I really worry that filmmaking the way it is in the West hardens you too much as a human being. I’m not talking about big time money wrangling or ego or anything like that. I just mean the soul sucking procedures and limitations of organisation that film requires. It makes you act in ways which are anti-artistic (with the caveat that nothing really is anti-artistic).

With photography you wonder around, alone, private, sensitive, feeling. But with film you’re wheeling and dealing. You’re selling and your negotiating. You’re hoodwinking. All that must have an affect at how sensitively you can see the world. But it’s important to note that it isn’t filmmaking but filmmaking in the west. I think a trip back to film in Bangladesh is the best thing I could do for my art. Perhaps a different kind of limitation exists back there, say equipment, or expertise, but surely that’s overridden by the number of interesting visual stories to tell there, and the freedom to create anything you want, anytime you want.

That’s not to say you can ever get away from organising a film, narrative film is essentially about organising the world to fit a version of reality you’ve thought up, it’s just that it may be significantly less.

It’s worth going again to try to find out.

• trouble
• filmmaking

Posted 1 year ago

Recently I applied for a film-making course at Sydney TAFE (Randwick Campus). In the application they ask you why you want to take part in the course, my response is below.

For a long time now, I have been searching for the best medium to express how I see the world, and the way I see myself. However, that isn’t totally right. Better, I’ve been searching for a medium that I could use to find out more about the world, and through the transformations that are inherent in making any art, find out more about myself.

I’ve given up a successful career in computing to spend time learning to write simply, and have been taking photos (see here: http://adnanchowdhury.com, see blog here: http://blog.adnanchowdhury.com). In the past year I’ve taken 25,000 photos and written 120,000 words on my blog. But I need time and motion. I need sound and dialog. I need to learn how to make films.
I want to tell stories that go beyond still photographs which lack narrative, and beyond words, which often say too much, but not about the visual, more corporeal phenomena in life.

I’ve written a couple of scripts (10-15min shorts) and am helping friends with shooting shorts, but I want the technical foundation in all parts of film-making so that I can tell my stories coherently, and in detail.

My goal is to make films similar to those by Antonioni, Ozu, Hsiao-Hsien, Wong Kar Wai, and Tarkovski. But one of the lovely things about film is how practical it is. How grounded in ‘doing,’ and doing with other people. To get there, I need to do the hard work and learn the details. This is the perfect practical course I need to do that.

• tafe
• filmmaking
• application

Posted 2 years ago