Anna Helme

Ghoulbert Taking His Lessons - photo by Mariana Jocic

I finished writing and directing my first film of the year last week. Just got the rushes back, they look great! After working for 15 years with (mostly SD) video, shooting on film (16mm) is a revelation. The Kodak 500T we used looks grainy but gorgeous. I took the opportunity to be a bit more creative directing the camera than I have previously, using more moving shots, creating a very constructed, yet hopefully dynamic, comic feel.

Big thanks to all the cast and crew, who were a joy. A special shout-out goes to Kathy and Matt, who were involved for many weeks prior to the shoot, and had so much great input on so many levels. Big thanks to Paul, for his character whom the film was based upon (which morphed somewhat through the screenwriting process) and to Marian for her original inspiration and ongoing support.

But I’ll save the full credits for the end of the film, when I’ve finished editing it For now, here’s some production stills from the shoot, taken by the lovely and talented photographer and filmmaker Mariana Jocic.

Stephen (Zac Gower) and Elliott (Kevin Newman)

Stephen (Zac Gower) & Goat - Photo by Mariana Jocic

Slasher Kitty - Photo by Mariana Jocic

Director Checks Frame on Bag Cam - Photo by Mariana Jocic

Ghoulbert's Goat - photo by Mariana Jocic

Shadows of Menace - Photo by Mariana Jocic

Harold and Maude directed by Hal Ashby

Catharsis is a point in the narrative of a film when an emotional realisation or internal transformation occurs, experienced by the audience, and often felt via identification with the simultaneous cathartic renewal of the protagonist. Not to be confused with the crisis, when the forces of antagonism reach their dramatic pinnacle, it is rather the release of these traumatic tensions within a film, as evidenced below in the examples of Hal Hartley’s Trust (1990), Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude (1971) and Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (1990).

Catharsis has its origins in Greek Tragedy, and is defined by Aristotle in his seminal work of dramatic and literary theory, Poetics or The Art of Poetry (c. 335 BCE). The term is derived from the Ancient Greek καθαίρειν – to purge, cleanse or purify (which Aristotle used as a metaphor, as it was prior to this a medical term for menstruation). Aristotle believed that tragedy could have a corrective effect on the audience – who may bring sadness or ill-feeling towards others from their own lives to the theatre, but through the exercising of these emotions, re-experiencing fear and pity via the story, may also find that dramatic catharsis purges them of negative feelings. This theory, and the Poetics in general, was counter to Plato’s assertion that poetry encouraged men towards hysterics and uncontrolled emotion. (more…)

Featured Clips on Critical Commons

I recently finished another iteration of development on the Critical Commons website, with Andy Nicholson of Infinite Recursion. Critical Commons is an online resource for film educators that pushes the boundaries of fair use (copyright) legislation by making clips from films available with academic commentaries, in both text and audio format. The site, devised by the USC School of Cinematic Arts Institute for Multimedia Literacy, enables lecturers to organise collections of clips and commentaries as lectures for classroom delivery (such as this one on Deleuze and cinema). The website is built on the Plumi software, originally created by EngageMedia, a free open source software project to create a video sharing web application based on the Plone content management system. (more…)