I've commited to "Five Obstructions"

evinsky

evinsky

Well-known member
I don't know how many of you have seen this wonderful film by Lars Van Treir but it essentially is an exercise in the act of self aware creation. Lars forces his good friend Jogen leth to remake his groundbreaking 60's short film "The Perfect Human" five times. Each time giving his an "Obstruction" to overcome. This tests both Leth's (Considerable) prowess as a director and their friendship. I'll let you Netflick it to see how it ends.

My writer friend and I were so taken with it that he proposed to write five "Obstructionist" shorts for me to Direct. Each one will have defined and undefined parameters to overcome as well as a schedule. I'm really excited because it's an awsome creative exercise.
I have had such a hard time motivating myself to shoot unpaid work that it's refreshing to feel like playing again.

Somehow I feel exited about the prospect of failing.
 
Heard of it. I thought that was about using crappy video, minimalist philosiphy and the like? No?
 
kinda. never finished it. just came to mind when i read five obstructions that's all.
lvt is amazing. i loved dancer in the dark. haven't seen this one.. will check it out. best of luck.
 
I love lars von trier's films... The 5 obstructions also inspired me to do something similar with a friend of mine, but with different rules. I'm just going to mention a couple of them. We both have to direct our short films. The plot of them are given from one of the directors to the other. The directors must to be in a leading role of the other director's short film. And It has to be Dogme95( I love editting with dogma95 style)
It's like your own game... I think it's the essence of why we like to make movies.
 
My obstructions are specific to each piece. The first requires me to shoot the same 3 page diolog scene in 6 locations. Then edit them together so the pacing and transitions aren't jarring. The second is a single stedi-cam shot of a 12 page diolog scene where a series of voicemails creates a reverse cronological narritive cotrasting the performaces. Thats a directing actors exercise where I can't cut! Third is where I pick a theme and shoot a ton of still photos and my writer friend has to write a script of the story and I have to edit and animate the still photos into a film. Were still working out the last two.
 
The 5 obstructions.. that was a really a interesting study. It was really great to see how it all played out. That LARS is one smart guy. Good luck Evinsky with yours. Post some results.
 
carlosems said:
I love lars von trier's films... The 5 obstructions also inspired me to do something similar with a friend of mine, but with different rules. I'm just going to mention a couple of them. We both have to direct our short films. The plot of them are given from one of the directors to the other. The directors must to be in a leading role of the other director's short film. And It has to be Dogme95( I love editting with dogma95 style)
It's like your own game... I think it's the essence of why we like to make movies.
Click to expand...

Does anyone have the list of rules? Doesn't Dogme95 require you to shoot with 35 mm stock film in standard academy format?

I think Dogme95 is a great exercise, but I would not want to make a career soley relying on it. :grin:
 
It was actually shortly revised to need to be shot on academy ratio and printed to academy 35mm for final print, which resulted in 3 of the 4 brothers' (founding 4) films were shot on video - and the odd man out shot on 16mm (mifune).

It was a pretty amazing movement if you ask me - one of my more influential ones.
But it was also one of the most confused ones. It was designed as an "excercise" for experienced directors - similar to what Trier personally did for Leth in the 5 obstructions - never intended as a career-forming set of rules. And there was a lot of "I hope this causes chaos and counter-movements" - which could be arguably one of it's results - but definitely not the only outcome.
 
Yeah--Dogme "films" had to be displayed in 4x3 (academy 1.33:1) but nobody ever said anything about shooting on film, I believe.
 
stunning documentary about film making and the filmmaker. It was quite beautiful, and i am a better creative upon seeing it. It should be recommended viewing for any filmmaker, or anyone ever interested in telling a story visually.

thanks for this thread.
 
I have liked quit a few of the "dogma" films. Of the ones I have seen, "Mifune" is the most beautifully photographed. My ***** is that I think that establishing rules for an art, especially, an art as diversly complicated as filmmaking is pompus and grandeous. There prohabition of any post production "artifice" is ridiculous and fails to acknowledge the absolute essence of the art, editing...
 
I am a big fan of the Dogma stuff but I saw an interview with an original Dogma creator who said rule #8 concerning no genre type stories was a mistake that should not have been part of the list but they only realized it years after Dogma 95 was created. He said all films are of some 'type' or another so genre is unavoidable.

Also over the years there has been some criticism that the core directors actually started breaking some of the rules as they got more attention to themselves and there projects so the purity of the Dogma vision was compromised.
 
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