The objective behind Elements is to develop a series of performance pieces that embody the visuals of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Through the art of Dance, fire twirling, aerial silk skills, and Taiko drummers the elements will become personified through movement. Each element of the series will draw on various philosophical concepts addressing ‘what does it mean to be human?’ The series can be likened to similar performance pieces such as: the music video called Fjögur Piano by Sigor Ros, the perfume ad for Amphitrite, and Fire Dance by Carlos Ledesma. The audience for the series, like the audience for above named performances can be found through the medium of Vimeo.
TARGET
The exclusivity of the online video site Vimeo advocates an appreciation for independent creatives, than that of Youtube. Therefore Elements has the potential to reach out to many creatives, like us who see performance as an art form. These people may include an audience such as those being carried out within the production itself. Additionally it has the potential to attract enthusiasts of photography and videography who can gage on the prospect of these performances being a form of cinema.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
The Director of the film series Elements, is Leah Beanland. Leah is also the creator and Director of Photography behind it. The creative style of the series is something that Leah is familiar with, having worked on multiple music videos involving contemporary dancers, and even underwater concepts. Thus these ideas are not beyond her, yet another stepping-stone to achieving high concept art cinematically. Her vision aims to portray a symbiosis of music and movement, in essence allowing the music to dictate the movement of the elements.
BUDGET AND SCHEDULING
In saying this, a lot of the productions Leah has been involved in are low budget to no budget filming, and that is what Elements is about. The production team involved focuses on this project being minimal budget, using the resources and contacts provided to us through networking, and with JMC Academy. Fortunately for the production team, the equipment and gear between us is enough and of best quality for a student production. We’ve been lucky in finding exterior locations such as: Swallow Rock, La Perouse, and the Royal National Park that are free for student filmmakers. As well as interior locations such as: JMCs auditorium, and through friends of Scouts Australia to use for free.
Though we’ve been fortunate to locate and own such resources, majority of the productions budget went towards Production Design, petrol, and catering. Suffice to say these areas of the productions are necessities and won’t wane on our finances.
Our shooting days are set over 4 months. Each element comprises of 1 or 2 shooting days with at least 1 rehearsal prior to filming. Since the series conveys a lot of it’s look not only through the performance, however through the design it is important to allocate up to 3 hours prior to filming to do make-up, dress sets. Set up gear protection tents, and to set up gear in general. Shooting will take about 6 hours or more, and since we need to filming one day, our shoots will be extremely tight, and extremely organised.
Scheduling relied on the availability of the performers, and the weather conditions of each season. The performers are really central to this series and therefore we scheduled based around their overseas trips to ensure they were vacant. For instance Amy our dancer for the element of Earth, was set to travel overseas during June, July, August. In order to avoid conflictions in shooting Earth too late in the year, we set our shoot date in May. Furthermore weather conditions are ideal. Autumn is symbolic of the life of nature at rest, leaves falling and soil damp reflective of the 7 ages of man as one grows old and eventually is one with the earth again.
