Filed under: things i like | Tags: beauty, cinema, film, movement, russia, sound, tarkovsky
“movement is made more meaningful in the context of stillness”
(andrei tarkovsky)
he was able to fix the feel of the wind on film…
Filed under: serious stuff | Tags: 16mm, boxing, documentary, documentary media, experimental, Lennox Contemporary, MFA, montreal, NFB, ryerson university
here is a trailer of my upcoming film “Fragments de Corps” (Body Fragments).
it will be screened at the Lennox Gallery in Toronto (june 11-14th):
and at the John Spotten National Board Film Theatre on june 22nd:
my new website will also be online soon:
it’s almost the end…soon, i’ll be done with my MFA…time to move on…to find people interested in my work…to find a job…and some funding…a new home…still don’t know where i belong to…i just know that it is not here in Toronto.
Filed under: serious stuff | Tags: doc/now 2009, documentary, film, Gallery 1313, John Spotton Theatre, new media, NFB, photography, Ryerson Gallery, toronto, Toronto Image Work
Filed under: serious stuff | Tags: documentary, festival, film, Gallery 1313, John Spotton Theatre, Lennox Contemporary, melanie saumure, NFB, Ryerson Gallery, ryerson university, toronto, Toronto Image Work
“Doc/Now is a two-week festival in June 2009 that showcases the thesis work of 33 artists in the Documentary Media MFA Program in the School of Image Arts. The festival consists of exhibitions at Gallery 1313, Lennox Contemporary, Ryerson Gallery and Toronto Image Works; film screenings at the NFB’s John Spotton Theatre; and a panel discussion among artists working in film, photography, and new media.”
my new film, fragments de corps, will be part of this exhibition. it will be screened at the NFB John Spotton Theatre and the Lennox Gallery. here is the synopsis:
fragments de corps, 16mm, B/W, 2009, dir. Mélanie Saumure
“Isabelle is a 33 years old female boxer from the south shore of Montreal. As an athlete, she inevitably relies on her body. The body is like a mechanical engine. Her gym, this cold building, made of steel and concrete, is located in the industrial area of an anonymous and typical suburban town. Her body, made of flesh and muscles, is continually pushed to its limits.”
Filed under: serious stuff | Tags: cinema, documentary, filmmaker, germany, Kaliningrad, volker koepp
Filed under: serious stuff | Tags: canadian olympic boxing team, concordia university, documentary, female boxing, film, golden gloves, isabelle menard, melanie saumure, montreal, panamerican championships, richard kerr, ringside championships, ryesrson university, toronto, underdog
i’m back in toronto since the end of august.
and i thought i should post something here.
i took a summer off, back in my hometown.
montreal is a great city during the summer. so much to do and to see.
hanging out in the parc lafontaine, spending a few hours at marché jean-talon or drinking a cappucino on the patio of café olympico are part of what i miss the most since i moved to toronto.
so it was good to be there, to rest, to take photographs, to spend time with my friends and to shoot part of my film. so far, i have 8 rolls of 100ft. nice black and white reversal film stock. i’ll start to edit soon.
i got my rushes this week. i can’t watch them yet since i want to avoid scratches. it’s the only print i have. so the box is sitting in my room. this is kind of cruel. but i am going to montreal next week and i’ll take the film with me. i’ll watch it on the bench at concordia with my teacher richard kerr.
i’ve been drawing a lot lately. not much is happening at school, so i am focusing on my thesis. the film is the only think i have on my mind right now. so i bought a bigger sketch book and lots of dark pastel and charcol. my room is too small for that. i’m making a mess on the floor everytime. i wish i had a large apartment with no division. 4 walls and room to put stuff everywhere.
my film is a portrait. isabelle, my cousin, almost my sister, is an athlete.
she works as a waitress in a restaurant on the south shore of montreal.
but her life revolves around boxing. she was once part of the canadian olympic national team, and the québec provincial team.
isabelle is 33-year-old. she is 5′0 and she is somewhere between 51 and 54kg, depending in which category she fights.
she won the ringside world championships in 2006 and 2008.
she also won the canadian golden gloves and she was bronze medalist at the panamerican championships in 2007.
in spite of her strenght in a ring, i know that she is a very fragile and sensitive person.
through boxing, she tries to become more stronger.
one day, she did a mistake. she felt abandoned, and so she went somewhere she shouldn’t have to. she broke someone’s trust. 5 years later, that person found out. 13 years they’ve been together. and so he felt betrayed. and even if he wanted to try to forgive her, he couldn’t. and so he left.
isabelle lost the life she used to have.
and at the same time, she lost her confidence in herself.
nasty things could be said during a break-up.
in a way, boxing saved her.
i know that she is using boxing to get this confidence back.
but sometimes, i think she is using it wrong. she is now so afraid to get hurt, that she isolated herself. when she gets into that bubble, she has no limits. lack of sleep, overtraining, malnutrition…
she doesn’t want to think. doesn’t want to remember, doesn’t want to suffer anymore.
but she can’t fool me. i know what she is thinking, we grew up together.
so i am building my film around her, around her life in a suburbia neighbourhood, just outside of montreal.
i am old school. i am shooting on 16mm. reversal black and white film. i want contrasts.
there is less than a year to go before i’ll defend my thesis. i hope this film will open some doors. i am sick of living like a poor graduate student. i am not doing research in sciences or in engineering. i just want to be able to do my films and to pay the bills. but i know that things will work out. i am surfing a good wave right now. i’ll try to stay on it as much as i can.
i need to see the world. i haven’t left this country since i decided to go back to school 5 years ago.
next year. for sure.
but for now, i just want to do a great film with someone i deeply love and care about.
