DANCE CINEMA - 4~ by Rodrigo Rocha-Campos

Trailer 4~

4 ~ is an exploration of a world initially marked by precision of movement and lack of emotion. Set in a minimalist world devoid of life 4 ~ unfolds through contemporary dance, unsettling sounds and surreal visuals.

"I am usually drawn to unconventional stories of unconventional characters and crafted in unconventional ways. My themes revolve around the dark and tormented times an individual goes through; and often on, without much relief by the end of the piece. In 4~ I wanted to create a world in which the desire to achieve perfection leads to obsession and ultimately its demise. With dialog replaced by movement, visuals and a wealth of sounds 4 ~ is sad and tragic."

Writer/Producer/Director: Rodrigo Rocha-Campos
Music: Will Meadows
Director of Photography: Robert Riendeau
Production Design: Jessica Kish
Costume Design: Brandon Peterson and Julian LeClerk
Editing: Arlein Wharf-Garcia
Choreography: Farouche Collective
Cast: Felicia Lau, Erika Mitsuhashi and Mahaila Patterson O'Brien
Release date: 2018

FILMMAKER Interview: Rodrigo Rocha-Campos

Interview by Melissa Ramos recorded between Sydney, Australia & Vancouver, Canada 24 Nov 2019. Music jingle by James Brown.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos details

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/rochacampos
Instagram: @xzcampos
Filmfreeway: RodrigoRocha-Campos

IntervieW Transcript: Rodrigo Rocha-Campos

Melissa Ramos: You framed your artistic process as 'unconventional'. Could you talk more about what motivates you to work within this 'unconventional' framework?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: Well, for me, I got really excited when I go watch a film and it's about a story that it's unique, that it's not something that I've seen before. That character's storyline, visuals are original. So it's sort of like the kind of work that guts gets my attention, so when I'm also creating content. I try to kind of follow the same rules. If you look at the big picture, screendance is a very unconventional form of film production. So I think everything speaks on to the same kind of ideas, right? I love different visuals. I love unique storylines. I love unique photography. So I try to kind of create something that is fresh or something that perhaps existed before, but seeing in a different light.

Melissa Ramos: And I like how you said that, we are working in an unconventional framework; in dance. Do you feel that's the reason why you've gravitated to screendance?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: It could be. But I think I end up finding the screendance by chance. I wasn't fully aware that I was like, I'm about to shoot a movie director movie. That is involving dance as a format. I basically wanted to create beautiful visuals and beautiful photography, creative little scenarios. And then I was like, well, I know there's dance. And that could be an interesting way to create those visuals. So I end up finding myself making this content by chance. But the first one that I made, I was so into it. And when I saw the potential, I was totally hooked. So I just kept doing more and more.

Melissa Ramos: It's interesting how you said, after creating your 1st screendance you were hooked. What was this potential that hooked you?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: I think it kind of hit me like in the guttural level, also in an emotional level. And at the time I was, 'okay, I don't want to deal with recording sound on set, I don't know to deal with dialogue. I want to kind of just shoot these beautiful visuals. And it has some emotional content to my work. So it kind of started that way. But once I saw the potential, when I saw all this miscellaneous images put together, in a story format. With everything added, music, visuals, editing, performance, I saw an opportunity to put all my creativity that perhaps it was sort of just latent inside of me. So, yeah. I was like, hooked that way.

Melissa Ramos: Interesting. What I feel. Why I'm drawn to it is, I feel like it's a place for a new language that potentially could be a new way of storytelling. Without using the conventions of dialogue. And it's something that hasn't been completely tapped into yet, which is the exciting part. It affects you and your body, but you know where it's going to take you, which is great.

Melissa Ramos: Your body of work uncovers the darker side of life. The dangerous zones of the human psyche. From the realities of human behaviours to social and institutional issues. Why is it important for you to uncover these topics and within your creative process?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: I think the dark side of human behaviour, the human psyche really speaks to me. I don't know if there's something inside of me. There's a voice inside of me that really needs to be spoken. Needs to be heard. I don't know. Maybe it's perhaps I have a very challenging upbringing. Maybe it was the type of music that I was listening for years back in the 80s. It was a very dark, very anxiety ridden. It was abstracted, you know, surreal and all that. I think that was an effect in me. So, perhaps putting all this together, I'm in my own domain. Perhaps there's a healing process when I put something together like this that I put my characters in such a vulnerability or torment when I have them descending to hell or their personal hell. I think there is an interesting healing process that it's super subconscious.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: I find screendance almost like a little bit of live performance. We go watch a live dance performance. You have a theme, you know, like stories like the perhaps the title and what the artist was trying to convey. But the storyline is going to be up to you to connect the dots. So, that is perhaps a background or your life experiences. All that will kind of make you interpret what it's in front of you in a slightly different way than someone sitting next to you. Right? So it's a subjective and I'm very drawn to that. I don't like to spoon feed my audience. I like them to connect the dots. So, we have all sorts of guttural reactions. You know, we get anxious. We sweat. We are afflicted. We can have like hysterical laughter. We can have like all sorts of things. I think it's neat.

