Experimental cinema and embodiment in nature-based video installations

Abstract

Nonfiction filmmakers have a variety of different approaches they can take to produce science and nature based documentaries. In my paper, I focus on a slow, experimental style of filming and editing. I stress that by using these techniques when it comes to films with the environment or animals as subject matter, filmmakers can stimulate the senses within the audience to garner a greater intellectual connection between viewer and film. I analyze 13 Lakes (2004) by James Benning and Landscape (for Manon) (1987) by Peter Hutton to illuminate specific slow, experimental techniques that also appear in my thesis film Birding Blind (2017), a three-channel video installation.