At the moment still trying to get on with paintings for Gilles’ film, Dreaming Istanbul, what with one thing and another, am having to work nights under the lights with the canvas (actually alternating between a photograph and a blue screen – as I’m doing each one twice) in front of the camera.
You know the technique, stop-motion, I paint a bit take a photo, paint a bit more ‘n’ take another photo and so on till the picture’s done and then when it’s played back as a film (at 24 frames a second) you can watch the painting grow and take shape.
There are 15 or 16 left to do – the animations break into the live-action as they did in Aldous in London like songs in a musical and the reason that I’m painting the images twice over is that the photograph I dub the painting on top of always has different qualities of tone and colour to the film’s which creates a visual discontinuity, a jump in the optical quality whenever an animation is about to begin, which if it doesn’t spoil the surprise is kind of irritating after a while. To get over this problem I paint the interventions that I put onto the photograph onto a plain blue screen which is later filtered out and turns transparent in post-production. So the idea is that there’ll be a smooth transition from the moment the frame freezes to the appearance of the first brush strokes.
Well, Gilles is onto that, poor fellow, he’s not just editing all the pictures into a fluid sequence but having to adjust them as well because now we’re doing this digitally instead of as before with a 35mm film camera (“It’s the way forward, Aldous.”) the Nikon D40 I’m using is always compensating for every tonal change I paint even though everything on the camera is switched to manual, so a patch of white paint makes the image go darker and a spot of black paint, lighter. Not to mention, tiny movements to the position of the camera (it’s fixed onto the wall at the top of the house) which means Gilles is also having to align the little bleeders. [Read more…]
What a week
Nearly out of the woods, just finished penultimate drawing week. Have I told you about the Life-drawing classes I’m teaching to anyone who wants to come from across the whole Art ‘n’ Design Faculty? Must’ve done – it’s been preoccupying, if not obsessing me since the Autumn.
Now, months late, it’s time for me to finish the painting and filming for “Dreaming Istanbul”. Gilles has been very patient. Julien and he finished all the editing around Christmas time. And it can’t go to Gary (Dryden) for him to compose the sound-track till I’m done. There are about 30 to do. Have to buy a new lamp. One kept blowing so I it sent back for repair, was still under guarantee but they’ve lost it..and they have stopped manufacturing that model, great. [Read more…]
Paris Exhibition – 13 November to 10 December 2008
“Aldous in Istanbul” at Marlusse et Lapin, 14 Rue Germain Pilon, Paris, 18eme (from 13 November to 10 December 2008) is an exhibition of 29 of the 36 paintings on photographs I have made so far for a film in collaboration with two young, French film-maker friends of mine, Gilles Blaize and Julien Tréfouël. The film is called “Dreaming Istanbul” and is to be shown in Istanbul, Turkey in 2010 when Istanbul has been nominated as European City of Culture.
Gilles and Julien have almost finished the editing of the film and are waiting for me to paint the last 15 images before handing the film over to the fourth member of our team, the composer Dryden Hawkins, for the soundtrack.
A cinematic montage in seven movements weaving a narrative out of several storylines, “Dreaming Istanbul” effortlessly integrates different realities, perceptions and genres into its flow. As a travelogue, it is a richly illuminating, visual essay on Istanbul. At the same time, it looks behind the scenes to show the making of the film itself, bringing the crew into the picture, while also being a documentary showing my practice as an artist – to explore a city on foot, drawing and sketching constantly, and afterwards to paint what I call “dubbed photographs” onto the background of still photographs of the places I have visited. [Read more…]