Experimental Pairs Project Brief

This semester we have been briefed to create a short experimental film in pairs. The basis of the brief stems from the 2003 film The Five Obstructions by Lars Von Trier and Jorgen Leth in which Von Trier tasks Leth to recreate his 1967 short film The Perfect Human but this time Von Trier sets obstructions to navigate. These obstructions force Leth to revisit the aims he had when originally making the piece and to reconsider the process of film-making when out of his comfort zone. Out of this comes five very different and interesting new takes on one film. The obstructions we have been given as a group will hopefully serve to make us approach creating our film in new and different ways. Below is some of the information given to us with the specific obstructions from our original brief.

For this project you will be working in pairs

The starting point for this project are the films:

The Perfect Human – Jørgen Leth | 1967 | 12’                                                                                                      

The Perfect Human (Danish: Det perfekte menneske) depicts a man and a woman, both labelled 'the perfect human'      in a detached manner, "functioning" in a white boundless room, as though they were subjects in a zoo.

The Five Obstructions – Lars Von Trier & Jørgen Leth | 2003 | 89’                                                                         

In this film, Lars Von Trier asks Jørgen Leth to remake his short film The Perfect Human a number of ways with several different obstructions to influence the outcome:

1.             Leth must remake the film in Cuba (but with no set) with no shot longer than 12 frames, and he must answer the questions posed in the original film; Leth successfully completes this task.

2.             Leth must remake the film in the worst place in the world but not show that place onscreen; additionally, Leth must play the role of "the man". The meal must be included but the woman is not to be included. Leth remakes the film in the red light district of Bombay, only partially hiding it behind a translucent screen.

3.             Because Leth failed to complete task 2 perfectly, Von Trier punishes him, telling him to either remake the film in any way he chooses, or redo obstruction 2 in Bombay again. Leth chooses the former option and remakes it in Brussels using split-screen effects.

4.             Leth must remake the film as an animation. He does so with the aid of Bob Sabiston, a specialist in rotoscoping, who creates animated versions of shots from the previous films.

5.             The fifth obstruction is that Von Trier has already made the fifth version, but it must be credited as Leth's, and Leth must read a voiceover narration ostensibly from his own perspective but in fact written by Von Trier 

The work you will create will be inspired by a set of rules outlined below:

OBSTRUCTIONS:

–         5 – 10 minutes in length

–         x1 person or x1 object should feature within your piece focus

–         A Real location must be used (no sets)

–         No linear narrative should be used

–         No found sound used – you must record and manipulate sound

–         No use of sound purely as an explanation of screen action

–         You must include at least one aspect in your production that references the mechanics of filmmaking

(e.g. breaking the fourth wall?)