Three, two, one AND action!!!!! Hi there, today we had a lecture from Eldon Booth. Eldon Booth is the man at moving image. He works within the art world and the commerical world. These two extremes has prompted his work to deal with things like blurring the lines between fiction and reality and mixing and experimenting. Booth is also very interested in creating illusion of reality, and then an illusion of the reality being recorded. Confussed yet?? Yes, I am. Its kind of like going to a carnival and going into one of those psychotic mirror rooms, where theres a mirror reflecting a mirror, which reflects a mirror, which reflects you, and you are holding a video camera.
But seriously lets not get silly now. Fiction and reality are two very opposite ideas. 'Fiction' means creation. And reality of course means, well, reality or the real. It is interesting how film and television these days shows these two ideas. Now when I think of Fiction movies or TV I think of The Matrix and Lost and things like that. Get a grip they aren't real, well not yet anyway. They are just a creation of some madman who wishes his world could be all strange and slow motion. But haaha imagine that, dodging a bullet by bending backwards. But seriously, there are some pretty wacky movies out there, some are genius, refreshing and amazing. And some, well not so successful. Im not going to name any. Now reality is the exact opposite, yes, you guessed it, opposite! Shows such as Survivour, Extreme Makeover and Girls of the Playboy Mansion are some of the many reality TV shows that society cant get enough of. But think about it, how much of this stuff that you see on your screen, is true. I'll bet maybe a tiny fraction is real because my friend the media lies. The reason for reality TV is to entertain and engage audience, its all exciting 'real' life drama about normal people such as yourself. This is why we cant get enough. So really, in reality, reality TV isnt real because sometimes it is staged. And that is just for money and to entertain. REALITY TV!! I am ashamed. But really who do you think is going to win in America's Next Top Model??
Reality has been pushed into cinema as well. But its not all about surviving in the wild, whilst builidng a house from sticks and spit. Its not about who gets to sleep with Hef. Its about documentary. Yup, I said it, documentary. Now many things have been made into documentaries. The Grandfather of documentary was Robert Flaherty, he was famous for the documentary 'Nanook of The North' this documented the life of those strange Eskimos. But lets not go on too much about Nanook. Society really does like documentary because I guess most of them hit close to home. Such as the documentary 'Bowling for Columbine' which tried to answer the quesiton about America and its gun violence problem. But some documentaries can blurr fiction and reality. Sometimes they are known as 'mocumentaries' and a great example of a great mocumentary is our very own Peter Jacksons documentary or mocumentary called 'Forgotten Silver'. This was a documentary telling the story of 'forgotten' New Zealand filmmaker Colin McKenzie, and the rediscovery of his lost films, which presenter Peter Jackson claims to have found in an old shed. McKenzie is presented as the first and greatest innovator of modern cinema, single-handedly inventing the tracking shot (by accident), the close-up (unintentionally), and both sound and color film years before their historically documented creation. The film also shows fragments of an epic Biblical film supposedly made by McKenzie in a giant set in the forests of New Zealand, and a 'computer enhancement' of a McKenzie film providing clear evidence that New Zealander Richard Pearse was the first man to invent a powered aircraft, several months prior to the Wright Brothers'
And get this, most of New Zealand was fooled into believing that this was all real. Haha New Zealand, you got served. This small example of blurring fiction and reality really puts forth the idea that anyone who wants to believe, will believe. Oh, and that TV and some cinema lies. But on a more serious note, some cinema documents actuall reality. But not in a documentary style. Such as the movie 'Elephant' by Gus Van Sant. Yes this is a sad but true story, but it is Van Sant's own rendition of what happened that fateful day at Columbine. This rather poetic film hits you right in the heart and you cant help but feel for the characters in the movie, simply because they are so real and believable.
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