This post comes from my friend Tom Cowan. 

Tom and I have known each other almost 60 years now, which means we are both very ancient. Tom has created many fine films in his lifetime and recently completed a low-budget independent feature film called "LIFE CLASS 1920"  which was awarded "Best Narrative Feature" at the Venice California FINE ARTS FESTIVAL . 

Tom has recently created a very short piece showing a selection of images done by artists who were creating the works which characters in the movie would complete.



 

As well as supplying art that appears in the feature movie, the artists were inspired by the experience of the shoot to create works about the production. About 90 art works resulted from this activity and these were exhibited along with the initial screening of the movie.


Here is the brief video Tom made from a few of the art works:

"Life Drawing Story"

 

LIFE DRAWING STORY from Tom Cowan on Vimeo.



Tom's feature movie:  "LIFE CLASS 1920" 

is set in a small country town suffering the trauma of the Great War. It is the love story of a shell-shocked French artist and a restless farm girl who became his model and the scandal that his life drawing class generated. The story of Monsieur Georges Bresson and Sadie Macgowan is of the healing power of art.

When making the movie, which was a joy to be part of,  I also got cancer. I took on the editing and that was a long struggle. I was suffering. With a lot of help, the edit was finished, mixed and the movie had a few screenings. The original edited version was as sluggish as I was and not as alive as the material we shot. It was not special enough to break through.

I recovered and I saw the movie objectively. After about three years, for my own pleasure, I started to re-edit the material. At first it was just for me. But the material was so alive that I became enthusiastic. It is a radical change from the original edit, and successful, possibly because it was fun to do.

The FINE ARTS FESTIVAL awarded it Best Narrative Feature and it was selected for the SANTA MONICA  INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL at the end of 2020.

In my experience, re-editing rarely improves the movie for the audience. I learnt that is not always true.




Many thanks Tom, well done you!


pt




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Update on Sora, Luma, Runway Gen-2 Ai text and image machines.

Image
Recently I posted this: From Richard: We knew it was coming, but it's still hard to believe                                                                                                      February 20, 2024 In that blog Richard introduced me to SORA which I found astonishing. Some of you may also have been as astonished as I was.  Since then Richard sent me a new lead on "LUMA DREAM MACHINE" which offers in some respects more than what SORA did. Here's a link to their main page which has been going viral: https://lumalabs.ai/dream-machine Well I 've been playing with Luma for a few days now, and to-ing and fro-ing with Richard and Alix... some of the results took my breath away, some were totally disappointing. Let's start with...
Read more

Maria Korporal: An Introduction to Her Work

Image
Darko has recently introduced me to multimedia artist  Maria Korporal. Of Dutch origin, Maria   lived   in Italy  for many years but she has lived and worked in Berlin  since 2014 . Her artistic production includes video art, interactive projects, installations. Her multimedia work has been designed using a wide variety of techniques. The narrative aspect, both personal and social, plays a major role in her work which together with the directness of the images and the sounds leads to greater participation of the viewer. In her work she plays with virtuality and reality, with undergone and artificially generated experiences. Most of her projects deal with social and environmental issues, often with an ironic approach. A good example is her project Korporal Zoo , a series of video works made between 2010 and 2018, which observe the animal and human world from several perspectives: cultural, social, environmental.  Over the last two years Maria experienced the...
Read more

Eyeless in Gaza, images from the net.

Image
          Eyeless in Gaza...   Footnotes:   I wanted to leave these images up clear of any text. My friend Richard suggested we should acknowledge the sources so I've made a big effort to track them down out of respect for the incredible job they do, and especially for their courage, working in the dangerous zones where so many aid workers and journalists have lost their lives. But some are not credited on the pages of publications I drew them from. Here's a list I've just completed, numbered from the image No.1 at top of page down to the final one, No.9  1. Abdulqader Sabbah/Anadolu 2: Mohammed Dahman/AP 3.  P hotograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu/Getty Images 4. Photo:         WFP/Ali Jadallah 5.                       April 18, 2024. (AFP) 6: Mahmoud Issa: Reuters: Redux 7. Photographer: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images 8.  P hotographer: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu/Get...
Read more