Exploring the Zone

This past fall, I took a cinema topics class that focused on the life and work of the brilliant Russian filmmaker, Andrei Tarkovsky. I had taken the class because I knew that I was already a fan of Stalker and was interested to see his other work.

I found his long takes, his attention to the smallest details in every aspect of the film, and his aesthetic sense to be inspirational. I would love to make a film emulating his style someday (when I have enough money to blow on making a movie like that, because quite frankly it’s hard to see how such a film could be commercially successful in the modern world).

So it was with his work looming large in my mind that I went to the work of creating the videos that I needed to for my very first true cinema production class. Both the Tarkovsky and production classes are taught by the fantastic Santanu Chatterjee.

I wish I could say that you could see his hand in some part of this following video, certainly I was thinking of them when I made it (hence the title), but honestly, he would have hated this film and he probably would have hated me for thinking that he inspired it in any way. Were he alive to deliver such a comment today, I would consider myself very well complimented because I would be in very good company with a great deal of filmmakers whose work he hated.

This video is called “Exploring the Zone” and is meant as an entertaining atmospheric piece. The music is “Synthetic Forms” by Front Line Assembly, from their “Implode” album.

(Please don’t sue me, Metropolis! This is a non-commercial student film!)