single frame film
SXSW premiere preview: Brief Encounters: Gregory Crewdson
Acclaimed photographer Gregory Crewdson makes his own rules when creating his stunning movie-like photographs. Armed with a crew of about 70-80 people, including set designers, lighting designers and special affects teams; these single frame films tell a narrative that transcends either medium.
Ben Shapiro, Brief Encounter’s director, first encountered Crewdson’s work when filming him for the PBS series EGG. “I was struck by the beauty of the images, and the sense of narrative that was both very particular and detailed but also enigmatic. I remember arriving on his set for that first shoot and being blown away by the scale of the production," Shapiro says. The attention that Crewdson gives to even the smallest detail is what makes his photos so special.
The film (which encompasses a decade of Crewdson’s life and work) centers around his largest-scale series called Beneath the Roses. In a way that seems completely polar to Crewdson, Shapiro was a one-man show. A trained director and cinematographer, he brought his own gear and with unlimited access was able to capture the process and scale, behind these photographs.
Even knowing the size of his productions, Shapiro would still be surprised by the massiveness of it. “Early on, he was taking a photo in an abandoned house and Gregory and his crew were discussing exactly where to break through the floor so there would be a view of another room. It was that sort of combination of movie-scale production with careful attention to detail that struck me. In a big scene, blocks long, he would focus on a small or distant detail that I could hardly see. But you would later see it in the photograph," Shapiro says.
There are certain symbols that are often hidden within many of his photographs: open car doors, butterflies, moths, rural landscapes and lonely, almost desperate characters. It’s only one frame, most likely taken at 1/125th of a second, but the different components of the photograph can be taken in slowly. The viewer can scan through the foreground and the background and wonder at the subject’s expressions or what events led up this moment captured in time.
Brief Encounters is a look inside the process and the man behind the photographs. “I hope they are able to share some in the adventure that Crewdson (and his crew) had making this body of work. And that they come away with a sense of him as a person. People who know his photography will find a deeper appreciation of his art by meeting the person behind it,” Shaprio says.
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Brief Encounters: Gregory Crewdson is playing:
Saturday March 10 9:30pm – 10:47pm Alamo Lamar B
Sunday, March 11. 5pm – 6:17pm SXSatellite: Alamo Slaughter
Wednesday, March 14. 4pm – 5:17pm Alamo Lamar A
Saturday, March 17. 11:30am – 12:47pm Vimeo Theater