Field Report #1 - Robert Schaller's Film Performance

The first thing that caught my attention about most of Robert Schaller's work was how inconsistent some of the footage he shot was. It did not really seem to have any sort of pattern, meaning, or unison with the rest of the piece. This got me to thinking about the film "What the Water Said", which I had viewed in class. The way the raw film was altered to get the inconsistent effect that the water gave it must have been similar to how Schaller created the look he did. Luckily, he answered why he had such seemingly random images in many of his works. The reason was that those images were just that, random. He enjoys seeing what can come out on film when it is not made through conventional means, just like what I now believe is the reason why David Gatten made "What the Water Said" how he did. While "What the water Said" is straight forward in what it means, many of Robert Schaller's works were not so straight forward in their meaning.

I believe that it was "If not One and One" where he used three projectors, sound, and color to create some order in disorder. The reason I believed that this piece worked well on opposite ends of the spectrum was because while the dancer's moves and the music being played along with her were exact, and after a while by themselves repetitive, the handmade film that went along with it made the piece clash and therefore be far more interesting and captivating. The common factor that these two pieces share is the way that they use not only handmade film, but also add another factor into their piece to give meaning the the inconsistencies. David Gatten does that with the title of the piece and the use of sound created though the process he went through to get the film how it is Robert Schaller gave meaning to randomness through the use of multiple projectors. Not only in "If not One and One", but also in "Phrase", Schaller used multiple projectors to present his piece. Both of the projectors seemed to be showing just random handmade film, like with the other works. however, together the two strips of film created symmetry and gave the piece a more meaningful feel than just one strip on inconsistent film.

This goes back to a discussion in class about how putting film though a camera is not the only way to make a creative work of art or develop a meaningful "story". Robert Schaller and David Gatten both do a great job at proving this point as their work, though inconsistent and unconventional, worked well when adding in different ways of listening to or presenting their work.