I can't say I've always been on the creative side of anything, but certainly became much more interested in it in high school. I've always been surrounded by art to some extent as my mother works with canvas and sculpture, often dealing with what she calls "caveman art" crafting paintings or objects that seem prehistoric and, in recent years, often relating to Judaism. In high school I gained more interest in art and after coming to college and taking a few film courses became much more interested in art and foreign cinema. I suppose I always preferred these films more, but had very limited exposure till high school and college. I remember during my freshman year at UNCW I took a intro class with James Kreul and enjoyed many of the experimental films he showed us. He also had an avant-garde night that semester in Lumina theater displaying all sorts of interesting avant-garde films and I was instantly in love with the variety and depth of these films.
It took another two or so years before I found myself back studying these types of films intensely. Last semester I took 6x1, History of Avant-Garde Cinema, and Intro to editing all at once, giving me a large exposure to avant-garde and experimental film, as well as plenty of time to explore and create it myself. Since then I've been much more passionate about avant-garde cinema and art as a whole, attempting to explore and define my own style as well as absorb the history of art and experimental are since the twentieth century. Though my style isn't completely defined (especially in cinema) I am interested in the idea of endurance, seeing what an audience can and is willing to endure watching and why, both in terms of content, length, and pace. I've also always been fascinated by humor and how it functions. I always try to make people laugh and take a certain avenue in my art attempting to elicit humor, while both understanding it, and pushing people to a breaking point where they must laugh, if only not to cry.
As far as the two articles go, I felt MacDonald's was a fair introduction to a brief history of avant-garde cinema and how it functions. He addresses many of the issues people have when they first view experimental films The problem I have with it is that there is no real accurate way to explain avant garde film as a whole, for him or for anyone else. After viewing avant-garde films, a school or series (post-modernism, beat films, etc), an avant garde filmmaker or a particular avant garde film, one can write, analyze, and discuss this work, but there is no good way to talk about avant garde films until you've actually sat down and watched several of them. People need the physical experience of being present in front of one, enduring it, analyzing and discussing it, and then attempting to break it down into its most finite components in addition to placing and relating it to the history of cinema, avant garde, and art movements. No article or reading can do this for someone who has never seen or only has a very limited interaction with avant garde cinema. Articles can only hope to expand or analyze films or movements for people that have an understanding of these films or movements.
I did enjoy Richter's article. I particularly like his thoughts on production and reproduction of an event, than relating it to how it becomes art, or how the camera affects the art. In addition, I found his relation to documentary film particularly interesting and often find myself asking similar questions and attempting to combine the idea of art with its use as a physical document and how people both view and use these documents, even though they may be fictitious or a work of art. I think these fields are surprisingly more connected than most people assume and am attempting to explore this theory as I watch all sorts of films.
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