[Reader-list] [Announcements] digital video image masterclass II

[Iram Ghufran]

DIGITAL VIDEO IMAGE MASTERCLASS - II

The practitioner as composer and instrumentalist of all of its 
aspects—shooting, recording and editing. - Kabir Mohanty

WHAT IS THE WORKSHOP?

Some years ago at the insistence of a dhrupad musician I began to teach 
video one on one. This was not how I had learnt filmmaking. In film 
school(I studied at the University of Iowa for 3 1/2 years between 1983 
and 1986), an assumption was made that craft needed to be learnt and 
everything would come along. Iowa was by no means a polytechnic. 
However, it shied away from a pedagogical attitude. Over these few years 
I have begun to feel that making something your own is easier when you 
go slowly, step by step. Means kept simple helps. The technology can 
overwhelm you and there is no reason for that to happen. Much like 
Hindustani music, I now feel, your voice is a latent entity and its 
cultivation and nourishment needs to be an engagement where you are not 
chasing the means. That is once you feel the necessity of what you are 
doing, even for a fleeting moment, the other aspects of the medium will 
come. So if you do begin to feel the need to pan or tilt you will slowly 
also feel tracks or hand-held movements. These movements are connected 
to one’s inner content, and rhythms are everything. Without fragmenting 
or breaking down and thinking and doing in parts filmmaking is one 
general mush or reduced to verbal contents. The great work with the 
moving image, film or video, resists, fervently its narrowing, it is 
fundamentally not illustrative. This workshop will treat each individual 
as far as possible within the realm of a one on one engagement. The 
adapting of this to a group assumes that we all learn from each other 
even if we are doing different things and even if we are more or less 
experienced. David Horsborough demonstrated that admirably in the 
village school in Tamil Nadu which had KG to High School in one classroom.

We shall try in this workshop to bring together a collection of 
individuals who are not only interested in video within their own 
practice but also are keen on the assimilation of its history and its 
conjunction with other artistic and philosophical practices. Over the 
history of cinema some of its great thinkers have been philosophers, 
Andre Bazin and more recently Gilles Deleuze. Figure-ground relationship 
is both practice and philosophy, just depending on when you ask the 
question. The error lies in the timing of the question or in illustration.

The need that is making the craft your own will necessarily be a 
time-bound, hands-on engagement. A taste of it early on helps along the 
way. Video is similar to Hindustani music. One can make the means very 
strict and simple and say now try and speak. I have seen very strong 
results from that approach. For example, camera on a tripod with pan and 
tilt locked and having to shoot like that for a long time. This 
collapses the distinction between advanced practitioner and beginner and 
the sense organs and mind come into sharp focus and become the guiding 
principles.

Video resembles a pencil. Can one draw and write and straddle both those 
realms of perception?

I have tried over these years to find ways of creating a palette of 
certain keys to shooting video. It seems two stages of working with the 
moving image are important. The first is everything that leads up to the 
shoot and including the act of shooting. The second is post-shooting. 
The first workshop I held at Sarai in 2005 dealt with the first stage. 
This one deals primarily though not exclusively with the second stage. 
However, this separation of stages is within one person. That is, it is 
one person’s work. It also means we could go from edited material to how 
one is shooting. The workshop does not create the context of 
professional editors or sound designers that work on others’ material, 
yet attempts to imbibe that rigour, because one has also lived those 
vocations. We shall look at edited material closely, and treat sound 
recording in its fundamentals. I imagine acoustics being brought in 
simply and we shall use Robert Bresson’s “Notes on the cinematographer” 
and Michel Chion’s “Audio Vision” as keys to thinking about sound.

You can expect to spend 4 hours in workshop four times a week. I see 
each workshop divided into two parts:

1. Participants showing work in the first 3 hours.
2. In the last hour of the session we will look at video’s history from 
a practitioner’s point of view or a rasika’s point of view. This could 
be done through a combination of readings, viewings and presentations by 
the rasikas. I shall use material from both film and video sources and a 
few come to mind, namely, Bill Viola’s, “Reasons for knocking at an 
empty house” and some of Gary Hill’s writings and interviews.
Screenings of work will be intensive rather than extensive and you will 
be asked to study a work closely of your choice.

