Nov. 28, 2012 - Issue #893-Krampus Christmas
aAron munson
For the experimental filmmaker, the medium acts not simply as a vehicle for narrative, but for exploring unorthodox methods, concepts and manipulation to achieve an end result far from the norm.
"I've always liked to take things apart and put them together," munson begins, pausing to collect his thoughts. "I guess the best way to say it is, coming out of college, I took a digital arts and media program at Grant MacEwan and graduated in 2003 and I'd always been interested in working with film as a medium even though I was kind of discouraged from doing that because it was a digital arts and media course. But I was kind of stubborn found a Super 8 camera a friend of mine had and just felt the medium was so tangible ... there were so many possibilities for what you could do to utilize it in different ways."
These non-traditional approaches have included putting oil on film, burning it and driving a spike through a lens—which munson admits was an experiment that bore no tangible results. For munson, who also has a strong background in photography, experimental filmmaking bears the appeal of being able to exploit the medium in ways he finds extremely satisfying in order to manipulate an image to challenge the conventional.
"I had started in photography and I really liked the motion picture I guess. Instead of dealing with one static image, dealing with images in a sequence of motion, the possibilities within the medium," he adds.
As munson's work has developed, he has found himself shifting from being concerned predominantly with the medium itself to pursuing the subject as part of that experimentation. He believes this is something that's come with the confidence he's gained, acknowledging that sitting through a 90-minute experimental film with no story line is hard for anyone to sit through—even experimental filmmakers themselves.
"A larger part of it now is story and narrative in a very relative sense, not in like an, 'I want to make a standard dramatic narrative,' but including that kind of human aspect to it, which for me has been taken on as experimental documentaries," munson adds.
One of munson's latest films, Something Strangely Familiar, a short he made in his basement studio using a light table, dish soap, oil and film strips, became an official at AFI Fest in Los Angeles in early November. The film, which he did as a break from some of his larger projects with no intention of submitting it to film festivals, is a captivating ode to the death of film accompanied by a score composed by Clayton Alpha and produced by Trevor Anderson, who munson credits for convincing him to submit the film to AFI.
Something Strangely Familiar - Trailer from aAron munson on Vimeo.
Something Strangely Familiar - Trailer from aAron munson on Vimeo.
"It doesn't matter if you're some big shot Hollywood director or you're some kid from Edmonton who made an experimental film, they treat everyone with the utmost respect," says Munson, adding this was his first experience at AFI Fest as a director. "The last night of the festival, I was there for the world premiere of Lincoln and as awful as it was to watch the film from the front row, it was pretty awesome to be sitting seat one, row one and Steven Spielberg is introducing the film five feet away from you and you're surrounded by this community, from emerging filmmakers wondering how the heck they got there, totally star struck, to people who are making multi-million dollar films every year."
Munson's film was well-received and he says he enjoys being able to come out left field that way, considering most people he encountered didn't even know where Edmonton was. But aside from rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous, he was able to take away some valuable lessons from the experience.
"You're seeing some of the best work that the world has to offer and it makes you feel like, 'Oh my God what am I doing here? How did I even end up here?'" He continues, "I'm my own worst critic, so when you see work where you'd like to be and you see what you've done and you feel like less of a filmmaker or less of a person, I think the greatest lesson I've learned from being in that situation is you have to be true to your own voice, true to what you do and one of the biggest mistakes you can make as an artist in any medium is to compare yourself to other artists and the success of other people."
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