Weekend Creativity Series: The Way Things Go

This week we’ll take a look at a film called Der Lauf Der Dinge, or The Way Things Go. It was an art installation/project done a while ago in a warehouse, filmed in just a couple of takes, that creates a large Rube Goldberg-style contraption out of ordinary sorts of things such as tires, trash bags, ladders, and fire.

At times it goes fast and has excitement built in, while at other times the drama comes from patiently waiting for something we know is about to happen to indeed occur.

This film is interesting from the creative angle of what it took to make it happen. It’s also interesting from a filmmaking perspective, being a good study in camera blocking. Can you build something like this? Could you film it if you did?

I saw this first on a PBS series called Alive From Off Center. It was a really great source of short, interesting and creative works being done with film and video at the end of the 20th century.

https://youtu.be/keIVkdLu-Is

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