Arne Bro and Lotte Mik-Meyer – The Personal Visual Language

The filmmaker works with a palette, a sound, a style. How does the individual develop the characteristics and working methods that promote a personal aesthetic, and how does the filmmaker simultaneously develop a working language and methods that enable collaboration with other artists, each of whom also possesses a personal aesthetic, when creating a unified, collective expression in film and television series?

Period: March 2023 – March 2025

For 25 years, Arne Bro and Lotte Mik-Meyer have worked together to develop methods and concepts that can provide a framework for a personal artistic development process and for artistic collaboration within the field of film and television production.

With the KUV project "The Personal Visual Language," they aim to map the concepts and methods associated with this area of work. In collaboration with a group of filmmakers and TV creators, they seek to delineate, discuss, and further develop these concepts and methods in a way that allows guidance and education of film artists to be conducted with the same approach as individual artists work with.

Since artistic research should ideally lead to the development of film language and the artistic creative process, this research takes place within the materials that film and TV creators work with. The research is captured on film, examines and works with the language of film, and is released as film, with the hope that film artists and film educators can use the research in their daily work.

This research is based on the assumption that the language of film and television is a full-fledged language capable of investigating, discussing, and reflecting on its own concepts, methods, and processes. Therefore, it also attempts to explore how artistic research differs from scientific research. All processes, investigations, and discussions are edited in dialogue with film artists and subject matter experts, as well as researchers from other fields.

The project is an attempt to contribute to the establishment of an artistic research tradition within the field of film and television, aimed at film and TV creators, as well as mentors and educators in the field. The project is hopefully also useful for musicians, actors, journalists, dancers, and others who create their works in collaboration with other artists and subject matter experts. It is also expected that the concepts and methods can be applied in the production, curating, and decision-making work related to the field of film and television.

Arne Bro & Lotte Mik-Meyer

Arne Bro is a film director and film teacher, former vice-rector, and former head of the TV program, and later the documentary director program at the National Film School of Denmark (DDF). Some of his works include 'Motivation,' 'The Silent Girls,' and 'The Outsiders.'

Lotte Mik-Meyer is a film director and film teacher, holding a Master's degree in social sciences, serving as a professor and director of the Conceptual Documentary Directing Master's Program, and acting as a Ph.D. supervisor at the Norwegian Film School (DNF). Some of her works include 'What We See,' 'The Arab Initiative,' and 'Return of a President.'