Knowledge and the nettle situation.

Taking a walking route along ill-defined paths, and with a small scale map, in an area that is attractive but unfamiliar, is the kind of exploration achievable by everyone of reasonable fitness.  When navigation is easy, the journey does not engage the mind, and so is less satisfying.  If the way forward is obscured, judgement is required if backtracking, and it's associated waste of energy, is to be avoided.

It is in the nature of judgement that sometimes our decisions are incorrect.  We are forced to take responsibility for this fact, and allow for this when deciding to use judgement as opposed to more reliable forms of decision-making. 

So, when I find myself in a forest of nettles, with barbed wire in front of me and a steep and recently descended incline behind me, I revel in my self-created problematic situation.  I have created a situation - a problem - that I must solve, through further acts of will, by making judgements.

Experiential knowledge is used in times of navigational challenge.  This particular kind of knowledge is most emphatically learnt by getting lost, and lost in extremis.  In some ways, this is like taking responsibility for one's own learning.

I test my abilities to navigate, and these abilities in part rely on knowledge of how to get unlost.  A theory of navigation may be applied.  This might amount to principles, like following a watercourse, or looking for hard-to-see evidence that walkers have passed your way before.

Theories are utilitarian.  A good theory is useful.  It enables you to do something.  It enables you to know something.  It enables you to understand something.

Doing and thinking: Practice and theory

       Theory and doing: Thinking and practice

Is this the start of a PhD proposal?

The Enigma of Hollis Frampton.

By using a research-led practice methodology, and with special reference to the work of filmmaker Hollis Frampton, my thesis will attempt to answer the following question:

• How does the study of a filmmaker's theories about their practice assist in understanding and appreciating their films?

I intend to produce a feature length documentary fiction film about Hollis Frampton and his theories, including remakes of parts of his films, re-enactments of interviews and lectures using existing audio, and a commentary on the journey undertaken to arrive at an understanding of this enigmatic artist.

The film will be marketed to film festivals using a website and a vlog of production progress.

Key literature will be Hollis Frampton's own written works and films.

Proposal draft: Hollis Frampton's contribution.

A reappraisal using research led practice.

In America in the 1960's, a film movement began that focussed on form and style as opposed to content.  One of the leaders in this structural approach was Hollis Frampton. 

What can be learnt from his practice and applied to filmmaking in today's short film festival scene?
Where did this structural approach originate?
What are its key works?
Where does Hollis Frampton's work fit in this radical movement?
What is unique about his contribution?

By investigating Frampton's seminal works and remaking them digitally, it is intended that new insight into this filmmakers unique contribution will be achieved.

I am an individual film artist.

I am an individual film artist, which means that I am not engaged with 'professional filmmaking' in the generally understood sense, by which I mean a highly demarcated collaborative large scale exercise.

Higher education in filmmaking is tied to this sense, and is largely aimed at producing graduates able to become cogs in the wheels of industrial filmmaking.

This includes at PhD level, where models are presented as solutions to the problem of specialists in film (writers, directors, cinematographers et al) being able to do practice-based PhDs.  The recommended methodology is the research centre.

As a filmmaker who is self-contained, and who takes on all the associated roles (for better or worse), this model is unnecessary.  Furthermore, the social sciences framework for practice-based Phds has issues with regarding the artefact as research itself.  A more encompassing model is required by the artist practitioner.

What I am trying to negotiate here is a path for non-industrial filmmaking research at PhD level, where the creative output is integral to the research.  By carrying on my practice beyond M.A. level, but adopting the same methodology as the creative practice element (thesis film and associated portfolio and blog), this is eminently possible.

However, the social sciences emphasis on positivist models of a research question followed by data collection, analysis, and drawn conclusions, is a false fit, born of historical reasons - pressures from the 'hard' sciences for the social sciences to justify research.

The consequences of this (government imposed) administrative and auditing exercise is PhDs in filmmaking that are boring and uninspiring, but manage to tie their initial question with their conclusion.  The closer the research carried out fits the academic model, the poorer the creative artefact/outcome.  And since the artefact is essentially the embodiment of new and original knowledge in a practice-based PhD, it will lack significance.

How can my individual art film practice research inform the film industry (and academia), so that filmmaking can become more creative, sustainable and achievable by more people, and the delivery of Filmmaking PhDs facilitate higher quality outcomes?

How does an artist use film to maximise their impact on society?

By employing the resources provided by digitisation of the medium (cheap equipment, free research material, free global distribution) how can the individual filmmaker challenge the hegemonic forces of industrial filmmaking?

Can an individual make a film as good as a film made by the collaboration of hundreds of individuals?

There are many different types of film.  They all feed off each other.  What is the food of the highly authored personal film?  Can recipes be shared?

