On Light and Camera

MIA #3: Margaret Salmon and Noski Deville

Beursschouwburg hosts the third edition of the Moving Image Atelier (MIA), a series of 1-day workshops for artists and filmmakers working alone or with small crews in the undefined territory between cinema and visual arts. Each workshop examines a specific technical dimension of audiovisual production, like image, sound, and editing, in order to strengthen artistic control and technical autonomy throughout the creative process. Participants work with experienced practitioners with insight into the artistic process and artists with expertise in the technical dimensions of filmmaking. This third workshop is followed by a screening and Q&A with Margaret Salmon as part of ‘We Love You’, a multidisciplinary programme on love beyond the romantic and the self at the Beursschouwburg.

During MIA #3: Margaret Salmon and Noski Deville examine the creative and technical process of image making and the related (pre-) production workflows. Discussion topics are, among others: deciding on suitable cameras, lenses and film stock prior to shooting; artistic and technical decisions related to images, lighting, distance and movemnet, image sharpnes, framing strategies and working with a team and a focus puller.

Margaret Salmon (born in 1975 in Suffern, New York) lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. She creates filmic portraits that weave together poetry and ethnography. Focusing on individuals in their everyday activities, her films capture the minutiae of daily life and infuse them with gentle grandeur, touching upon universal human themes. Adapting techniques drawn from various cinematic movements, such as Cinema Vérité, the European Avant Garde and Italian Neo-Realism, Salmon’s orchestrations of sound and image introduce a formal abstraction into the tradition of realist film. Margaret Salmon won the first Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2006. Her work was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and the Berlin Biennale in 2010 and was featured in individual exhibitions at Witte de With in Rotterdam and Whitechapel Gallery in London among others.

Noski Deville has worked as a Senior Lecturer on the Film Production Course at UCA for over 15 years sharing her working knowledge and expertise as a cinematographer and filmmaker. She is committed to education and training in film, and has lectured and technically tutored at many respected and influential institutions including Goldsmiths College of Art, Portsmouth University, The Slade School of Art, University of London, Sankofa Black Film & Video Workshop, and the London Filmmakers Co-Op. She has a long established and continuing career as a Cinematographer/Director of Photography, both within the commercial sector and in the field of Fine Art practice. She has worked with many high profile artists including Oscar winner, Steve McQueen and Turner Prize nominee, Isaac Julien, Jarman Award Nominee Alia Syed among others. In 2015 Noski won the Jules Wright Award for her extensive and long standing contribution to art as a cinematographer.