Ann Arbor Film Festival

After visiting the Ann Arbor Film Festival on Saturday, I experienced a whole new idea to movie theaters.  I've never been to the Michigan Theater before, but I found that it was very interesting and much different than what I'm used to.  The crowd of people clapped after each piece, the screen was much smaller and was also surrounded by a large fancy stage. Along with just the physical appearance of the theater, the actual films being played were also different. They were pieces of art.  

The main artist that I attended was Bruce Baillie and the works that I watched were Yellow Horse, Termination and Quixote in the series title Retrospective 2. The first piece Yellow Horse gave me a good early judgement of what kind of works he created and the main idea to what his concentration may be based upon.  While watching his pieces, I found that there was a strong emphasis on sound and audio.  There were many different sounds that were created to specifically fit each second of the video.  There was also a strong emphasis on close up shots and an unfocused series of images and clips.  It was difficult for me to understand the Yellow Horse piece, but I found myself trying to piece it apart and looking deeper into the meaning and the artist's concepts. 

The second video Termination had many beautiful shots and was visually captivating.  I enjoyed this piece the most out of his collection showed.  The video focused upon a community of Indian people and looked closely at their life.  Quixote was the third video that I watched and was also quite different than anything else I've ever seen.  This piece looked at many different aspects in the early American century.  It was almost as you were following a timeline as Baillie transitioned between the many different occurrences that have happened in the early years.

Overall, I think that attending this Film Festival was a great experience.  Through taking several video classes, I found that I was more knowledgeable about this medium of art and the concepts.  An open mind is key when attending an event like this because you'll see many different types of art that may be like nothing you've ever seen before.