User:Astrid van Nimwegen/Description of work: Difference between revisions

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Description of the making of my latest project ‘the Gravediggers’
Annotation about the movie ‘into the wild’


In march 2010, I made a 15 minutes during black and white videoregistration/long shot by using two videocamera’s, one for a total shot and one for a close-up (which I never used by the way).
The film is directed by Sean Penn (2007) and based on a book written by Jon Krakauer (1996).
A friend of mine did the camerawork and I was the person who performed in the video.  
The book is based on a true story about a man, Christopher McCandless, who travels through North America.
Four middle-aged men put into gravedigger-uniforms were my actors.
So the main character in the film is McCandless, he is raised in an upper class family.
I explained to them what they were expected to do without directing it too much.
After his graduation, he decides to give away all his money to charity and choose to reject the luxury live he has. He starts a cross-country journey through North America.
The video starts at the point where I walk into a farmingfield. The temperature was like 5 degrees Celcius.  
First he travels by his own car but when he lost the car in an accident he starts hitchhiking.
I only wore some white underpants and stood barefooted in the middle of a farmingfield, staring in the distance.
The film shows the adventures he experience and the relationships he develops with the people he meets on his travel. It actually shows us McCandless’ process of self-realisation and the only thing he can rely on is his own person and the feeling of ‘freedom’ he tries to achieve.
Then one by one the gravediggers moved into the framework in a circular motion, their high hats in the one hand and a scoop in the other, me as the centre point, the first man walked the whole circle and took his position on my left side, the second man walked three-quarters and so on. The last man took it’s position right in front of me so I disappeared for a moment. They stood still for about a minute and then simultaneously put on their hats and start digging a large circle around me, putting the earth outside the circle. When they were finished, they stood still for a moment and slowly walked out the framefield on the right side.
You see the boy become an adult influenced by the survival in the wild and you see his consciousness grow by his experiences.
The video fades out to black, me still standing in the centrepoint. The only sound you hear in the video is the sound of the digging and the sound of birds in the background.
In the last part he camps in an old bus for a while which he discovered in the middle of the wilderness. He tries to survive and then after a while he realise that you only can be happy when you can share this feeling with others.
It’s a real time piece, so I didn’t cut or edited it. Apart from converting it into black and white afterwards.
He want to go back to his family but the water in the river is much higher then it was when he crossed it the first time. So he is stuck in the bus and becomes a sort of prisoner of his own fate.
The video shows a strong black and white contrast, and the best way to display it is by projecting it on a big screen or wall.
He keeps himself alive by eating plants and all things he can find in the nature but in the end he accidentally eats poisonous plants and gets ill. You see him slowly dying.
 
Astrid van Nimwegen

Revision as of 22:52, 11 October 2011

Annotation about the movie ‘into the wild’

The film is directed by Sean Penn (2007) and based on a book written by Jon Krakauer (1996). The book is based on a true story about a man, Christopher McCandless, who travels through North America. So the main character in the film is McCandless, he is raised in an upper class family. After his graduation, he decides to give away all his money to charity and choose to reject the luxury live he has. He starts a cross-country journey through North America. First he travels by his own car but when he lost the car in an accident he starts hitchhiking. The film shows the adventures he experience and the relationships he develops with the people he meets on his travel. It actually shows us McCandless’ process of self-realisation and the only thing he can rely on is his own person and the feeling of ‘freedom’ he tries to achieve. You see the boy become an adult influenced by the survival in the wild and you see his consciousness grow by his experiences. In the last part he camps in an old bus for a while which he discovered in the middle of the wilderness. He tries to survive and then after a while he realise that you only can be happy when you can share this feeling with others. He want to go back to his family but the water in the river is much higher then it was when he crossed it the first time. So he is stuck in the bus and becomes a sort of prisoner of his own fate. He keeps himself alive by eating plants and all things he can find in the nature but in the end he accidentally eats poisonous plants and gets ill. You see him slowly dying.