Esteemed international Dance Film director, Daniel Conrad, leads this full-day workshop for filmmakers, choreographers, and dancers who wish to make dance film; and for any artists aspiring to exercise their visual imaginations through moving image.

Many filmmakers try to film dance choreographed for stage. This often fails, since dance has vastly different needs than film. Film cuts the world into angles, while stage dance is conceived as a continuum from a single angle. Time and space are more compressed on film than on stage. Even the body of the solo dancer struggles with the camera, its full vertical shape resisting the horizontal frame. To make true dance film, choreographers must understand the frame and directors must learn the kinetics of dance. Going from stage to screen starts with choreographing and lighting shot-by-shot, specifically for the camera.

In this intensive workshop, participants will study some core methods, watch films and clips that use them, and practice with camera, lights and a dancer. Topics will include composition and lighting within the frame, choosing angles and working within them, cutting as choreography, rhythmic and overtonal montage, creative use of discontinuous and non-matching action, solving non-stage location challenges, and improvisational methods.

Biography

Instructor and Filmmaker Daniel Conrad’s dance films have screened at numerous festivals including Locarno, Montréal World, London Int'l, Hamburg Kurzfilm, Valladolid, Seattle Int'l (Best of Fest Shorts), New York Dance on Camera (2 Silver Awards), Golden Prague (Dagmar & Vaclav Havel Prize), Toronto Moving Pictures (Audience Choice Award), Dance Camera West (Los Angeles), Vancouver Int'l, and many more. His work has been purchased by PBS, the CBC, ZDF, CFCF, SCN, TVE, Ovation, ARTV, Knowledge, Bravo, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society (est.1980) is an artist-run production and exhibition centre that supports independent filmmakers and media artists working in digital video, celluloid film media and in relation to cinema in expansive ways. We engage our membership and the broader community through initiatives and services that foster dialogue and experimentation with the moving image.

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