nothing more than lighting up the whole frame. I think, for example, that the current method of lighting for color film is wrong. In order to bring out the colors, the entire frame is flooded with light. I always say the lighting should be treated as it is for black-and-white film, whether the colors are strong or not, so that the shadows come out right."

*) "During the shooting of a scene the director's eye has to catch even the minutest detail. But this does not mean glaring concentratedly at the set. While the camera's are rolling. I rarely look directly at the actors, but focus my gaze somewhere else. By doing this I sense instantly when something isn't right. Watching something does not mean fixing your gaze on it, but being aware of it in a natural way.I believe this is what the medieval Noh playwright and theorist Zeami meant by "watching with a detached gaze.""

*) "What is cinema? The answer to this question is no easy matter. Long ago the Japanese novelist Shiga Naoya presented an essay written by his grandchild as one of the most remarkable prose pieces of his time. He had it published in a literary magazine. It was entitled "My Dog," and ran as follows: "My dog dog resembles a bear; he also resembles a badger; he also resembles a fox…." It proceeded to enumerate the dog's special characteristics, comparing each one to yet another animal, developing into a full list of the animal kingdom. However, the essay closed with, "But since he's a dog, he most resembles a dog. I remember bursting out laughing when I read this essay, but it makes a serious point. Cinema resembles so many other arts. If cinema has very literary characteristics, it also has theatrical qualities, a philosophical side, attributes of painting and sculpture and musical elements. But cinema is, in the final analysis, cinema.""

Akira Kurosawa: "Advice to young people considering a career in filmmaking", adapted by Audie E. Bock, first published in 1975, cited from 'Something Like an Autobiography' (page 191, 'Some Random Notes on Filmmaking')

More: http://bartvanbroekhoven.com/en-US/running/78-sar-11-dirt-dive

SAR_6_along_the_way

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Above: Footprint after 32K SAR BL training.

"The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man."

William Blake as quoted by Joseph Campbell 'The hero with a thousand faces' ('The world navel', page 44)

"Photography is a luminous drawbridge trough which the story has to reach the audience and the audience has to acces the story, the DP and the director have to built it together with the same objectives. Cinema is synthesis: the rapid and ever increasing popularity of the cinema is due to the possibility of concentrating huge amounts of information in its images, and the immediacy of the process with which the eye transmits them to the brain.

The set of rules that technique [...] allows us are indispensable to express ourselves better, more thoroughly and rapidly with the available means. It would be almost impossible to do […] without a great technical training. Everything is to be measured in terms of balanced relationships to serve the story that is committed to us. The enjoyment of the cinematographic show will be the more complete, the less the technique disturbs the story.

To know one's limits is indispensable even to a director of photography -- it is an invaluable gift because the curiosity it generates stimulates one to invent and experiment."

Guiseppe Rotunno in 'Guiseppe Rotunno', published in 1999 by Camerimage, Poland (page 30, 31, 69)