You can also expect to spend at least three 6-hour stints editing or 
recording sound per week. Technical assistance for video editing will be 
provided in the beginning. It is going to be very time-intensive and you 
could be working nights at the editing studio. It could be a different 
bio-rhythm and a spare mattress will be provided and provisions for 
coffee and tea.

DURATION
Four weeks, July 2-28, 2007. Final screening July 29th, Sunday.
Workshop meetings on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday.
All meetings 4-8 pm unless otherwise noted.

9 PARTICIPANTS
7 devoted to the practice with some prior knowledge of the moving image. 
These 7 will complete at least one short video during the workshop.
2 places reserved for people who reflect on the practice of the moving 
image and can help us think. A musician and rasika relationship is what 
I was thinking. In our tradition the rasika saw from a privileged point 
of view the inception of things, the nascent form forming. These 2 
people could be from any discipline with the rider that they immerse 
themselves in the tradition of thinking about the moving image. Needless 
to say not only will their practice be different(they are welcome to 
participate in shoots and edits though) but also their 
presentations(oral and written), within the context of the workshop.

SUBMISSION
For the 7 practitioners—30 minutes of solidly shot un-edited video material.
Solidly isn’t as subjective as one may think. Often it is just the 
quantity of labour put in. If someone does not have material ready to 
edit then I may consider submission of rushes from previously shot 
material that you may want to re-edit/re-visit.
For the 2 rasikas—a long written piece that demonstrates interest in 
thinking about the moving image. A curriculum vitae.
Send to
Digital Video Image Masterclass
Sarai CSDS
29 Rajpur Road
Delhi 110054
All applicants should submit a page on their involvement with the moving 
image, their backgrounds. Very often this helps in a one-on-one 
engagement within a small group.

Deadline for submission
Video material on dvd and written material printed out, in Sarai by May 2nd.
Participants will be notified by May 15th.
Workshop fees should be paid to Sarai, 100 % in advance by June 1st.

Equipment reserved for the workshop
One computer with editing software for image and sound.
A camera with a microphone.
For a period a DAT recorder with a professional microphone.

Workshop fees
Rs.7,500 per person for the 7 places. The 2 rasikas fee is Rs.2,500.

ABOUT KABIR MOHANTY
(from the catalogue for “Song for an ancient land”, Solo Show, 
GallerySKE, Bangalore, October 29-Dec 2, 2006.)

I have been working in both film and video for some time now and have 
made about ten films and videos. Most of my work has been shown in film 
and video festivals in India and abroad including Oberhausen, Rotterdam, 
Torino, Hawaii, World Wide Video Festival Amsterdam and Bombay.

Sometimes I have been part of art shows like Sidewinder, which was a 
residency cum exhibition, hosted by CIMA in 2001-02 where I showed a 
short fiction film, “and now i feel i don’t know anything”.
Currently at the Tate Modern is a show on the tradition of 
experimentation in Indian film and video starting with Dadasaheb Phalke, 
titled Cinema of Prayoga, which I am a part of.

My training was at the University of Iowa where I obtained a masters in 
filmmaking in 1986. My teachers included the great filmmaker Leighton 
Pierce and film theorist Dudley Andrew, author of Major Film Theories, 
both full-time faculty at Iowa.

Over the years I have received international grants and production 
awards in the form of the Hubert Bals Fund, Rotterdam Film Festival, the 
Fond Sud Award from the Ministry of External Affairs, France, an 
individual artist grant from the Prince Claus Fund, Netherlands and a 
collaboration grant with sound designer, Vikram Joglekar from the India 
Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore. These have enabled more than what 
got produced as individual projects.

 From September 2002 till June 2004, I was a Visiting Artist in the 
Department of Art, UCLA, and in residence for half that period.




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