THE FRAMED WORLD: VISUAL COMPOSITION FOR FILM
Ages 16-29
Spring 2017, Motorhouse and on location at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park
This short, intensive workshop will offer an introduction to visual composition. The image through the camera’s viewfinder is the image on the movie screen. This framed world is the world of the film. What is included, what excluded? How is our reading of content determined by proximity of camera to subject? By angle? By light and shadow? By lateral movement vs. movement in depth? How is meaning created by a certain arrangement of human figures? By the absence of human figures? Working together and with the instructors, fellows will experiment with a range of formal choices and begin to develop a director’s eye. The primary location for the workshop will be the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park on the Eastern Shore. Saturday will be an all-day field trip. Fellows will explore the park and consider the history of the land, and of the people who have lived on it and travelled across it. They will represent their discoveries and personal responses in a collaborative film. Meetings will be broken into: Pre-Production: introduction to equipment, creation of teams; Production: all-day shoot, review of rushes; Post-Production: editing. Fellows will learn video and audio recording, and the basics of Adobe Premiere. Their film will be shared on the program website and at a public screening. Limited to 6 student fellows.
The Framed World is the second in a series of concentrated, location-specific workshops. The productions are "guerrilla" in that they're agile, portable, low-budget; and professional in the quality of their high-production-value results. Fellows may participate in one or more in the series.
Annette Porter is a documentary filmmaker and co-founder, with Helen Morell, of Nylon Films, UK. Comfortable with her camera in a corporate boardroom or on a high altitude trail in Chile, she produces, directs, and shoots both stills and moving images.
Jimmy Powell, Jr., an alumnus of the Maryland Institute College of Art, is a freelance videographer and editor. His clients include the NAACP, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, and the University of Maryland Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