Filed under: in french oui oui! | Tags: chris marker, cinéaste, documentaire, france
Filed under: school stuff | Tags: documentary, los mexicanos-le combat de patricia pérez, melanie saumure, mexico, migrant workers, new media, photography, randy horton, ryerson university, steve daniels, the migrants, video installation
the critiques are over.
this was an intense 2 weeks. but it was also a very productive period.
in my last few posts, i think that i extensively described the creative process i went through.
i have a background in filmmaking and in photography. this class was my introduction to new media.
space, time, light, frame, gaze, spectatorship, response, reaction, interaction, experience, narration…all these terms and notions are shared by all of these mediums, but they are used and explored in very different ways.
one of my main objectives was to test the plexiglass surface. i wanted to see how to treat it and what to apply on it in order to get an interesting look. i was curious to see how the light would shape and project the image.
with any medium, form is always important for me. the treatment of the form can’t be neglected.
so it was natural for me to experiment with these different component in the context of a new media piece. no matter what the medium is, simplicity, efficiency and rigour will dictate and influence my way of working as much as the final result of this process.
the structure of the piece itself is fairly simple and classic. but its content is a critical and widely ignored issue. by using the codes of advertisement, i wanted to address the working and living conditions of the mexican migrant workers. by the choice of the words, i was hoping to provoke but i also wanted to be brief and effective. i wanted the people to look at the workers, i wanted them to look closer at the images.
the idea was to explore the relationship between the installation and the viewer. how will he react to its content and how he would interact with the piece? where would he position his body in relation to the installation? what kind of experience would he get out of it? what strategies i needed to use so that they would stop and pay attention at what was happening on the screen? the sensor and the use of smaller fonts were intentional and effective, but it was really when i looked at where the people would position themselves in the space surrounding the screen that i realized the success and the weakness of the piece.
this is a prototype. a prototype built in less than 2 weeks. in my original plan, the projector was hung from the ceiling, but it was impossible to do it in this classroom, so unfortunately, it was located right behind the screen, at the same level and only a few feet away. because of its brightness, some spectators would keep a distance between them and the screen. some adjustments with the sensor, the speed of the image and the position of the projector are obviously necessary, but yet, i was able to create some sort of intimacy between the images, their content and the viewers.
a few more weeks and i would be able to get the people to stay exactly where i want in relation with my installation.
as steve mentioned it during the critiques, one of the key with an installation is to set up and show your work quickly and as often as possible. it is part of the process. kind of like when you are doing post-production for your film. you need to show your rushes and your assembly in order to get feedback. by looking at the interaction between your piece and the viewer, you could easily tweak it and adjust it. you could see where its weakness are and if you need to restructure some part of it or not. the quicker you will have your prototype running, the faster you will progress.
for this specific piece, i would like to build a frame for the screen. like a light box. it would seem to slightly enlarge the scale of the screen, but i will do everything to keep this notion of intimacy. and ideally, “the migrants” project billboard would be install in a public space. since i am planning to keep working on this piece, i would like to have some sort of system to monitor it. it would be interesting to have statistics on how many people did actually stop to look at the piece, and according to various readings of the speed, for how long did they look at the images. the main goal is always to get them closer to the message.
i honestly wish that this new media semester would had last another 6 weeks. not right now because i’m exhausted, but this course deserves to be schedule during a regular 12 weeks semester. i am interested in using different forms of media in my documentary practice. i also want my work to be disseminated in public space. new media is a blend of many forms. it allows me to explore venues i had never consider before and it also gives me the chance to incorporate new tools to my practice, in order to support and articulate my discourse. for me, documentary should not be restricted to specialized channels or repertory cinemas, nor confined to gallery contexts. it should circulate in any possible ways in order to fullfill its advocacy function. as a communication tool, it should raise awareness on cultural and political issues as well as thwart aggressive corporate propaganda and consumerist values. in a way, i see my piece as “counter-propaganda” since i am using the same grammar as advertising but i manipulate its means and i modify its functions.
many many thanks to steve daniels (and his amazing brain) for the max patch, but also for his time and his enthusiasm. i had an intense 2 weeks, but he had a crazy busy and insane 2 weeks with all of our projects! special thanks also to kate schneider, ken chou and randy horton for the photographs of my installation.
new media will definitively influence my practice as documentary maker. there is already a few new sketches in my notebook.
