The Castling

The Film:

Kasia Kwiecinska and I created this short film for an architectural research project. It is about how a simple house can turn into a chess academy.
Special thanks to the KwaThema Chess Academy for all their help.

The Corner Shebeen

#1 Job Maseko was abuz this Friday, with a re-enactment scene of the shebeen (pub) that Anthony Shoba used to run in the structure. The music was blaring, the fake drinks were flowing. A big thanks to our very good actors.

KwaThema Chess Tournament 2007

This film was taken in KwaThema, it is of a chess tournament organised by Anthony Shoba and the KwaThema Chess Academy. (Created by Kasia and I)

The Castiling

Creating a time map for research and relating it into a film is much harder than I imagined. Many things emerge, what part of the story will we tell, from who's viewpoint will it be from and what media would best represent it.
For example, with regards to ERGO and the time that Anthony worked there:

What Story:
Portraying the ritual of going to work
The hundreds of people from KwaThema that worked at ERGO
How Anthony rose up the employment ladder from attendant to Snr operator.
Who's Viewpoint:

Anthony, viewed from his eyes (this could quite possibly even become literal, using his eye as the frame)

From ERGO's eyes
From an impartial viewer (such as a bird in the sky)
What Media:
A pure film format would be unrealistic, as a reconstruction would be beyond our means. For such a story a collaged animation would seem the most appropriate choice. Using photographs, sound, 3d animation, hand drawn animation and photoshop editing will create a highly layered piece. The graphic style could lend the hard industrial quality of ERGO.

The preliminary result, text storyboard:
Ergo in the distance in a photoshoped surreal format, moving parts and smoke sets back ERGO into when it was still in production. Workers stream into the factory, in perspective (These workers could be hand drawn).
The process ERGO undergoes could be shown with a highly complex 3d flyover of the processes showing the mine dumps with their shimmering aqua blue water and the pipes that transport the sludge to ERGO, this scene could be very graphically appealing.

hi

How did the shoot go?

#1 Job Maseko Street

Select one of the images to see the higher quality versions.

A Zed and Two Noughts Network Diagram

This is a network diagram of the characters in the Peter Greenaway movie, A Zed and Two Noughts.

Peter Greenaway’s A Zed and Two Noughts (1985) shows how layered the simple aftereffects of an event (car accident) can be. His tale is in actual fact not really about an accident at all. The collision of a car with a swan is merely the catalyst for a narrative that links three disparate characters; twins (whose wives have died in the accident), Darwin (with his theory of evolution and Vermeer (the famous Dutch painter) (Greenaway 1985). Thus by adding a random event or character Peter Greenaway manages to warp the narrative of his film allowing ever bigger circles of satellite characters to begin orbiting around the three characters.

Mixed Narrative - Eduardo

Working on the KwaThema research project has opened my eyes to all the new possibilities of architecture and its growth.
It has become clear in our research that one cannot separate architecture and narrative. Every built outcome is a result of a story, every change means the possible inclusion of new characters, this is not merely a tree-shaped system, but quickly forms a network that is so intricate that one needs to act like an investigator to try and find the clues that best reveal the network.
Working with Anthonly that the chess park has meant an avalanche h of links, people, history and economy flooding towards us. I hope that we have set the right filters in place in order to make sense of this information.

First KwaThema Experience

I have so much to learn …so much about how we live and what we choose to do with our lives… once overcome with awe at the foot of a New York City skyscraper, I feel changed. I have not made any conscious decisions to feel this way. It just happened on a windy day, in a single garage, with some sincere human beings……… eating chicken!

Peter Greenaway - Eduardo

I have recently, thanks to Hannah and the KwaThema project, discovered Peter Greenaway. Check out his site and see some of his films, you wont be disappointed.
The image above is from his film A Zed and Two Noughts, possibly the most visualy brilliant movie I have ever seen.

Peter Greenaway is obsessed with:

• Architects
• Ornithologists
• The number 92

I am sure that his work will seriously impact the way the I represent KwaThema in film.

KwaThema Networks - Eduardo

This is a video showing the beginnings of my research project for honours year architecture.
It is going to deal with representing the connections between people and the space they live in through the medium of film. Thus adding the element of time in quite a graphic way.