July’s Monthly Film is A Perfect Circle, which we wrote
about quite a lot as we were making it:
So I asked Chris to reflect on the actual shoot. He said:
I didn't want to make this film. I
wanted to make something entirely different. But we ended up in a studio in
Sheffield for two days making A Perfect Circle.
Which was a good start.
We abbreviate to APC when we talk
and write about it among ourselves. I'm not that happy with the title to be
honest but I've never thought of anything better so perhaps I should stop
moaning.
No comment.
There are couple of things about
the making of the film. We borrowed the overhead camera and gaffer taped it to
the lighting rig in the studio. I had no way of knowing whether it was properly
in focus and exposed by the time I managed to lean over and hit record. I
managed to overcome my mild vertigo by climbing twenty feet up the ladder to do
so.
It was essentially a two camera
setup on multiple takes of the entire process, with me doing close ups and
wides on the floor and the borrowed camera on the birds eye view. I also had to
guestimate as to whether or not I would be in shot if I moved in for any
extreme close ups of the powder or the feet.
Climbing with gritted teeth up the
ladder to retrieve the footage for a quick mid-shoot review was not fun. As you
can see, the footage was ok. We had a coffee and carried on.
The main part of the shoot was a
highly rewarding experience, lighting Gillian, her performance and the action
to make it other, elevated. Ditching the storyboards very early on in the first
day. Finding new ways of framing the process using angles and perspectives that
the theatrical experience couldn't replicate.
Alex and I have written and spoken
about the editing process in other places and about the intentions behind the
piece. I had two additional motivations when making A Perfect Circle, rather
prosaically one was to learn and find the limitations of a new piece of editing
software - hence the large amount of frame blending during the extensive slow
motion shots - and to attempt to create something elegant, fully formed, which
needs no additional explanation in order to be enjoyed - like a piece of music.
I learnt the software, which is
now defunct five years after the fact, I'm unsure as to whether or A Perfect
Circle can be enjoyed without knowing what is happening.
I did also want to make a dance
film and this was the an opportunity to do so within the Third Angel fold.
So to paraphrase Meatloaf, two out
of three ain't bad.
So I'd just add, A Perfect Circle is best enjoyed watched on as big a screen as possible, turned up loud...
A Perfect Circle
9min 32sec. HD.
A female human being performs a ritual: an attempt to describe a circle and an attempt to describe the world as if all you could see of it were the series of images carried on the Voyager satellites, the two furthest-travelled human-made objects from the Earth.
Devised by Christopher Hall, Alexander Kelly, Gillian Lees and Rachael Walton
Performed by Gillian Lees
Music by David Mitchell
Camera and Edit by Christopher Hall
Production Assistants: Cristabel Horne and Dan Wray
Commissioned by Sheffield Contemporary Art Forum for The Sheffield Pavilion2009. Supported by Sheffield Hallam University and Leeds Metropolitan University. With thanks to Sheffield Independent Film. Third Angel is regularly funded by Arts Council England and supported by Site Gallery, Sheffield.