Melissa Ramos: The fact that you don't spoon feed your audience, which makes it more powerful, I feel personally, rather being passively watching.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: Exactly.

Melissa Ramos: You're always curious about what is this character do and what's what does this mean? So I find that a lot more powerful in terms of experiencing.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: I end up shooting my first film where my first screendance film, almost by chance, as I mentioned to you, I was looking for an avenue to express my creativity and I wanted to create some beautiful visuals and beautiful expression and have some music, all the cool stuff. And I had seen it by then, some screendance films, but I hadn't put the two together. So, during pre-production when I started like casting and kind of figuring out what will be sort of like the actions of my character and what kind of expression this character would have and what kind of vibe, you know, we would have as well. That's when I realised that I was probably dealing with less of a traditional actor and more like a performer in the sense of expressing the dialogue through the body and through the facial expressions. To decided to start this new path in my career, and I was very drawn to contemporary dance. I thought that side it spoke to the type of work that I was looking for, a little less academic, at least on the surface, than other modes of dance. So, I thought, well, I like to create characters that are not necessarily dancers in my storyline. They could be interpreted also as just regular people. I think contemporary dance kind of fuses that idea really well. That some people to watch and even realise that it's not dance, and some others will kind of course, put the two together. But I don't think having a different dance style that is very formal and very precise sort of technique will kind of match the characters that I'm crafting. Let's put this way.

Melissa Ramos: What is it about working with movement that interests you and can you reflect on the notion of liberating images from language and the absence of dialogue to express this pure narrative sensation?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: I think the dialogue that we are used to. You have two people speaking with each other or something like that. OK. That is so like something that we see all the time. But in screendance, the dialogue is through the performance. The dialogue is through the facial. Or the bad expression. The dialogue is through the music. The dialogue is through the lighting, the props, whatever. It's in the frame. It's speaking to, in a non-verbal way. And the audience will have to connect the dots. And it's slightly different from person to person. It doesn't matter because we are going for sort of like, the emotion. We are going for the guttural reaction of what's happening, in front of you. I think that is very exciting. I like that way. Perhaps the audience becomes a bit more participants on what's going on. So they have to do the work. You think it's this? What is happening right now? Why we are seeing this? And why this is there? And I think that's sort of like mental work that the audience will do. I think it's very exciting.

Melissa Ramos: That's brilliant. Similar to when you see a color or listen to a piece of music, you feel an emotion which is part of your body as well. So it speaks in the same language. It just doesn't have the conventions of dialogue. So, yeah.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: Exactly.

Melissa Ramos: Your dance film and explores the human behaviour of perfection and its obsession to self defeat. Could you talk us through how you began exploring this concept?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: It was back in November 2016. I went to see a live performance, a dance performance by the dance group called Farouche Collective and Farouche Collective. It's a Vancouver based dance group that I kind of already knew some of the integrates the group. So, when I saw that they were going to perform, I was like, 'oh, let's check them out'. I'm because I'm going to be looking for dancers very soon. The work that they were presenting was call 8 bit self and one of the premises off that work was about precision, rarely falling into chaos. So it was very precise, very machine like robotic sharp movements and among other things. So I was very intrigued. Of course, it caught my attention. I was you know, it was like I can totally do this as well. So when we met and we decided to collaborate together, we jot down ideas and I brought that idea about precision again, but I did not want to do the same kind of premise that I have seen in the live performance. So of course, I had to put my own twist. So I was like, well, what about if precision that falls into chaos? That would be very dramatic and I can make a storyline with that. So they accept, and I went away for a few weeks. I start to put together an outline of the story and bit by bit for the characters, all that good stuff. And then we met together and we just kept developing. One interesting thing about this whole process is that I find that I did it alittle bit backwards because as the story got more difficult and more complicated, let's put this way. I realised that just a treatment in a bit by bit was not going to work. So I had to kind of transform or translate that paper work into a formal screenplay. I had to type a script. So that way there was no question about it for myself or for the dancers or for other crew members. What was happening and that way, we just basically was, we were trying to avoid as much as possible any mistakes and inconsistencies. So I just find it interesting, that was kind of backwards. The process that I started with the treatment, then the bit by bit, and then I end up creating a script because of the difficulties of the storyline.

