pine flat

Pine flat by Sharon Lockhart was composed of roughly ten minute long fixed frame scenes. These scenes were split into several two parts with an intermission in between. The first series of scenes was composed of children by themselves while the second focused on group interaction. At first each scene seemed painfully long but as the viewer becomes accustomed to the drawn out, monotonous style they start to view the little things in the scene. For example, in a scene in the first half of the film, there is ten minutes of a girl sitting and reading. The viewer quickly looses interest in the girl reading because there is not much to interact with. However after several minutes of boredom the viewer begins to notice the sounds of birds, the waving of grass, the wind in the trees and other minor details. The viewers consciousness is drawn away from what its typically the center of the frame, or what would typically be considered the focal point of the action. This style forces the audience to notice the details that they would otherwise not notice. This is also illustrated in the scene that has a child sleeping in the center of the screen for its entirety. Because this scene is several scenes into the film the viewer already knows not to focus on the child for too long. As the viewer, I began to focus on the grass moving, the twitches of the child and its affects on his environment. The sounds of animals, wind and so on. The fixed frame style of pine flats brings out the details of a shot while conflicting with the typical perception of a film because there is no dominant action, theme or crisis.
The later portion of the film is more like a typical film because it has more action and conflict. Due to the interaction between people this portion of the film has more to entertain the viewers. In several scenes there are children running around, playing games and basically acting like kids. The viewer sees conflict with kids playing with airsoft guns, and sees extensive movement on the hike up through the screen or around the screen. However, the details are still a huge part of every scene. There are still prolonged moments with little to no action. The viewer has already become accustomed to these pauses and will focus on the minor details in the absence of more significant action. While the style of the film is not increadibly entertaining it forces the viewer to focus on things they otherwise would not have noticed.