Interview with

Filmmaker Emma Freeman talks about her interactive video installation currently showing at the Gorker Gallery with Paul Imseih

Emma – could you tell us a bit about this show and what inspired you to do it?

Flatlands is a 4 channel video installation exploring ideas/conceptions of love and romanticism. The work is presented in a darkened space, a cocoon of imagery with soundscape by Robert Curgenven. It was summer in Melbourne and I was thinking about all things love, desire and romanticism. It became an obsessive thought, a rumination on the idea. Images starting appearing to me and I would record them in a book. A few weeks later, I had a series of images that represented this state of mind.

The use of slow motion in cinema has had a extremely long history, going back to the very first experiments with recording moving image with cinematographs. How do you explain the recurring fascination with the recording of movement and transformation through the use of slow-motion?

As an audience, we are fascinated with what the naked cannot capture. In Flatlands, we are capturing images at 1000fps, 40 times slower than what we can see. It is the detail, the movement, the visual poetry of slow motion that keeps audiences intrigued and engaged. When you slow an image down, you start to unlock details that you never knew were there.

Slow motion has, over time, become associated with many clichés in cinema with its widespread use in spaghetti westerns, action films and sport. Recently, the film Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait attempted to create a more poetic approach to sport by use of extensive slow motion but it still somehow lacked emotion. Did you make any deliberate decisions to avoid cliché in your film and embue it with its powerful emotional effect?

Flatlands came from a subconscious place. I never thought about clichés – I absolutely trusted that these images would communicate a state of mind, not answer questions, but stimulate an emotional response from the viewer.

Many of the members of Designfederation.net are active designers and would love to know about some of the choices you’ve made to put this show together. Could you tell us a bit about the design decisions you made and some of the technical aspects of the filming?

The show was a challenge to install but I had great technical support. We are using 4 HD projectors with custom made screens (3m x 1.6m) all hung to appear floating in a darkened space. The video runs from 4 Apple TV units – looping every 4.30 minutes. We wanted to maintain the high definition quality yet consider the practicalities of running the show on a daily basis. I had a very strong idea on how I wanted the space to operate, and thankfully, we were able to achieve this despite the technical challenges. Many of my choices came in the art direction of the images. The location had to be a character (under the Bolte Bridge in Melbourne), casting, wardrobe, lighting, the framing of the subjects. I was very fortunate to work with Melbourne based cinematographer, Katie Milwright – she really achieved everything that I had hoped for.

With one notable exception, you’ve de-saturated the colour palette – was this a consequence of using the high-speed cameras?

The desaturated colour palette was a grading choice. We graded on Lustre with Martin Greer at Digital Pictures and cinematographer, Katie Milwright. It was very much a style choice over consequence of using a high speed camera. However, the Phantom HD is a difficult camera to master. Ghosting can occur within the image (a blur as the subject moves) but we were fortunate to have very few issues with the quality of the image.

One of the consequences of slow-motion filming is that you’re almost forced to think more carefully about sound design. Gus Van Sant has done that to an extraordinary degree in Elephant and Paranoid Park both of which can almost be viewed as separate works of art for the sound and image. I have to admit that I loved the piece composed for your work. Could you tell us more about the composer and what you were trying to achieve there?

The sound was designed to create a mood and support the imagery. It was not designed to impose an emotion but lead the viewer into almost a meditative state. I first heard Robert Curgenven’s field recordings through a mutual friend – extraordinary crickets and night soundscapes. I thought this tone worked perfectly with Flatlands – again, focusing on the minutia of everyday life. Robert is now based in Berlin and Milan, having played at events throughout Australia and Europe, including Transmediale (Berlin), Gallery for Contemporary Art (Leipzig), Headphone festival (Stralsund), C/O Pop (Koln), Alice Springs Desert Festival, Darwin Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Electrofringe Festival (Newcastle) and Tura New Music Festival (Perth). You can check out his work on www.recordedfields.net.

You’ve managed to find work in the highly rarefied world of commercials and TV and still managed to produce this show. Many artists say that commerce and art aren’t compatible so I’m actually interested to know how your commercial experience has informed this work? It looks like it’s been done by a pro, someone who knows what they’re doing. Do you think there are benefits for artists and designers to keep a foot in both camps?

I think it’s an individual choice – the commercial world doesn’t work for everyone. I am a director and I want to produce work, to direct moving images. I’m not someone who could sit in development for 10 years waiting for my feature film to happen. I feel incredibly fortunate that I’ve had the opportunity to refine and develop my craft, in both commercials and television. With each project that I direct, I have a greater understanding of filmmaking and directing – whether that be a 30 second commercial, Love My Way episode or video installation. With every project, I feel like I improve, learn something, find new ways of working – as a director, that’s really important to me.

Final question – what are you working on right now and when can we see your work again?

I will be directing my first feature film next year, a circus film set in the 1950’s in the Flinders Ranges.

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