Melissa Ramos: Could you tell us more about what was challenging about the storyline and why you had to write a script?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: Oh, yes. I mean, there were so many little story points and complicated story points that we need to have a plan, OK, how we are going to shoot this particular moment? Well, you know, what is that we are going to see in the image and how we're going to actually shoot that. So who is going to be responsible to bring this element, which department. It was, you know, too many variables that without a script. I mean, I was, you know, going to end up making so many mistakes and have so many gaps. So when I end up putting together a script, then I could give to other crew members and each one was doing their own breakdown. And then we are discussing, you know, because it could be all in my head. But maybe I'm not communicating it right. Or maybe I'm saying something in someone else's and understanding is something totally different. So with the script, we could have something tangible that we'd say, okay. 'Right now, when we see this moment that the spinning top is on the top of someone's hand, you know, how we are going to accomplish that? How we are going to shoot this? Or is this going to be real? Was this going to be computer generated, spinning top? All sorts of things, you know. So that's why I find that usually films start with the script and then goes from there. But for me, it was, sort of like kind of a bit opposite with starting a different paper work and then realising that without a script, it was a very bad idea.

Melissa Ramos: It just helps make it efficient in a way.

Melissa Ramos: So the surrealist films infuse everyday objects in their films to symbolise and transform ideas, linking between disparate objects and reality as the conducting wire between the subconscious and the conscious life of humanity. In your film, what was the direct reference of the spinning top? And what was its significance?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: I basically love props, every film that I put together. My props are just as important as the characters of my stories. So, I was looking for an object that I could use in so many different ways. Like it could be used for scenes that it's a real toy. It could be used for scenes that expresses an emotion or a different reality. So I was looking for something that this particular character could have. So it had to be small and it would be something, an element that this character perhaps to be struggling with, which kind of signifies a little bit her struggles. An object had to be small so she perhaps could have it with her all the time. An object that. It's use to perhaps bridge reality and a dream. So I had like all this ideas in my head and it was like, oh my God, what am I going to use for all this? Very tough. So I thought about like a ballerina, like a little toy ballerina. Perhaps I had seen this images, you know, of a ballerina on top of like a a vintage music box and twirling. I don't know, maybe I had that in my head from from watching films or something like that. But I was like, 'no, I don't want a ballerina. That's too stereotypical'. That's too obvious. I need something more unique, something with more character. And that's when I end up kind of getting to using the spinning top. The interesting thing is that's the device that I use of the spinning top. It's that device that tells the audience that sometimes you are watching reality, sometimes you're not, because you have the little device has a life of its own and sometimes it's spinning by itself. So I'm sure people's, you know, ask, how is it even happening? How come? But that is a device that I try to add to my films. So people understand that this is not the same reality that we live. It's it's a world that the two reality and pseudo reality kinda intertwine. Now, the interesting thing is that the top sometimes is a real object in the sense of like we found the object to shoot, but sometimes is also a C.G (computer generated) top. So it was created by the Visual FX artist and long collaborator Robert Riendeau. And he created the C.G. top for two or three shots that it would be impossible to have the toy spinning where we want it. So, it had to be basically done as a visual effect.

Melissa Ramos: Thats a surprise to me, because I did not think it was visual effects. It looks so real.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: I know. Like Robert, would be very happy to hear that. And on a side note, he actually, Robert actually had the challenge to make it work at least 20 setups that involves visual effects in the film. We had to recreate sparks. We had to do the spinning top. We had to do the light on the end of the Taser. That kind of zaps the main character. We had to animate the oil that we see kind of seeping out of the androids leg ceiling replacement hiding some electrical cords. So that's why, that's one of the reasons the post-production was very lengthy because of so many shots that had to be so worked on.

