Artist Interview
A “Digital Art Revolution” Interview with Artist Jon Jost.
Jon Jost began making films in January of 1963. Since 1996, he has worked primarily in digital video (DV). The Museum of Modern Art, New York, screened a complete retrospective of his work from January 18 to February 19, 1991. Jost has been recipient of numerous grants and awards including the Los Angeles Critics award for Best Independent Film. In March 1991, Jost was honored, along with Producer Edward Pressman, with the IFP/West's first John Cassavetes Lifetime Achievement Award for independent filmmaking. He is presently a professor at the Graduate School of Communications and Arts, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea.
This is a recent interview with Jon Jost, conducted by Scott Ligon, author of “Digital Art Revolution, Creating Fine Art with Photoshop”, specifically for this blog.
You began you film career by making 16mm movies. For the past several years you’ve worked exclusively with digital video. Aside from economics, what are the advantages of digital video?
I made 16mm films from 1963-1989. Then I shifted to 35mm until 1995. In 1996 DV came out and I left celluloid behind for good. I did so in part owing to the drastic alteration in the financial aspect - that instead of a minimum $10,000 or so for a 16mm long film, or $40,000 for a 35mm one, you could make a whole feature for $50 after you spent $1500 for a camera and another, at that time $2000 for a computer. Now it is less - $700 for and HDV camera, and $500 for a computer. But if it weren't for the fact that DV, and now HDV or HD, offer better quality, far more elasticity in being able to manipulate the medium, and be downright stunningly beautiful, I wouldn't have made the shift. I was early in doing so and caught a lot of flack from filmmaker friends, but they have almost all converted now !
When last we spoke, you used only in-camera effects to create your movies and did not manipulate the images after the fact.
When I started in DV, the things you could do in-camera (slow and very fast shutter speeds, digital "efx" like solarizing, flash or strobe, and the various other things in the camera) were quite enough to keep me learning and happy. And the early PC computers and Premiere 5.1 were painfully buggy and slow, which made playing with it less than tempting. So I learned what you could do with just the camera and my earliest DV films Nas Correntes de Luz da Rio Formosa, and London Brief pretty much stayed with camera capacities and very basic cut/fade/dissolve editing, and minimal need to do any color/contrast correction. Those were pretty much what I saw in the camera on screen, but edited.
Is this still the case?
No, now I am an aggressive user both of the camera's capacity for making imagery AND using the computer in tandem with it - though after a lot of experience I usually sense when I am shooting what is the best way to shoot with a computer manipulation in mind - so I kind of know at shooting what I anticipate doing to it in the computer. It becomes a symbiotic relationship, shooting to manipulate in the computer.
Why did you choose this process? How was this self-imposed limitation important to your work?
You mean the in-camera one. Well I don't anymore, but when teaching I impose the in-camera limitation for a while with students to force them to experiment and see what you can do in camera. It is as if teaching painting and limiting the student to primary colors so they learn to mix, see what thin and thick paint are, how to manipulate the basic elements, and then opening out to a wider palette, etc.
Several years ago, you were given a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York that went on to tour other places as well. Could you tell us about this and how it came to happen?
That was actually a fair while ago. 1993 or so I think. It happened because I'd made films since 1963, had a sizable (15 features, many shorts) record, was given awards and so on, and then, more or less, I asked them to do it. And once MoMA said yes, others followed suit like good little sheep!
You were honored, along with Producer Edward Pressman, with the IFP/West's first "John Casavettes Lifetime Achievement Award" for independent filmmaking. Your film “All the Vermeers” received the Los Angeles Critics award for Best Independent Film. Could you talk about these two significant awards as well as other career highlights?
Well, Yes, the IFP gave me their little award, in a ceremony at the Beverley Hills Hotel, with Kevin Costner doing the keynote yack, and his pal, most powerful man in Hwd at the time, Michael Ovitz in attendance. That tells you how "Independent" the IFP is. They all said the studios would be knocking on my door. I said during my little acceptance talk that Hollywood is too straight-jacketed with script/making-for-money thinking, and the studios never knocked. I didn't want them too either.
What do you feel is digital technology’s influence on the creative arts, now and in the future?
One of these days it will perhaps become truly creative and provide a paradigm shift, but that is less dependent on the technology than on the mind's using it. So far it is essentially used to emulate 500 year old Renaissance perspective, except it moves. Big f***ing deal. Otherwise a glance at video-games or Avatar shows it is used to tell very tired old bangbang violence and surrogate sex stories. Absolutely nothing new in that, 3D or not. I wait for some real artistry to come out of it, but aside from a very limited handful of people, it's not much happening.
For many years you’ve traveled extensively, currently teaching in Korea. You’ve basically been kind of a wandering artist making a living with your art in various ways. Tell us why this appeals to you and how it influences your work.
I was an Army brat as a kid, yanked from one place to another every 1-3 years. I think it became a bad habit and I have never stopped. 3-5 years is usually my maximum tolerance level before moving on. I like new experiences, things I have never seen or eaten or heard before, so I travel and settled down a while in differing settings. When making a film in a place I feel I must be honest to it, so that requires being attentive to it, absorbing it, respecting it. Keeps me on my toes.
You’re self taught and you’re a college professor. How do reconcile that? If you did okay on your own, what do you give to your students that they could learn on their own?
I used to be, and perhaps am a still disdainful of formal institutionalized schooling. Most of teaching is very bad, taught by people who are limited in their thought processes, institutionalized, and they pass this on. However after a long while I realized not all people are or can be self-motivated, and they need the guidance of things due at X time, limitations, and for those people, if done well (I try) it helps them to learn and maybe finally break free of the need for external guidance and motivation. But for most it is simply a belief if they get this diploma, that paper, a certificate, all will go well. At the end of their lives they will probably be unhappy with having deceived themselves so, but I can't help them.
Can you tell us about your creative process? Are your films improvised? Is the plot established in advance or is a process of trial and error?
In general I have a vague idea, or with the advent of DV and its low cost, perhaps no idea. I go look, shoot, and a film happens.
I never think of plots and for narrative I think plot thinking is toxic. I think about life. The "story" or ambience or whatever happens comes out of that.
For more information on the artist: www.jon-jost.com
