Cine-Writing

It's like a stream of feelings, intuition, and joy of discovering things. Finding beauty where it's maybe not. Seeing. And, on the other hand, trying to be structural, organized; trying to be clever. And doing what I believe is cinécriture, what I always call cine-writing. Which is not a screenplay. Which is not only the narration words. It's choosing the subject, choosing the place, the season, the crew, choosing the shots, the place, the lens, the light. Choosing your attitude towards people, towards actors. Then choosing the editing, the music. Choosing contemporary musicians. Choosing the tune of the mixing. Choosing the publicity material, the press book, the poster. You know, it's a handmade work of filmmaking -- that I really believe. And I call that cine-writing. - Agnés Varda

The thing is, I was able to see about eight Varda films in Portland as part of the "Vardian Vision" program at the Portland Art Museum over the last month and there can be no question that the Varda model of cinécriture is what new media / mobile video artists should aspire to.

The quote above could easily have applied to Immobilité. In fact, if I were reading from a teleprompter and someone asked me what I mean by mobile phone video art, how is it made, how does it relate to indie film making and what does it have to do with what in the past we have called arthouse cinema, looking directly into the camera while reading I would say:

"It's like a stream of feelings, intuition, and joy of discovering things. Finding beauty where it's maybe not. Seeing. And, on the other hand, trying to be structural, organized; trying to be clever. And doing what I believe is cinécriture, what I always call cine-writing. Which is not a screenplay. Which is not only the narration words. It's choosing the subject, choosing the time of day, the season, the crew, choosing the shots, the location, the mobile phone, the light. Choosing your attitude towards people, towards actors or non-actors or actors playing non-actors. Then choosing the editing, the sound. Choosing contemporary sound artists to work with. Artists who know where you are coming from and who can synchronize with your vision even as you are not 100% sure what your vision is because you have to make it up as you go along, remixing the moment. Choosing the tenor of the remixable moments. Choosing the publicity material, the web site, the iPhone app, the director's e-book, the poster. You know, it's a handmade work of mobile phone video art -- that I really believe. And I call that cine-writing."

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Metadata: art, mobile phones, cinema / cinecriture, avant-garde, Varda, synchronize your vision