Melissa Ramos: Wow. Yes, I could see. I mean, when you're a viewer, you forget about other things and just watch the story. But now looking back, it really fitted together so seamlessly. Oh, well done to your friend, Robert.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: Thank you. Yeah. I mean, it was incredible. It was my first time dealing with these effects. And it started like, OK. We just got I need about five these effects shots for the show. But, you know, it starts growing and then we start like adding more angles. And you know, sometimes things take a tangent and then we have to create more. But a lot of these ideas came for the necessity that we couldn't do the real deal. We couldn't do sparks. We couldn't have sparks coming off the android's leg. We couldn't use a real taser because it's prohibited to use a real taser. So we had to kind of fabricate something that fit our time frame. So all sorts of things, you know, like that's kind of, you know, sort of like limiting our creativity in terms of what can I use as a real object. And that's when Robert said perhaps we can augment the experience by adding some elements of these effects. And it's neat because I think it's done in a very tasteful manner and in that like a very not on your face approach to it. And I think that way you get by; of it's the real deal. So I hope it comes across that way.

Melissa Ramos: When you said it's not in your face. I completely agree. I feel that your choice to give 'space' from the visuals and what happens to the viewer, which I think that distance is really important. And I saw that in your work and I found that really a really good way of seamlessly takes it into the story. And what I loved about your work is the way the level of quality is quite high. And that's I think it's great that you can create that and your background is in cinematography? So I was just wondering about how you use lighting to describe this sort of dystopian psychological minimalist atmosphere. Can you reflect a bit more about that in this process?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: Well, the lighting in this film is is very interesting because at times you kind of have the impression that you were watching like a period piece. And at times it's a bit more kind of edgier and has like a very dark vibe. But again, we were facing some limitations of how we could approach the lighting in the white room, like how we can light our dancers in that large environment. We didn't have any well ways to rig from above. It was a very challenging room to work. And because also the size of the images we're seeing a very wide at times we needed to be able to construct a type of lighting fixture that not only would light our actors, but, perhaps gives them sort of like additional meaning. So we decided to kind of incorporate the idea that we would have a soft box inside of the set, and that's a very interesting thing to do because that soft box was there because we needed to light the actors. But we kind of sort of like using in a way that it seems that is part of the design of the room, which I find is very sweet. Now, the interesting thing is that usually light is associated with enlightenment and spirituality and all the goodness. Right. And the darkness is all the opposite. But in this case, that light source is right behind the boss, which has a very dominant and kind of oppressed demeanour when our character for it looking towards the boss and the boss is against that light. Sometimes that light is so overpowering. It's kind of crosses the threshold of being a good light. And it started becoming like an oppressive light. And that's sort of like what we did, you know, in this particular set, we wanted to kind of have a very dominant and overpowering light and we place that where the boss will be. So it suggests that the relationship between the quality of the light and the personality of the boss. Now in the remaining areas of this establishment. The light is very dull, almost documentary like. And in different areas, the light is very dark. So, almost like the whole light was taken away from other areas of the building of the establishment, and in all of that lighting now it's in the task room. Almost like greedy way. They removed all the lights and the daylight and windows from the remaining areas of the establishment and all the light. It's in the task room. You know, I found that this kind of like, hidden meaning it really work for the narrative. Those are like the overpowering lights that. It's not nice anymore. It's just oppressive.

Melissa Ramos: Towards the end, it was kind of blinding, too much, I guess. You said the greed. You know, she dies and then she gets replaced. That moment of that transition, you have that complete whiteness. Yeah. I felt a bit like, 'whats just happened?'... (laughs) I didn't realise. And you kind of inverted the whole idea of Dominic's sort of dark themes, not using the dark sort of, traditional ways of you see a villain in this darkness. Yeah. Kind of inverted that which is very unexpected.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: Exactly.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: That one more time it was the collaboration between myself and Robert. He not only is the effects artist of the project, he's also my director of photography. And this is the, well by then it was our third collaboration together. So we love, we just sort of like kind of jot down interesting ideas. But it's just funny that sometimes those cool things they end up doing in your film, it's because of either a restriction or a lack of doing them either way or you're just trying to solve a problem.

Melissa Ramos: One thing I wanted to touch on was the sound, and how you use that to create the atmosphere. Was this something that you worked on after? Was it more post-production? How did the sound come about for this film?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: A very interesting question. Again, I had an amazing composer and an amazing sound editor and an amazing foley artist that basically recreated the whole world of sounds. But this was the first film that I actually didn't have any playback for the dancers. We basically were shooting with no music and that was their choice. That's how they wanted, no playback on sets, which was kind of very different for me. And that we didn't record any audio on set as well, because I knew most of the time when you record audio on set, it doesn't really kind of sound good. So you have to recreate so basic. It was in post-production that got together with the foley artist and the foley artists basically recreated every sound that the characters are doing, any rustling, any steps, any movement. The art is also recreated, the sound of the spinning top. So, a door opening in the sense of I have never done, you know, that kind of work before. And I loved it. You know, the work of the foley artist and then composer re-created, all the sound design sound effects the music and also he was the one that mixed everything. So it's very rich it's just as rich as the visuals.

