A couple of weeks ago, in the Bordwell and Thompson reading, there was a discussion of associational form in terms of nonlinear and experimental narratives (p.365). For my blog this week, I decided to do a little bit of extra research into practical applications of this.

Blanquer’s 2010 research “Experimental short film: ‘WARPRINTS’” provides a practical example of nonlinear narratives and essay documentary films (Blanquer 2010, p.5). They document the process of creating ‘Warprints’, from collecting and collating the archival footage, to editing and putting the footage into a sequence which could be viewed and understood by an audience.

On reading Blanquer’s thoughts on documentary and essay film, as well the practical application of the discussion in Bordwell and Thompson, I decided that it was an excellent framework for how we should approach our final project. The discussion surrounding the sourcing, restoring and editing of archival footage was of particular interest to me, as I am really interested in using this in the final project for this semester.

Both the Blanquer and Bordwell and Thompson reading’s discuss associational form, which is obviously a idea that is very closely linked to the Korsakow program and the ideas that surround this subject.
Bordwell and Thompson discuss the different levels of associational form, from obvious groupings of a large volume of footage and the juxtaposition between them, to the slightly less obvious linking of clips.
One of the more interesting aspects from Blanquer’s writing was how they compared associational form to “the techniques of metaphor and simile used in lyrics” (Blanquer 2010, p.11). This is a really interesting way to understand associational form and how it can be applied in the Korsakow program, and particularly in relation to our final project for this semester.