Art of the Day: Robert Banks

Submitted by Evelyn Kiefer on Mon, 07/03/2006 - 00:23.

 

Robert Banks: local filmmaker, photographer, CIA professor/film instructor, one of the cool residents of the Tower Press Building. I tend to think of film as a less artistic medium than painting or sculpture. It may be wrong of me to make such a generalization about a medium, but I have never questioned the level of artistic merit in Robert's films -- his films are like painterly collages.  I know I forgot to post an "Art of the Day" for Sunday, so Robert can be the "Art of the Day" artist for Sunday and Monday.

      

Robert Banks

Yeah, I love Robert

I had the pleasure to actually work on a film project with Robert and it was one of the most interesting and fun experiences I had this year - he is really skilled in his work, has great vision, and works well with others under trying circumstances (filmmaking is a very stop and go process so people can get impatient). Of course, there are brief realneo write-ups on the film we did, "The Man with the Magnetic Brain" - Day One - Day Two - and as soon as it is completed I'll host a forum on filmmaking with Robert and the filmmaker on this project, shown with the cameraman and stars above. Note,the shot at the top of this posting is the ultimate "arts and culture as development building blocks" poster photo as we shot the entire movie on the side street next to the Tower Press - literally outside the window of Robert's studio there - in full view of the Cleveland Plain Dealer (so I know they know there's filmmaking happening in NEO) and you see how close all this is to CSU, which has filmmaking programs that are core to having a fim industry here. Don't believe we need to create this industry - it is alive and well and just needs the rest of the community to become more involved and appreciate with it... Robert is living proof of that.

Here he is with his young filmmaking cohorts... students from Shaker High and Shaw High... the Shaker student was the filmmaker on the project I did with Robert, and is one of Robert's students, who's now off to Columbia University in NYNY. The power of the arts!

Disrupt IT