Melissa Ramos: So everything was re-created? Even the dance dance moves. So the dancers didn't make those sounds. They were made in the studio.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: Yes, isn't that incredible.

Melissa Ramos: I'm just imagining in my head how you guys are doing it. It's like, okay, for this visual, we have to make a sound for it and it has to be exactly the same time. No delay. Thats incredible, and fun.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: It is an art form on its own. And I have been enjoying so much the approach to foley in my work that also in my last screendance film I did the same thing. I ask the foley artists to recreate everything and I just really like to do that because then every little sound is very rich. It's clean and and you can mix it so you can can adjust the levels and what kind of filter you want to add or whatever. So it becomes a statement. It's very noticeable. I love it.

Melissa Ramos: I was going to ask you a few things about your career. So what was something you believed earlier in your filmmaking career? But think differently now.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: I don't know, I think you like when I was starting in film production, I thought that for me to fulfil my dreams as a filmmaker, that I needed to work in high profile movies to achieve that. And of course, you know, as years went by and lots of drama, lots of ups and downs, new things and things coming in, old things going. I realised that's what's more important for me is to be able to voice my ideas in and share with other filmmakers and share at other festivals like the 'worlds' that I create. And I know screendance festival. It is a bit of a niche kind of sector of film production, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter how big or how small it is? I am much more fulfilled creating my own content. My stories. My characters then if I were working on big shows.

Melissa Ramos: And who had the most influence on you growing up?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: Well, I watch several films from Europe and from North America. So I was drawn to filmmakers like Jean-Pierre Jeunet, David Lynch, Tim Burton. You know, they made amazing work and so many of them. But when I was in film school, I was introduced to particular filmmakers call The Brothers Quay. They do sort of like animation work and stop motion, but they also kind of dab a little bit with life's action. So they put together two or three feature films. I believe, that involves live action and their films. It's their masterpieces. They're like the scenes and the emotions that you see are so visceral and surreal at the same time. I'm very drawn to that. So I think I try to kind of incorporate some of those elements in my films. So when you see like the spinning top by itself spinning in the dusty hallway, perhaps it's my like homage to The Brothers Quay work.

Melissa Ramos: That's fantastic. What were the two biggest turning points in your life?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: What's really important for me was the fact that I had the opportunity to move to the states, to go to film school. And in this course, develop my professional career. So that for me was a huge turning point. And I'm very happy, satisfied. And I can't believe that I managed because it was very difficult. But somehow I working step-by-step I managed to fulfil those dreams. But another turning point was definitely I was starting my screen dance career to 5, 6 years ago and I hope that I'm able to continue to make screendance films.

Melissa Ramos: What was the best advice you've ever received?

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: I think I had a few, but I remember my mentor at grad school and when I was graduating he mentioned to me to continue. Keep on making films with the themes that I made when I was at that school. And he said something along the lines of, 'to shine the light in the dark and shine a light in the dark. Puts the dark things on the spot lights.' And I think he said that because he probably saw that it was like my strengths. And he was making sure that, I was aware of it.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: In a nutshell, thought about it and I was like, oh my God. I had roughly 30 people as part of my crew. It was a three day shoot with two cameras shooting 6K format. We had about a hundred or nearly a hundred setups for the cameras. We had about 20 these effects shots, one year post-production, complete rerecording of all the sounds, including foley, sound design, music and all the things the film has been accepted to twenty seventh film festivals. One artist's presentation in Scotland. Won best film at the Forth Prague international dance Film Festival. The film is also part of the sixth international meeting on screendance studies in Valencia, Spain. And the screenings have been in the US, Iran, Scotland, Brazil, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Austria, Greece and Argentina.

Melissa Ramos: I would be very proud of that.

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos: Thank you. Oh, it's a very complex one for me. I mean, like, I just hope I keep making good movies, right? Because, you know, once you've been accepted to this many festivals, that doesn't mean next time, If you only accept to like five means like your work is not good? It's not, it just puts a lot of things in perspective. But I'm very thankful that this happened. And I think that it's just I hope that it propels my career and and propels my wanting to make more screendance films.

"I find screendance almost like alittle bit of a live performance. We go watch a live dance performance. You have a theme, like stories, the title and what the artist is trying to convey. But the storyline is going to be up to you to connect the dots..."

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