To satisfy the mindset of those who must see data before they accept that research is being carried out, the data I collect could be interviews with filmmakers and specialists (editors, cinematographers, writers, directors) of both personal films and industry films.

The written element of the Phd could be structured around the specialisms, with my own skills in these areas shared, and commented on, in the context of my own production(s).

Ultimately, a book could be produced.  I am thinking along the lines of my own version of Kathryn Millard's 'Screenwriting in a digital era'. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230343283  but 'Solo Filmmaking in a digital era'.

The form of the Phd could be a DVD, to facilitate media examples of moving image with sound.  Alternatively, it could also be a website.

Some of the ideas in this particular blog arise from Anderson and Tobin's 'How do you do a practice-based Phd in Filmmaking?' Leeds metropolitan University.
http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/623/

The Rose Bowl.

'As:Yet'

'As:Yet' is a new film idea.

Email to Hae Yuen and Marcel in Seoul, 14th May 2020:

I see a Korean woman dressed in white, standing in a variety of locations, and often viewed from above and both close up and in the distance.  

She stares out, as if seeing/watching something from afar.  She sometimes raises her hand.  Sometimes this gesture becomes a wave.  She walks slowly from location to location.  

The camera cuts to the action taking place around her in all the places she visits.  There are abstract details formed from extreme close up - surfaces, textures, lettering.  

The colour palette is consistent in each location.

I see all of the above, but a western man in black.

Waving could be replaced with abstract hand signals.  Maybe deaf-signing the title (As:Yet) to each other.

Send me your phone models and I can decide what settings to use.  Takes should be about 15 seconds.  Use surrounding surfaces to lean on for stability.

The dialogue can be semi-improvised and recorded over Zoom/teams, using my prompts/interview.

The footage will be edited together to create a fractured, illogical narrative, and repetition/slow motion might be added.  The soundtrack will be taken from the phone footage, but will not match the visuals.  Some additional audio will provide continuity.

I anticipate a 3 to 5 minute piece will surface, but if you have good phone batteries and lots of storage space, and really get into it, a longer film might work.  If you do want to produce a longer film I might have to get you to film the two of you together in some way, which could involve you getting hold of a tripod for your phone.

What is 'weight' and what is to be done?

Why do we value knowledge?  Because we like to learn from it, and learning enables us to do things - one of which is to understand a bit more about life, the universe and everything.

What is my practice?  What do I actually do as a filmmaker?  This is an important question for me to answer because it may help to justify the funding of a PhD, which must be a 'significant and original contribution to knowledge'.

So, there is knowledge produced through creative experimentation in the processes employed in filmmaking.

Where does this knowledge show itself?  In documentation of the processes - which can be read and followed by other filmmakers.  And in the artefact produced -

How do you learn to do art?  You look at lots of it.  You think about what you have seen.  You compare it to what you do.  You analyse the differences.  You practice.  You read about how artists do it.  You copy emulate them.  You do it.

A 'significant and original contribution' must be a useful guide to others in your field.  Two questions can be answered:

How do you make films?(practice)  Thesis       'This is what I do'.
What is filmmaking?      (theory)     Antithesis  'How does it compare with others'
Look here!                      (my film)  Synthesis  'Learn from this'.

My film is the embodiment of my practice as informed by my thinking about the theories of film making.  If you can learn from something, it must contain knowledge.  My film shows what a film can be, and how a film can be/look/sound.  Knowledge what and knowledge how.

HOWEVER -
Your practice might be ill-informed, lack technique, be unreflective.
Your ability to theorise and show your understanding of theory may be poor.
Your finished work might be boring, derivative, uninspiring.

In other words, there may be nothing (new) to learn from it, so although it could be claimed to embody some knowledge, it lacks usefulness, so is insignificant.

The Nantlle manifesto...

...of the moving image.

Ten Rules for a Refreshed Cinema.

1. No crew.
2. No trained actors.
3. No standard linear narratives.
4. No special effects.
5. No dialogue.
6. No budget.
7. No script/screenplay.
8. No genres.
9. No pandering to social norms.
10. No films over 45 minutes.
11. No musical interludes.

NO!

Self-satisfaction!

Understanding:Knowledge

A hard nut.

This is a struggle.  If I share my understanding, gleaned from researching an activity or process (or performance), is this classed as knowledge?  If no one else has this understanding, and I transform it (by externalising it) from subjective to objective existence (by writing about it) does it become knowledge?

How is knowledge created? 

1. Observe....read/do/experience.
2. Record.....note/remember/write.
3. Analyse....think.
4. Report....write.

What we observe is affected by our beliefs.  

Three domains: Subjective - beliefs

                          Objective - knowledge

                          The bit between - ?

Thesis --- Antithesis ---- Synthesis

A question(s).

