workshop

This workshop responds to filmmakers impeded from working on their projects by unfolding and unpredictable circumstances, to which our title alludes. However, to be “unsynched,” does not mean to be “out of synch.” As filmmakers responsive to new conditions, we may need to “unsynch” our expectations for all future stages of the production process, including shooting, editing, and dissemination of our films.

The first part of the workshop will investigate how we can transform our homes into a fertile space for a new filmmaking practice, utilizing resources at our disposal. We will discuss creative ways of conducting online interviews, using photo/video elicitation, and story completion methods, which may empower our participants to tell their stories in a more engaged and ethical way. We will also discuss alternative filmmaking practices—camera-less, experimental, and reflexive filmmaking—developed by filmmakers, in part, in response to the lack of access to mainstream filmmaking.

The second part of the workshop will push the limits of our filmic imagination, as we will consider what it means to reinvent filmmaking in virtual space, and as a virtual practice. We will consider filming inside imaginary worlds, using virtual reality and online platforms, exploring both ethical and methodological implications of such techniques. We will also examine how to make films using polymedia, hypertext, spatial montage, sensorial-, haptic-, and decentered-cinema techniques, as well as installation art.