Experimental Video Assignment - Task 1 - Chapter 1

Discuss both past and current artists and works.

Experimental videos, both past and present, have a range of similarities and differences between them.

"Telling Lies" by Simon Ellis (2001), "1001 Nights" (1998) by Jananne Ai-Ani and "Koyaanisqatski" by Godfrey Reggio (1982) all have similarites between them in which all three experimental films lack significant effects which are usuaslly associated with film.

Both "Telling Lies" and "1001 Nights" don't actually have any audio other than the diegetic sounds including the sound of a phone ringing (repeatedly throughout "Telling Lies") and the womens' dialogue in "1001 Nights".However, it could be argued that the dialogue and sounds in "Telling Lies" is actually non-diegetic as the voices and sounds are coming from outside of the frame. There is no soundtrack to these films as both videos are dialogue based. Also, these two films don't have any special effects, the only visual images on screen are the different coloured text in "Telling Lies" and the head and shoulders of four women in "1001 Nights". Both have the same plain black background. Also, both "Telling Lies" and "1001 Nights" are purely concept based.

"Koyaanisqatski" on the other hand has a difference with the other two films as it has a soundtrack which is played throughout the film. The pace of the soundtrack varies depending on the speed at which the clips change (E.g. It starts with a slow backing track as the clips take a while to change, it then speeds up when the clips change very frequently in a matter of seconds). Overall, the work fits in with the pace of the soundtrack. Also there is only one word of dialogue, "Koyaanisqatski", which is chanted repeatedly at different stages throughout the film. This films' audio is non-diegtic and the focus of the film is the visual imagery. This film, unlike the other two, is craft based.

Those are some similarities and differences between "Telling Lies", "1001 Nights" and "Koyaanisqatski".