At a screening of Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands last week with Peter Mettler in attendance for Ryerson's IMA Student Lecture Series, Mettler discussed the filmmaking process for Petropolis and provided some details about another forthcoming project.
After the screening, in the Q&A with Marc Glassman, Mettler explained the reason for his decision to shoot the film from a helicopter above the sands. "We were not allowed to shoot on the private property that the oil companies owned in the Alberta oil sands," he said. Therefore he and his small crew had to shoot from one thousand meters above the ground. They had to rig up a kind of gyroscope to film. Mettler explained, “In this case, aesthetics were determined by the situation.”
When asked whether he considers himself to be a documentary filmmaker, Mettler pointed out that in the past he had worked as a feature film director, but he said that documentary film tends to be more process-oriented than is feature filmmaking, which is more like a blueprint approach. At the same time, he explained “my films are contrived like a poem or an essay or a piece of music, and there's no real genre for that. But, I do engage with the real world. So in that way, my films are non-fiction, like documentary.”
Over the years, as Mettler has developed an unmistakable signature style, he has even wandered into the world of Vjing, where strategic improvisation reigns supreme. He explained, “it's a tangent to my intuitive approach. VJing uses spontaneity to build itself.” “After I completed Gambling Gods and LSD, I wanted to see if I could perform with the extra footage I had from that film.” So, for the last 5 years he has been experimenting with and creating audio-visuals on the spot. He started VJing after he met Greg Hermanovic, the creator of Derivative and Touch Designer software, which allows one to mix visuals in real-time.
'So, what is next?' asked Glassman, to which Mettler replied, “My new project explores how we experience time. So, I'm looking at anything as a manifestation of time. Of what is and what's to come.” For his new project he went to Switzerland to recreate the big bang, he went to visit geologists to look at how volcanoes change over time, and he went to Detroit to see how the city is changing and continues to evolve, with connections to past and future.
Petropolis was commissioned by Greenpeace and directed and produced by Peter Mettler. It has garnered numerous prizes including: Prix du jury du jeune public de la Société des Hôteliers de la Côte, Visions du Réel (2009) Nyon, Switzerland.
Highly recommended!

