Eli Cortiñas

Montage, my beautiful trouble

10–22 August 2020

Media
Mixed media, video, photography

Location
Online

Teaching language
English (the teacher also speaks German and Spanish)

What to bring
Laptop, digital film/photo camera, headphones, material from your personal archives, found footage, video projects you are working on

Requirements
Basic editing skills (Premiere, Final Cut or similar), basic skills in video/photomaking, motivation and willingness to work in groups as well as independently.

Maximum number of participants
15

Co-teacher
Elina Saalfeld

Participation fee
€ 500.– (€ 400.–)

The sources for moving image are endless – from archives, films, your own recorded images, home-movies, news, to YouTube videos, etc. Through the method of appropriation of footage previously made for another purpose (found footage) we can look deeply at images, explore and question them, and find individual expression through the technique of montage. In this course, we will approach any given footage, from existing archives to own filmed material, in order to develop a video project focusing on storytelling through montage.

The aim of the course is to motivate participants to play freely with the different sources of material surrounding us and to develop their artistic projects. Individual as well as group consultations will be held throughout the course.

The first week of our two-week course will be structured as follows. We will begin by introducing the guidelines for our communication and for the online platforms we will use for exchanging comments and material in our online meetings. We will discuss the available platforms and possibilities to ensure that everybody has access to the same tools. We will then introduce the aim of the course, the audiovisual material that we will make available to all participants for our common montage exercises, and participants will have the opportunity to introduce themselves, as well as some ideas and projects they might want to work on during the course.

The course will be divided into three sections or pillars, the first concerns the online group sessions (via jitsi, zoom or a similar platform) in which we will look together at examples of artistic work and montage, and discuss them. In this phase we will also propose common montage exercises for participants. We will provide everybody with audiovisual material for the exercises by using a shared google drive from which each participant can download the footage.

The second pillar will be the individual sessions. We will work out a calendar at the beginning of the course, so that every participant has the opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with the teachers to discuss their work, the exercises, the projects they are working on, or ask any questions they might have.

The third pillar will be the sessions in which we look together as a group at the results of the montage exercises. For this we propose a screening program, in which we will watch and discuss the results together. All participants are encouraged to share their opinions and feedback.

In the second week we will focus more extensively on the projects the participants have brought, or have decided on during the first week, that they would like to focus and work on. There will be an open format in which individual as well as group meetings will be offered. We will close the course with a screening of the developed projects in a final event for all Summer Academy participants.