What factors (creative opportunities) in filmmaking are independent of large budgets?
What creative opportunities gets lost in the leviathan of a big budget?
How do limitations in creative processes feed new discovery?
What gets lost when a production is small?  What gets found?

Changes in technology mean that one person can write, make and distribute a watchable film.  A singular vision can be expressed.  This person is an ultra-auteur.

A lot is gained through collaboration.  A single, unique overarching [poetic] vision is lost.

Researching is finding things out - gaining knowledge that already exists.  New knowledge can emerge when reflection/analysis [practice?] is applied, and a discussion [artefact?] results in conclusions that modify / change the perspective on, that existing knowledge.

• Films made by individuals exist.
• These can be examined and appraised, together with the histories and contexts of their production and reception.
• A solo practitioner can make a film [or films].
• This can be examined and appraised, together with documentation of process.

The three stage model of filmmaking can be applied to a doctorate:

1. Pre-production
2. Production
3. Post-production

The PhD is a solo creative enterprise.  It has commonalities with solo filmmaking.

What is the difference between an artefact [film] produced in an academic context, and one produced outside academia?  Intention?  Audience?  Relevance?  Freedom of expression?

What is the difference between research carried out in an academic context, and research carried out in other contexts?  The degree of objectivity [checking]?

How can you combine making art with research?  What is the recipe?  How do you make it taste good?  What ratios to you apply?

How does an artefact embody knowledge?  It embodies understanding (how to make it).  Is understanding knowing how?

I know how society/the economy works because I understand how all of its parts fit together and influence each other.  Claims to knowledge entail understanding.

'A significant original contribution to knowledge' - 'sock' - science PhD

'A significant original contribution to understanding' - 'socu' - humanities PhD.

There is an interesting difference between data and information.  Data becomes information (becomes useful) when it is given a context, through processing and organisation.  When does information become knowledge?

Researching filmmaking is not about collecting data, except in the realm of film marketing.  

Research Based Practice.

This is another approach.

Perhaps terms can be misleading when they are created as a shorthand way of referring to complex ideas.  All artistic activity involves research.  Research precedes making art.

Is there an art of research?  Research is a creative activity.  It should create knowledge.  It can create art objects.  Art objects are learning materials.  They contain knowledge.

Research and art practice.

Exploration is required if new knowledge is to be discovered.  Connecting ideas can result in new perspectives.

Science is empirical.  Its object is knowledge.

The humanities are more concerned with understanding.

Desmond's obscure object, and Tara's desire.

A Phd has to have a 'sock' - a significant and original contribution to knowledge.  What kind of knowledge is this?  The research that is carried out needs an outcome, but when it comes to PhDs in the humanities, this outcome is going to be of a different kind to a PhD in the domain of science.

A PhD that concerns research that is based on or led by practice will have a different coloured sock to a PhD where the 'practice' is sitting in a dusty archive in a library or a laboratory of bubbling test tubes (or possibly blinking lazers).   A practice-based PhD in film will contain research that colours the sock in hues derived from the processes carried out whilst film making. These hues may be more concerned with understanding than with knowledge.  But it's more complicated than that.   It's about methodology.

Desmond Bell's article (cited below) is a useful discussion about this.  Also below, Tara Brabazon discusses the difference between empirical (science) methodologies and the more holistic, interpretive method involving meaning making strategies, typical of a humanities PhD.

Knowledge can be subjective*.

*This has been a topic of dispute throughout the history of philosophy.

'The researcher's experiences link to the research undertaken'.

Desmond Bell (2006) Creative film and media practice as research: In pursuit
of that obscure object of knowledge, Journal of Media Practice, 7:2, 85-100, DOI: 10.1386/
jmpr.7.2.85_1
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1386/jmpr.7.2.85_1

Tara Brabazon, dean of postgraduate studies at Flinders University, Australia:

https://youtu.be/SWtPhvIXaOg

Lost in Space

It is important to keep writing, otherwise you tend to forget how to do it.  Even finding the letters on the keyboard can become a task.  Typing is actually a physical chore, as it is not done on all fingers in the Catullus Films office, just on the two index fingers.  This, coupled with a blindness for correct spelling that requires regular googling, makes generating 'product' rather slow and...onerous.

However, once a flow has begun, and the ball is rolling down a slight incline over wet grass and small pebbles left by the last glaciation, things become a little easier - the fingers begin to remember the location of the required letters for expression, and the brain can register how words are formed more easily.

So, to work - what are we writing about today?  This will be a 'meta-writing' session, (perhaps 'session' is too glorious a word), intended as a note-to-self about why I am struggling to bother writing anything at all in the present chapter of my life. 

I don't really need to write, so what's the problem?  I don't really need to live actually.  Nothing has any necessity, except maintaining satori - keeping panic at bay, dealing with the fear of depression, warding off the big black cloud that occasionally looms over the distant mountains.

There - motivation.