Viewpoint

There is no bigger hurdle for the visual artist approaching film than understanding viewpoint. Because of our modernist training visual artists tend to think of themselves as fixed outside of the subject. Another analogy would be Schlemmer's understanding of the artist as an "engineer behind the scenes." As I've mentioned, this background causes artists to view film from the "outside in." They want to shape meaning from the look in, rather than from character out, something deadly to the cinema medium. I think it's more correct to say that in film, the artist must embody herself within the principal character. The film then extends out from this performance and point of view.