Simply Effective Motion Picture Tricks

In the article by Maya Deren that we read, she stresses that filmmakers should avoid limiting themselves by attempting to adhere to the conventions of still photography. She has two reasons for this advice. First, she claims it is a misconception that film and still photography are similar art forms. Besides each involving a lens and exposible film, she says, they are completely different mediums. Because they posses different properties, they should not be created using the same techniques. Second, a large part of how film is experienced has to do with the perception of time that all film creates. Deren encourages filmmakers to imploy their creativity in order to manipulate this aspect of film. She gives several examples of such cinematic trickery in films that she has been a part of . In class we had a chance to see some of these very examples in her film At Land, and in other films as well. Much of the fun of the film Great Pumpkin Race is based on these manipulations. The first trick of the film was met with surprised laughter as the run-away pumpkins reached the bottom of the hill and jumped, one by one, over the fence at the end of the street. Film tricks such as this are funny for a couple of reasons. It is a bit like seeing a magic show, watching realistic looking objects (well, the pumpkins looked a bit like tires in this case) in realistic setting behaving in unexpected ways. Some of the fun comes from trying to figure out how the director accomplished the illusion, also not unlike a magic show. It's enjoyable to discover the cleverness at work that makes the trick a success. In some cases, the simpler the trick, the more enjoyable its effect is. Frampton and Weiland pretend to be literally shooting each other in A and B in Ontario by matching up footage of them wielding their cameras like firearms with loud audio of the film stock. The effect is a mock machine gun battle. It's encouraging to know that in an age of expensive, complicated computer-generated special effects, the medium of the motion picture allows for dramatic effects to be achieved simply through camera movement and simple editing.