The Wapping Project - Edges, Frames & Edits

Ed�Es, Fra�es & Ed�ts Lea A�derso�

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On occasion, I find myself in a theatre watching a performance that I am failing to engage with.

I have come to realise when this happens that I’m able to filter out the work that is actually happening before my eyes and use the opportunity to imagine a different performance there on the stage in front of me. A more interesting performance.

In 2009, it happened that I was watching a very boring film on TV and, instead of turning it off or watching something else, I discovered that it was in my power to transform this unsatisfactory experience into a positive one.

I found I could completely disconnect with the story-telling aspect of the film and view the work as a dance. I imagined that every time there was an edit in the film the character on the screen had actually leapt out of the frame and the next performers jumped in simultaneously to act the next shot. I imagined that sometimes the second group might be wearing the same costume as the people jumping out of the clip before, for example, in the case of a wide shot followed by a closer shot of the same two people. This is a kind of “anti-narrative� technique. You end up focusing on the edits and the story sort of vanishes.

This viewing technique led me to imagining what the characters were doing with the body parts that were not visible in the frame. I preferred to think of the most unlikely action that legs could be performing out of sight of the camera, whilst the actors maintained the calm upper body shown on screen. I enjoyed this experiment enormously and perfected my technique by watching all films and TV in this way with the result that I had no idea whatsoever what any of it was about.

A few months later, I decided to try out my method of translating feature film into dance in the rehearsal studio to get it out of my head and into real life. I cast myself in the role of the “film to dance reconstruction expert� and recruited six extremely observant dancers as my practical assistants. I selected a film that only contained one interior location with a limited number of characters.

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We commenced work by taping out the floor to represent the visible area of the film frame. We had to regularly readjust the size of this frame as new considerations arose from the reconstruction. We then started memorising and reproducing every shot and edit contained within a feature film by German writer and director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. We examined and reproduced every action, camera movement and edit.

We devised a system that enabled us to reconstruct the film faithfully in 3d and, in the process, we created a completely different work.

I wasn’t interested in the words spoken by the actors, just their actions and the movement in the frame created by the performers and the camera moves — the dance contained within the film. Bear in mind that this is actually an impossible task. People in films are not real — they are an illusion — and the movement we see is not real. All the action is viewed by one eye… the camera lens. A row of audience members watching a live performance in a theatre all see something slightly different, but a row of movie watchers sees the same thing. If someone stands behind someone else on a stage, the audience at the edges might be able to see them, even if they are hidden to the majority of spectators. In a film, if someone stands behind someone else that person is obscured to the whole

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audience. How could we place two dancers in such a way that represents the filmic version? (I can’t explain how that is possible here, but there are options) When we started to copy what we could see in the film, a whole world of “invisible movement” became visible.

The “appearing” and “disappearing” of people when an edit takes place presented great opportunity for imaginative, instantaneous entrances and exits to the live action frame.

This movement clearly didn’t occur in the film.

The more we watched the edits with a view to replicate them, the more we noticed the varying qualities of different edits. Although an edit is an edge — two pieces of recorded action stuck together, each edit has its own character — soft, percussive, squeezy, etc.

Once observed, the dancers were able to find ways to translate this into real action.

We endeavoured to be as literal as possible to what we could see in the film.

The more we reconstructed it exactly, ignoring meaning and narrative, the more interesting the dancing became.

We addressed the ongoing issue of costume changes between shots. Costume changes have to happen if you don’t have access to a large number of dancers, even if there are only two characters onscreen. The reason why multiple costume changes were needed is because a character might appear in two or more consecutive shots. For example: a series of shots edited together might show a group of three people having a conversation. We might see all three characters in one shot, then it might cut to one person in a close up reacting, then cut back to all three people, then back to that same person. If we reconstruct this, we need multiple dancers dressed identically, poised to jump into each consecutive shot. Then the film might concern itself with a different character and all the performers need to change into the relevant costume to prepare for these shots and edits. In our reconstruction, the costume changes took place outside of the performance frame. The costumes were designed to be changed rapidly and the actions of the quick change were choreographed so as not to distract from the action in the frame.

The dancers spent a great deal of time memorising the edits and all the action.

This meant that when they performed the live version the film was playing in their heads. This gave fluidity to what were, in effect, six different men performing fragments of one action in such a way that its shape, character and rhythm was retained across the “edits”.

It remained true to its cinematic source.

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Our composers tried many different approaches to add sound to our project.

Eventually they gave up all attempts to connect with the drama. It didn’t work with the movement.

What worked was to reinforce the edges — the edits. They introduced a series of various hissing sounds that changed abruptly exactly on the edit point.

There are many insights to be gained from this investigation. As a choreographer and a dancer, it is fascinating to experience the rhythm of a sequence of edits physically, to understand the work of an editor in this way. This project made it impossible for me to watch films or TV normally for a long time.

They just didn’t make sense in the normal way. It was a couple of months before I could let go and just watch the news again, correctly.

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