Experimental Film Studied in Class - Om by John Smith

Om by John Smith.

This week we studied some experimental films in our seminar group. I chose a couple of favourites of mine, that link in some way to mine and Dom's piece; Om being one of them. I enjoyed the unpredictability of this short experimental film. To begin with, I thought the man was a monk and I then thought the whole piece would just be him humming one long, monotonous sound, so when he says "diddly bom" I was certainly surprised. This is one of my favourite parts because the piece goes from being very intense (even verging on boring) to being humorous.

The sound then takes a clever turn by the humming becoming the sound of the razor as a barber comes out of nowhere to shave his hair off. This adds another humorous element to the piece and plays with the sound going from diagetic to non-diagetic. I like the simplicity of the idea, it shows that experimental does not have to be full of flashing imagery and unnecessary confusion; it can be about taking one idea and changing it so it doesn't fall under the conventional film categories which I think this one does perfectly. For my experimental piece, I hope to achieve this; by taking a simple idea and making it rich through a smaller amount of shots and sounds, for example, me and my partner would like to try and limit ourselves to only three shots throughout our three minute piece. We would like to take on the challenge of three slow zoom-outs in the space of three minutes without it becoming boring for the viewer. This one just uses one shot and manages to keep the audience interested, so I will use this as an influence for our piece. We hope to achieve this through our use of echoing sounds and our use of location and shot placement.

 And finally, another aspect to this piece that I would like to incorporate into my piece is the black background. This keeps the audience from being distracted by activity going on in the background. It focusses completely on the close up of the man's face as he hums. For our piece, I would really like to do a cross cut to something where the focus is on the foreground and the lighting only focusses on what's going on in front it.

After the session, I undertook some research on the experimental filmmaker John Smith and found one of his short pieces that I watched in a gallery in Leeds a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it.

Once again, it uses the humorous side of filmmaking. perhaps his message (through experimentation) is not to take it so seriously. Film does not always have to be about a serious subject and John Smith certainly shows this in some of his work.

I love the voice over he uses. He just films a street and once again, this would seem like a boring subject, however, he keeps the viewer interested by commentating and directing the people who pass by, as though the whole shot is planned, whereas it's all really done in post-production. I just thought it was an excellent idea, to re-iterate, he is showing that film does not always have to be serious and depressing. I like that he takes something potentially boring and changes it entirely to amuse the audience.