Meditation on Violence

On 27th September, in our lecture we watched a piece of experimental film, called 'Meditation on Violence' by Maya Deren.  The film shows an oriental man wearing a headscarf and white pants, in front of various different backgrounds such as white, black, a mixture of both and outside.  The man is shown meditating on his own in front of a white studio setting, before it shows him outside practising with a sword, then back to the first scene. 

We then given a brief to create a piece of work inspired by the work of Maya Deren.  Four men from a local Marshall arts club came in to College to perform their moves in the studio, where we would film them.  By doing this we were creating a piece of video art paying homage to Maya Deren.

Although I have worked in the studio several times know and I am getting use to the equipment, this was by far the hardest session that I have ever had to shoot on camera, due to the fact that the subject was always stood still, and they were also very unpredictable with what they were going to do.  This meant that the cameras had to be unlocked at all times, and had to keep up with the subject.