Author Archives: Hugo

The Potential of Cinemas

By Hugo | Published: August 20, 2011

Arriving in the coffee-house, customers were expected to take the next available seat, placing themselves next to whoever else has come before them. No seat could be reserved, no man might refuse your company. This seating policy impresses on all customers that in the coffee-house all are equal. Though the matter of seating may appear [...]

Posted in cinema | Leave a comment

Point of View

By Hugo | Published: July 11, 2011

Film might never reach its potential if it is constrained by path-dependent notions. Perhaps certain notions and ideas are only accidental habits. Perhaps in the fullness of time, those ideas might constitute the evidence of an art form that was in its infancy. One such idea is that a film must side with one particular character, [...]

Posted in filmmaking, writing | Leave a comment

The Power of Music

By Hugo | Published: July 10, 2011

Here is Harry Dean Stanton performing José López Alavéz’s song Cancion Mixteca. An instrumental version of the song, played by Ry Cooder, was used in Wim Wender’s ‘Paris, Texas‘ – to heartbreaking effect. Cinema can completely disarm an audience, leaving them defenceless against the full power of great music. Tweet

Posted in filmmaking, music | Leave a comment

The Responsibilities of Cinema

By Hugo | Published: December 18, 2010

Within that aura which unites masterpieces and audience, the best sides of our souls are made known, and we long for them to be freed. In those moments we recognise and discover ourselves, the unfathomable depths of our own potential, and the furthest reaches of our emotions. Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time pp43 How can [...]

Posted in ethics, filmmaking | 2 Comments

Directing

By Hugo | Published: December 6, 2010

I had a go at directing a music video recently, a great experience, I learnt lots: 1. Directing is incredibly demanding. On the shoot, you need to be focused and calm. If you’re exhausted, over-tired, under-slept, haven’t eaten, distracted – you’re immediately at a disadvantage. 2. Short shoot days. 8 hours maximum. Long days are [...]

Posted in filmmaking | Leave a comment

Violence

By Hugo | Published: April 19, 2010

Dear Readers, There are moral repercussions to all acts of violence. Art that depicts realistic violence and deliberately omits the moral dimension of the act, is dehumanising and wrong. Two recent examples come to mind. The first is ‘Underbelly’ – a TV series based on real-life criminals who wrought violence and misery on the Australian East-coast. The [...]

Posted in ethics, filmmaking | Leave a comment

Detail

By Hugo | Published: April 12, 2010

I must re-emphasise, if just for my own benefit, that the films that I’ve been most impressed with and most engrossed in, pay attention to detail. ‘A Prophet’ is another great film that is rich in seemingly* authentic detail**. This creates the illusion that you are watching real events, real people, in a real world [...]

Posted in filmmaking, writing | Leave a comment

The Surface

By Hugo | Published: March 19, 2010

There is a nice quote from Leonardo Da Vinci which goes something like this: “Think about the surface of the work. Above all think about the surface” – Bresson in ‘Excerpts from an Interview with Robert Bresson’ (James Blue, 1965) Tweet

Posted in filmmaking, writing | Leave a comment

Causation

By Hugo | Published: February 25, 2010

The following may seem obvious to you, my esteemed reader, but for myself I’ve enjoyed having these concepts laid out – articulated. For this reason I highly recommend The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative by H. Porter Abbott, which I’m paraphrasing: Post hoc ergo propter hoc A happens, then B happens. So A must cause B, [...]

Posted in writing | Leave a comment

Levels of Reality

By Hugo | Published: February 11, 2010

…literature does not recognise Reality as such, but only levels. I’ve also enjoyed Italo Calvino’s ‘The Uses of Literature’, in particular his essay ‘Levels of Reality in Literature’. It’s fools errand to try distill Calvino’s lucid argument into a blog post, but this is a scrapbook after all - so here is the vibe of it; Different levels [...]

Posted in writing | 1 Comment

  • Sign up for my infrequent newsletter!

    I won't bother you unless it's big news