brice bowman

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I find it interesting that people always want to know what my films are about, or rather that it is asked what any experimental cinema film is about.

Here is my point.

I was a painter for many years before becoming an experimental filmmaker.

When I was a painter no one ever asked me what my painting was about, i.e., "the synopsis.

It was expected that in a gallery the viewer was supposed to have the ability to understand the influences in the painting what the painting "was about".

I came to filmmaking having been spoiled with the benefit of being a painter.

As soon as I started making films people started asking me what my films were about. I felt like saying well just look at them, but this question never goes away. Therefore I try to the best of my ability describe more or less what I was thinking about at the time I made the film.

In the painting world, once you arrive at your "style" (I hate that word) generally from then on out your paintings were always about the same thing. So, in a way, I could write the same synopsis about each of my films, but as that seems to confuse a lot of people that I would not expect to confuse I try to throw down the tea leaves and discern the slight differences in the topic of each of my films. Maybe this is a good thing. I don't know.

One last comment on how I came to be a filmmaker.

My paintings were in a lot of exhibitions, and some of those exhibitions were group exhibitions where a variety of media were included. Over time I saw a lot of videos that generated an interest in me away from static images (paintings) to moving grainy images.

Hence I stopped painting, and the timing was perfect as I had been an abstract expressionist painter and had lost belief in the appropriateness of abstract images as adequately representing me as an artist --and had a desire to turn my view away from the wall (where my painting was that I was working on) and turn around to point a camera at the world that I had my back to for so long.

My films are a result of this change.

transitional construction (1998)

Transitional Construction was Brice Bowman's first film. It was made in 1998 after Brice Bowman stopped making paintings in 1995. The title of the film "Transitional Construction" is a play on the words Transitional and Construction as Brice Bowman transitioned from being a painter to a filmmaker. He was constructing a means to express in an entirely new media.

The film is actually more an animation than a film as most of it is scanned images set in motion by Adobe Premiere using many different transitions, again a play on the word Transition.

doll with hole - color (2003)

Doll with Hole is intentionally stopped from time to time to momentarily view the stopped frame as a 2-D work of art as if it was a painting. Brice Bowman shot this film with an 8mm Bolex, and keystone camera in Black and White and colorized it later. The sound track was created using Logic Pro.

doll with hole - b&w (2003)

Doll with Hole was shot on 8mm film, using a Bolex and a Keystone camera. Being true home 8mm cameras there was no way to zoom so a Minotla zoom lens was used with an adapter on the 8mm cameras. The film was had edited using Bolex and Moviola equipment. Quite difficult because the gauge of the film is so narrow. I went on to digitize the film and tint it (see color version) but I kept this black and white version because I love black and white film so much.

One note, I intentionally left the process film with the lid of the can off in my studio during the months of making the film to allow the natural accumulation of dust to happen. I wanted the dust to be projected, which I happen to really like. For me it adds and expressive element to it, I would even say a philosophical element for me. This version does not have any sound, as I rather like the black and white version silent.

forced development (2004)

Forced development is a love story about a block head and a doll.

an answer to a reply (2005)

Answer to a Reply appears to be a brief gesture on memory as metaphor of systematic form.

continuance which causes (2006)

Continuance Which Causes follows the creative path of a creator at work with a variety of mythological, symbolical images and psychological representations.

and implications (2007)

Brice Bowman's movie titled AND IMPLICATIONS (completed in 2005) is about fracture, the inability of continuity. Being an ex-painter Brice Bowman occasionally stops the film for a full second or two to view particular moments in a string of moving images to view the frame as one would view a painting. Also Brice Bowman intentionally incorporated dust and dirt in the film to represent the filth in life as well as some of the tactile aspects of Abstract Expressionism.

In many ways AND IMPLICATIONS is a romantic movie.

It was filmed on Kodak 16mm B/W and Color film using a Arri16BL and a Keystone 16mm camera.

adieu le belle (2008)

At the root of Adieu le Belle is an artist reflecting on medias and concepts from painting to film and in the process reflecting on influences such as Man Ray, Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid, Jean Cocteau, Giorgio de Chirico,.... and other related issues.

Some of the scenes were shot in Turino, Italy where de Chirico did some of his best work, and in Menton France at the Cocteau Museum, and in Hollywood where Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid shot Meshes in the Afternoon. Brice Bowman did all of the editing and composed the music. There is no dialogue in the film but on occasions the artist in the movie is speaking as if in a dream.

The two women in the film in some manner represent KiKi of Monteparnasse in Man Ray's Violin d'Ingres.

The running time for Adieu Le Belle is about 9 minutes long. The Title of the film "Adieu le Belle" is saying good bye to a love affair with the medium of painting as well as symbolically saying goodbye to all that artists say "goodbye" to in their lives as they make an effort to move forward.