6 minute read
Filmmaking as a way to enter a landscape experience
LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS
OF RØDBY FJORD PART 1 Hiking, filming and editing
Advertisement
In the following, I look into the stories, qualities and characteristics of the new coastal zone of Rødby fjord. I unfold my onsite analysis and filmic working methods which has led to the completion of five filmic notations reflecting upon the experienced landscape structures, dynamics and atmospheres.
In the first week of March 2021 I carried out a 3 day fieldtrip to Rødby Fjord with a curated focus on 4 sites in close proximity to the dike of Lolland: Kramnitze Havn, Skarresø wetlands, Mygfjed Forest and Rødbyhavn.
My main tool of registration is the film camera that I use to explore and document the experienced landscape typologies, spatial formations as well as the visible or invisible signs of the vanished ocean. As a rookie within the field of filmmaking I approach the work with a playful and intuitive mindset to explore the act and position of the photographer.
I film what moves me, how I move in the landscape and what moves in front of me. I film when I come across shimmering waterholes, wetland zones and canals as a way to capture the presence of water on the inside of the dike. I film from a distance, at close range, from above and below water. I film the diverse vegetations and spatial properties and structures and I film while moving, while standing, while biking and from the passenger seat in the car. The collected filmic material from each site visit has evolved into filmic representations and interpretations directly linked to each site.
/ I see the forest emerging in the lee of the dike Mygfjed Forest
/ I see transitions emerge through movement Rødbyhavn
/ I see encounters between reality and dreams in the ponds of the farmland The cultural landscapes of the reclaimed seabed
The final filmic notation differs in the sense that it does not refer to a specific site visit but the experienced cultural landscapes that dominated the visual impression on the way to each site. Each site visit registrations and related filmic notation will be presented in abovementioned order.
THEORETICAL AND PRACTIAL
STARTING POINT
As an entry to the filmic process of my thesis I have studied the work and reflections of Rikke Munck Petersen and Mads Farsø. In Affective Architecture. Film as a Sensory Transference Tool and an Intimacy Projection Environment (2016) Munck Petersen and Farsø unfold the representative and conceiving qualities of the film when it enters in a landscape architectural context. They argue how the film medium can be used as a sensory transference tool projecting both the outer space as well and an inner sensation. They further highlight the ability to engage and establish the bodily perception of a space in the architectural practice by introducing the film as a research and projection medium, translating atmosphere and intimacy in our work. In my own process I reflect upon the way I engage bodily in the landscape and how I can portray my movements and impressions both through filming and through editing. I seek to find answers to how my subjective sensuous impressions of the landscapes of Rødby fjord can be transmitted through the lens of my camera and ultimately through the screen to the spectator. With reference to the work of Munck Petersen and Farsø I also look at the conceiving qualities of the film, as I study the new environments and spaces within the filmic notations used as tools to articulate a strategic direction.
In the documentary William Kentridge – Everything is possible by director Charles Atlas and Susan Sollins (2010) we get an intimate look into the creative process and reflections of Kentridge, well known amongst other things for his charcoal drawings and vivid video installations. In the documentary featuring interviews and studio recordings of Kentridge he describes cinemas ability to dissolve to pieces of film together and turn a cat into a telephone. He calls it the exercise of transformation in which you understand the world as process (Art21, 2010, 25:26). The study of transformation expressed though historical events is simply way to understand the world we live in. In Kentridges works you see extraordinary examples of how he integrates historical references in his art. In relation to the Kentridge exhibition at Louisiana Museum of Art in 2017 the director Poul Erik Tøjner described the way Kentridge unfolds time by bringing the past into the present in his works (Louisiana Revy, 2017). In my thesis exploration I approaches the subject of transformation both through historical research but also through the filmic sketches dissolving time and space with reference to the reflections of Kentridge.
Finally, Kentdrige gives sense to the inexplainable and intuitive aspects of the creative process by emphasizing the act of playing:
“The seriousness of playing. It’s about staying in the looseness of trying different things. Images and ideas will emerge” (Art21, 2010, 00:55).
This looseness of trying different things have been a key tool in my own filmmaking process.
FILMMAKING AS A WAY TO ENTER A
LANDSCAPE EXPERIENCE
As mentioned early on in this chapter my filmic notations evolve from and refer to the four visited sites Kramnitze Havn, Skarresø Wetlands, Mygfjed Forest and Rødbyhavn as well as the cultivated seabed of Rødby Fjord. While each filmic notation relates to different landscape elements such as the sea, the wetland, the forest, the dike and the cultural and agricultural landscape, they also touch base with the underlying layers such as historical presence, physical transitions, spatial properties and the multiple sensuous impressions experienced though light, colour, sound, etc.
The five filmic notations appear as broad horizontal frieze-like bands creating a coherency between them. Each of the notations tells a different story, but put together they give an overall impression of and insight to the nuances of Rødby Fjord.
Having never edited film before, I explore not only the film mediums qualities in the landscape architectural practice, I also get acquainted with the machinery behind the filmmaking discipline.
The intention of the first film edited, / I see things that were, going quiet behind my eyes, is to manifest the geographical and historical context. With experimenting techniques of overlaying images and zoomed-in images it also initiates a further exploration of the transformational and transcendent qualities of the film medium. The filmic notation introduces water and historical maps as important elements in the creation of a dualistic and historical awareness.
The second film edited, / I see pieces of the past in the shimmering soil of the present, was instrumental in the creation of the frieze-like format that I use as a frame for each of the five filmic notations.
These first two notations create a set of guidelines in which I use the frieze-like format to create structure and coherency and the overlaying techniques and historical maps to access the historical and poetic layers of the present-day landscapes.
In the following subchapters you get a guided introduction to the mentioned sites of registration and the filmic notations that relate to the experienced site.
Rødby Kanal
Kramnitze Pumping station
3
The dike
wetland
Beach The canal lock
2
Kramnitze Havn
1
Kramnitze village
Dune beach
Orthophoto Kramnitze 2021 1:10000
