A short film themed A Painting Coming to Life was a final project carried out by students of the audiovisual art study programme at The Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Students were free to choose a theme and form. The purpose of the task was to “insert” a painting of a prominent painter in own film by recreating the lighting, composition of the painted object or simply the emotion conveyed by the painting. The story had to be inspired by the chosen painting which made the centre-line of the film. It had to be a dialogue-free film.The 3 Minutes film recreated A Still Life of Fruit, a work of art by Dutch Baroque painter Cornelis de Heem (1631-1695). It is an episode in the film where an inmate falls into a trap room and sees a table piled up with fruit.
The film idea is the testing of human nature. It is a three-minute test (as long as the hourglass inverted by the prison warden is trickling). Being an aesthete and gourmand, the prison warden does not believe that art may influence inmates. However, like the cat pursuing the mouse lets the mouse believe of being able to escape, so the prison warden, having chosen an inmate and “given” the key to the ward, puts the inmate’s vigilance to the test. The inmate has to leave the ward within 3 minutes to regain the freedom yearned for. There is bait in the painting room awaiting the inmate, i.e. food. And this is exactly where the true human nature unfolds…This practical task was one of the most interesting. And, certainly, one of the most difficult. Cameramen were expected not only to shoot a short film but also to come up with, and develop a story idea.
I like examining paintings as examples of lighting design as well as conveyance of forms and textures; thus, I enjoyed the visual aspect of the task very much.
At the final review, assessment covered not only the image itself but also the narration of the story by image.
Facts
The shooting took 3 long shifts during cold winter. Shifts lasted 15 to 20 hours. The main film locations were selected on the old unused premises of the former Lithuanian Film Studio (demolished in October 2010).
The film co-stars professionals: famous Lithuanian actor Liubomiras Laucevičius (prison warden) as well as actor and ballet dancer Viktoras Karpušenkovas (inmate). The episodic forbidding gipsy (kitchen staff) is not an actor by profession but he is often invited as a distinctive character.
The filming conditions truly reminded of a prison. The biggest challenge was faced by Viktoras (inmate) since the very premises were freezing. It was hard for actors to play their roles, even to apply makeup – ordinary makeup would not stick to the face and would easily crumble in the cold. The filming of a short scene with a drop of sweat running down the inmate’s forehead took the whole hour… This definitely evidences that student films have very low budgets or no budget and necessary film equipment.
The film was shot using a Panasonic HPX500 video camera in DVCPRO HD format. I chose it because of its sufficient sensitivity and adequate colour reproduction, although a 2/3-inch image sensor did not allow achieving a shallow depth of field which is so fancied today. In the context of that project and under the available conditions, however, this camcorder did quite well, even though I would have wanted to have a video camera with a wider dynamic range and greater picture crispness.
Image post-production was minimal, just slight exposition and colour corrections. I tried to achieve the desirable picture colour tonality on the set, with the help of lighting and the tonality of objects themselves. The room with fruit was deliberately aged – its walls were painted. Fruit, of course, were real.
When writing a script, I wanted this film to run 3 minutes exactly, as also implied by the title of the film. Yet, the atmosphere of the prison itself, as well as the initial and final titles required more time, so I went beyond the planned running time.
