A TIME MACHINE: TIME LAPSE VIDEOGRAPHY
Ages 16-29
Spring 2021, Online
Jean Epstein, a remarkable French filmmaker and film theorist, suggested three crucial elements for creating powerful films: slow motion, extreme close ups, and time lapse. Working with these elements, he developed the idea of photogenie, a mysterious and powerful force only revealed through film. For Epstein, photogenie was difficult to describe, but simple to see, when it occurred. This workshop will concentrate on the technique and use of time lapse videography. Epstein's fascination with these elements centered around his belief that film was uniquely capable of altering our everyday sense of time, and especially, of the duration of time. With time lapse, the camera becomes a time machine, shortening or lengthening events to construct and reconstruct new visual worlds. If time (and energy) allows, we might also explore Epstein's ideas on how to play with sound in a similar manner (his term was phonogenie). Fellows will create individual projects exploring the amazing potential for time lapse videography. Their work will be shared on the program website and through a virtual exhibition. Limited to 8 student fellows.
John Mann is a documentary filmmaker and Senior Lecturer in the Film and Media Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University. Works include the documentaries Shelter: Conversations with Homeless Men, Nicodemus, and Locust Point; the dance for the camera shorts Breathe In…Breathe Out and It Goes Without Saying; and the recent autobiographical short "if...then...”
Lukas MacKinney is an aspiring filmmaker and musician currently in his senior year at Johns Hopkins University. They enjoy all aspects of the movies, but especially scoring films and working as a teaching assistant. They hope to continue sharing cinema as a means of joy, education, and representation.
Ebony DeGrace is developing her craft as a cinematographer and photographer. She considers herself a cinematic experimentalist and aspires to uplift and uphold the Black experience through conceptualized, outer-worldly visual work.