Filed under: school stuff | Tags: charles latour, los mexicanos-le combat de patricia pérez, melanie saumure, mexico, migrant workers, new media, photography, ryerson university, seasonal workers, video installation
here are the 7 images i used in my video installation.
the original images are from the video “los mexicanos – le combat de patricia pérez” from the director charles latour.
this is the artist statement that was posted with the piece on wednesday, june 18th, 2008:
THE MIGRANTS
The Canadian seasonal agricultural workers program (SAWP) was established in 1966 to offset acute labour shortages in the agriculture industry by allowing Jamaican workers to migrate to Canada for a few months at a time.
The program was later extended with Mexican workers in 1974.
The program has been renewed ever since but without any significant modifications in order to adjust to today’s socio-economic and political reality.
Every year, approximately 5000 migrants workers from the Caribbean and Mexico arrive in Québec to work in the fields, orchards and greenhouses. More than half of these migrants will spend an average of 17 to 20 weeks on different farms in Saint-Rémi, a small community just outside of Montréal.
As stated by labour standards, employers are not permitted to take away and keep workers’ passports, medical cards or other personal documents.
But yet, this practice still occurs.
Fear of being repatriated, intimidation and abuse of power silences the struggles of the migrant workers.
According to the Québec labour code, any salaried employee has the right to belong to a union.
In june 2006, more than 100 Mexican workers, from 3 different farms, undertook legal action in order to organize a union.
13 months later, their request was officially declined by the labour commission.
The images of this project are from the video “los mexicanos, la lucha de patricia pérez” from the director Charles Latour.
mélanie saumure
june 2008
Filed under: school stuff | Tags: canada, charles latour, justicia for migrant workers, los mexicanos-le combat de patricia pérez, mexico, migrant workers, new media, ryerson university, seasonal workers, the north-south institute, video installation
right after our week off, we had to pitch our new media final project in front of the group.
some really interesting ideas were introduced by my classmates.
me?
i had the form…i was still looking for the content.
just a few people left…still no clue what to say.
i got out of the classroom for a second. and right there, i thought about charles and his video on the migrant workers.
came back in the room and it was my turn to pitch my idea.
i’m still not fully comfortable when i speak in front of a large group of people, especially in english. i keep saying it looks like chinese when i speak english. but anyway, i talked about the billboard i saw in new york, the fields i worked on when i was a kid with the migrant workers and the idea of making fake ads on this topic. it was a bit confused, but i knew i wanted to project images on a plexiglass surface.
i had seen that image on the instructable website.
and it was the kind of effect i was looking for.
after that afternoon, i became obsessed with my project.
i knew i had a VHS copy of charles’ video somewhere. so i decided to extract some images for “los mexicanos – le combat de patricia pérez” and to create fake ads with the still images in photoshop.
i found some very good website and interesting texts on the topic. i read of lot and i isolated the most relevant and striking points.
the website justicia for migrant workers is a great source of information as well as the north-south institute. in 2006, they published a policy brief with their recommendation regarding the situation. a PDF copy of the policy can be download. the title is “migrant workers in canada: a review of the canadian seasonal agricultural workers program” by max brem (june 2006).
now that i had my jpeg files, i needed to find a way to animate these images in final cut pro and to create the scrolling down effect.
in the meantime, i was looking for the right product to apply or stick on my plexiglass surface. i did some tests with different material. the diffusion filter was too thick and i didn’t wanted to use glue. i wanted to have something that i could spread directly on the surface. something that would stick to it. i tried yogurt but it cracked. then i thought about acrylic gesso, the stuff you put on canvas. the primer was perfect.
i wanted to get the people to look at my images.
to look at these workers since no one are really looking at them.
the canadian seasonal agricultural workers program has been created in 1966 to offset acute labour shortage in the agricultural industry by allowing jamaican workers to migrate to canada for a few months. the program was later extended with mexican workers in 1974. the program has been renewed ever since but without any significant modifications in order to adjust to today’s socio-economic and political reality.
i needed to find different strategies to bring the people to look at the workers.
i wanted to edit the images in a way that they would scroll down very fast so that it was impossible to read the ads from a distance.
my goal was to question the behaviour and to arouse the curiosity of the viewer. the idea was that the closer you would get to the screen, the slower the images will scroll down, allowing you to read the text.
by playing with the speed of the images as well as deliberately using smaller font for the text, i was hoping to have a certain control on the conditioning and the behaviour of the viewers.
i wanted to get them closer to the screen.
then steve, the guy with a computer brain, suggested that i could use a sensor to create this effect. i wanted something really simple and the sensor was a basic and not to complicate way for me to get there.
steve created a patch for me in max, he introduced me to my little arduino board, my sensor and he explained to me how to set up everything.
i have to say that i was really excited by the whole thing, even though this is probably a pretty basic and a very boring things for all the new media geeks!
so i did figure out how to create a scrolling effect in final cut, i felt pretty smart for a second.
i gather all the material i needed to suspend the plexiglass surface and i tried to project images on it.
in my original plan, the projector was hanging from the ceiling so that the image would come from the top, allowing the people to stand in front of the surface without cutting the light or being blinded by the light. but for technical reason, the projector was set behind the screen, at the same level.
i wanted an empty room, with no light, and only the plexiglass surface hung from the ceiling.
very minimalist.
i don’t know, i thought it would look kind of elegant.
here is a basic map of the project.
click on the image to enlarge it.
