Japan – Philosophical Landscapes – First part released

The last few days have been a process of clearing away old obstacles and barriers in order to proceed with a several new projects. A few years ago we spent a fair amount of time in Japan shooting material for a couple of films which I have been working on and editing. The work on this project was interrupted by the Stanislavsky film “Stanislavsky and the Russian Theatre” which is now complete. After revisiting the Japanese project it is re-emerging as web documentary called “Japan – Philosophical Landscapes”. More information about it can be found here. Also the first part has been uploaded to the internet (see below).

 

At the same time a new site is being constructed to accommodate the Fairground Booth Project and discussions are taking place as to how best proceed in organising the logistics of the film and its corresponding documentary projects “Carnival and the Russian Theatre” and “Vahktangov and the Russian Theatre”. Once the site is up and running details will be released.

 

New web documentary – “Japan- Philosophical Landscapes” almost ready for release

Some exciting work getting done at the moment. Working on the setting up of two web sites. One for  a web documentary about Japanese art and culture called simply “Japan – Philosophical Landscapes”. The site is still in the process of construction so it is not fully operational as yet with some modules and elements hidden.  It is a project which I have been working on and off for about two years ever since we returned from filming in Japan a second time over a three month period. At last it is taking some shape and I am ready to start releasing it in instalments on the web and have set up a new web site specifically for this purpose.

That is not to say that I have neglected the Russian Theatre project centred around Blok’s play The Fairground Booth and the two documentary films “Vakhatangov and the Russian Theatre” and “Carnival and the Russian Theatre”. I am in the process of building a website which will become the focus of this project with information, blogs and articles to chart it’s progress.

More news as things develop.

Process" in Film making in relation to "The Fairground Booth

Making my way around Moscow to meetings and checking out various possibilities, cameras etc, for the films. The last few days have been a question of working out a tone and style for the film adaptation of The Fairground Booth. The accompanying documentaries in the project “Vakhtangov and the Russian Theatre” and “Carnival in Russian Theatre” are relatively straight forward with the stress on relatively. However a film adaptation of Blok’s play is distinctly problematic. Firstly, there are many stereotypical takes on the main characters -Pierrot, Columbine and Harlequin which I want to avoid. I aim to find a particular tone and style for the production and this will effect the overall design for the play, costumes set and general look. This will take time so the best thing is to continue with the shooting script and background research to all the three films. This will provide the necessary depth once some of the other questions begin to get solved. Its a similar situation I faced in the film “Alexander Rodchenko and the Russian Avant-garde”. It was the first film I made in Moscow and required scenes showing Rodchenko at work at his desk and other scenes of Rodchenko. For an extended account about the making of this film click here.

In this film I needed to solve two basic problems. The style in which I would shoot and casting the role of Rodchenko. It took a long time and followed a specific process of finding the right person for the role. A similar process is emerging once again whereby there are a lot of questions and and you have to wait for some of the answers.