Lars Von Trier

Lars Von Trier is one of the world's leading directors who has been known to over the years divide opinions of critics and the public audience alike.

Von Trier takes his work extremely seriously and even has a set list of rules to abide by when it comes down to his craft. As part of the Dogme 95, which was a movement of avant-garde film-making founded by Lars and fellow film-maker Thomas Vinterberg in 1995 that prided itself on being able to create accessible films that were of great quality without the need to of a huge budget or "Hollywood" sets, Lars prided himself on this and kept within the strict rules and regulations of the "Dogme 95 Manifesto", which consisted of the following ten conditions...

These rules, referred to as the "Vow of Chastity," are as follows:

1. Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in. If a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found.
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic.
3. The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.
4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable (if there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden (that is to say that the film takes place here and now).
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The film format must be Academy 35 mm.
10. The director must not be credited.

Cover of "Antichrist" (2009)

Since the collaboration ended, Von Trier has gone on to create multiple multi-award winning films including "Dancer in the Dark (2000), "Dogville" (2003) and the erotic horror "Antichrist" (2009).

Out of Von Trier's films I am ashamed to say I have seen just one, "Antichrist" starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, which is a brilliant film and I consider it to be one of my most recent favourites. An extremely dark and disturbing supernatural tale which is full of clever camera work, intense and brutal narrative and all in all the makings of a definite future classic of the horror movie genre.

I believe that Lars Von Trier is an extremely talented filmmaker and although he doesn't closely relate to my specialist field, I feel motivated to watch other films he has made thanks to my research.

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April Greiman

Designer April Greiman, head of Made in Space (Los Angeles based design consultancy) is acclaimed for being a part of a collaboration who were given the honour of being named the "establishers" of the New Wave style of design that swept America during the 1970's and 1980's.

For over the last 30 years Gremain has proved to be an inspirational force in her specialist field of transmedia projects and film installation. Considered an artistic explorer, known to delve deep into themes of colour, text and imagery, April has found a good balance in incorporating the two seperate mediums of art and technology (including beautiful technology) into one.

"Hand Holding Bowl of Rice" - Koreatown, Los Angeles

An element that has played a big part of her career is public art installations, perhaps one of the most prominent being "Sears Great Indoors", a 60 feet long geometric concrete design with embedded accents of stainless steel. Also, "Hand Holding Bowl of Rice", an 82000 square feet design covering two walls which features an oil painted translation of a video still of literally a hand holding a bowl of rice. This piece was inspired by the tale of an Indian Goddess' gesture of rice as a sign of abundance as well as Gremain's own fascination with the fact that a single grain of rice has one of the most complex DNA's of any species.

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