Production diary: Week 3

Mr.Perez gave everyone a film to watch this week which could be loosely based on what everyone had an idea about doing. As the first director we were introduced to was Maya Deren (who I was very fond of) I was excited when he gave me a collection of her short films to watch. Although my film won't be heavily inspired by her ambiguous works, she really opened up my creative agenda and I learnt a lot from watching her films about the way people can interpret things differently and how I can be influenced about ideas a thoughts around me but express them differently each time I think about them. Deren was really a stepping stone in my journey on how to perceive post-modern avant garde media. Deren was also a prominent writer for the theory of cinema which is the beautiful thing about her work. She managed to transform cinema into art in motion and emphasised the art within her film to the point where it left some critics terribly dismissive simply because she wasn't following codes and conventions from Marxism or Strauss but she was challenging ways of perception.
I learnt a lot more about Deren through the way she is perceived and received by journalists and film theorists now, one of the most interesting articles I read was: Butler, Alison. “Motor-Driven Metaphysics: Movement, Time and Action in the Films of Maya Deren.” Screen, 48:1 (2007). A scholarly analysis of Maya Deren’s film aesthetics and artistic theories, with special consideration of the role of movement, time and action. Butler’s work is a solid piece of film theory, largely connecting Deren’s ideas to those of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. One of the most recent works on Deren, is indicative of the bourgeoning recognition of Deren’s merit as a film theorist by current scholars.