Devising The Film Workshop

November 15, 2018

Tontine Lecture Theatre, Glasgow

Curated by Tommaso Ranfagni, Laura van der Tas and Isabelle Thule.

I invite strangers to make a film with me. This film will only be for us and is only played once at the moment of its making, live projected onto a screen and a monitor. There is documentation but this is not the film.

We make it according to rules adapted from a Canadian theatre company called Zuppa Theatre*. These new and imperfect rules beg for adaptation and reform. These rules which were originally developed to disrupt hierarchical theatres processes are here used to disrupt patriarchal energies and power structures associated with mainstream film industry.

We make two films at once in the same studio to rid the space of spectator-performer binaries. One film involves the full bodies of the performers, and the other features only their hands. The participants are fluid agents who alternate between performing, operating the camera, and watching.

As the director, I expose myself as an amateur by creating a dysfunctional filmset. The so-called film we make seems to fail the expected function of a film. Attentions of the filmmakers (the participants) are divided, and the power dynamics are uncertain and susceptible to change. The object of this experiment is not a concrete proposal for reformation of filmmaking, but rather to expose its potential for reconstitution.

This workshop attempts to undermine power structures provincial to filmmaking industries by inventing an alternative method. When the political conditions of filmmaking are radically altered, the product becomes vulnerable to reinvention.

*Rules of Play

1. Prove wrong with action. If you don’t like something, propose something new.

2. Accidents are the best friend of collaboration. Pay attention to them.

3. Avoid asking questions and taking the idea to death. Listen, and respond with action.

4. Don’t apologise or justify your actions.

5. Take notes.

6. Be generous and sensitive. We are all on the same team.

7. Do fully always. Don’t stop. Modify.

8. If the direction is unclear, don’t ask for clarification. The director will suffer the consequences and maybe something interesting will happen.