EXPERIMENTAL FILM PITCH

Danielle and myself have decided to collaborate for the experimental film task. The reason being is that we enjoyed working together on the mini film about digital materialisation. We also found we had lots of similar ideas for style, lighting and colouring in films. I am proud of the short film we made together and have decided to expand this piece into a longer more in depth experimental film.

The film has a theme of Transgression. As I didn't know what this word meant I decided to look it up online. Here is what I found:

Transgression

trɑːnsˈɡrɛʃn,trɑːnzˈɡrɛʃn,transˈɡrɛʃn,tranzˈɡrɛʃn/

noun

1. an act that goes against a law, rule, or code of conduct; an offence.
2. "I'll be keeping an eye out for further transgressions.

At first I was a little unsure of how we could link our short experimental film to this idea, but discussing with Danielle we came to some ideas. We also discussed previous works we had watched in lesson for inspiration of a style or look we were going for. Here were some of our inspirations:

Berlin Horse - Malcolm Le Grice

We drew inspiration from this film because of the colouring, Danielle and I have a fascination with colour and want to use lots of saturated colours, this film certainly has that. We also liked the repetition of the clips and music as it was almost hypnotising and that's what we want to try and do with our film but in a more digital way. 

Black Ice - Stan Brakhage

This was another inspiration of ours as it used such beautiful colour saturation and layering. Danielle and I enjoyed the calmness of it and the hypnotic feel as it draws you in more and more. Again with the same theme of Berlin Horse, we enjoyed the repetition as it created a sense of known and security and that is something we could think about playing with in our film. 

Pipilotti Rist - (Entlastungen) Pipilottis Fehler 

We were shown this piece in class and instantly we found inspiration. The colour, framing, lighting and all of it we enjoyed. We especially enjoyed the colour and the interesting underscore as we also want to play with music and manipulate it and make it sound as uncomfortable as the visuals. We both really enjoyed this piece and took notes on how striking the colours were and may try and explore them too. 

CONCEPT

The concept of our film is to build on the theme of transgression and materialisation as we really got a lot enjoyment out of exploring it before. With the theme of transgression we want to explore the ways media can break rules and the law, and confronting codes and conventions through the ever growing digital world. 

TREATMENT

Theme

Exploring materialisation in the digital world today, reflecting from previous examples such as Berlin Horse and Pipilotti's Mistakes.

Visual and Editing Style

Lots of fast cutting, manipulated images, glitching, colour and chaos of visuals. Bright colours to draw your eyes in and manipulated images to draw you in.

Inspirational Artists and Filmmakers

Malcolm Le Grice

Pipilotti

Nam June Paik

Artists we have explored independently

Luke Jerram - sculpture glitch artist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Jerram

Mathieu St-Pierre - digital film and image glitch artist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathieu_St-Pierre

Neil Krug - Photographer http://www.neilkrug.com/

Sabato Visconti - image glitch artist http://www.sabatobox.com/glitch-photography

Frida Kahlo - artist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo

Intended audience and mode of viewing

Personally I feel this film's intended audience would be for young adults to fully grown adults. This is because while there won't be any bad language in it, the scene might be a bit too intense amd overwhelming for a younger audience. Plus the abstraction of it all may be a bit hard to follow for a younger audience. I personally feel maybe young to fully grown adults would be able to connect with the film more as they have grown up around technology and it shaping our lives today. The intended mode of viewing I think would be for the film to be screen in a dark room with the film playing on the ceiling. The audience would have to lie down and there for be below the 'Voice of God' playing through the film. The audience would subconsciously submit to the film. Also the vulnerability of lying on your back allows the audience to be absorbed.

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.

THIRD TEST SHOOT

To wrap up my series ready for printing I decided to do one last shoot. For this shoot I had more of an aim than with the others, as I wanted a picture of me and my partner together, as I have selected two photos already one of each of us, I decided we needed a photo together to create a link to the two individual photos of us. I wrote down a list of scenarios I wanted to explore and create so we set aside a morning to try and complete them when the lighting was just how I wanted it.

In the first scenario I wanted us to be together doing something we enjoy together which is brushing our teeth. So we set the camera up in a few different ways and here are the results:

Clean

Mint

The first photo 'Clean' I took inspiration from my initial portrait research as they took a photo in a mirror together and it really worked. In the photo it still felt candid even though it was making you aware the camera was involved. So I tried to make that idea my own. I quite like it, I like the framing and the lighting a lot. I still feel it appears candid without the camera intruding on the intimacy. My only negative is that the mirror was still fogged up so it isn't as clear as I would have liked, but I could avoid this next time by waiting until it was clear. The second photo 'Mint' is probably my favourite. After me and my partner brush our teeth we like to kiss, it's something we have always done and just feels intimate. Again I can appreciate the lighting and framing, although I would like to possibly straighten the image as the camera was balancing on a towel rail. 

In my second scenario I wanted to capture our intimacy skin to skin without it being sexual. We enjoy just holding each other and it feeling so special without any sexual connotations to any of it. I wanted to try and see how we could create this by experimenting. Here are the results:

Touch

Stripe

Minute 

With the photo 'Touch' I wanted to capture the feeling of skin on skin when we lay together, it's such a relaxing and safe feeling. However when I first started this process I didn't want any of our tattoos being in the photos as I feel it directs the focus to them instead of the photo. Thus I am disappointed in the way I framed that on that image and should have taken more time to set the framing up right. The second image 'Stripe' I really like, I feel the exposure is just right and I enjoy the framing as it is very central but doesn't give away our faces. Even though all these pictures are set up, I still feel they appear candid. As for the last photo I thought it would be nice if we had a little more of our faces in, again I can appreciate the exposure, however the back drop I don't enjoy as much because I had to zoom out to get our faces in, and then allowing my chest of draws in shot. But maybe that is something I can adjust in PhotoShop or work on in the future with my framing. 

I hope you enjoy. Thank you. 

DIGITAL VS ANALOGUE

As my portrait collection is coming to a close with one more shoot left, I still have many unanswered questions in my head and creative avenues not explored. My initial portrait research was all shot on an analogue camera, and that was what attracted me to the collection in the first place, the texture of the photos was so rich, vibrancy and the saturation was just gorgeous. However, I am quite afraid to use analogue as the uncertainties and lack of control over the photos. I fear that the analogue film is so precious that I cannot simply just take photo after photo, that I have to be thoughtful and construct my image in order to get a good result. In a way this could be a beneficial thing for me, as I can so easily take hundreds of photos without even thinking about it and get only one good result. Yet, my fascination with analogue still plays in the background as I have been taking my portraits. I am very pleased with my results so far, but they lack the texture I want. Talking to some peers today I discussed I was wrapping up my project soon and ready to print, they reminded me of my initial research and showed me some other collections shot on film, and fell in love yet again. A friend of mine encouraged me to finish my last shoot digitally, but also take a little analogue disposable camera and play around with it, then get it developed and see the results. After thinking about this I feel this could be a good idea, even if I do not use the analogue photos in any of my final pictures, at least I would have tried something new.

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.

EXPERIMENTAL SOUND DESIGN

For our experimental sound project, we have been asked to create a soundtrack between 30 seconds to 1 minute inspired by a piece of artwork. We were given 8 to choose from and I decided to choose Francis Bacon's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. I like this piece a lot and enjoy Bacon's work so I thought it would be a good idea for me to choose this. When looking at the piece I decided to think of sounds that I could record and manipulate in Adobe Audition. I created a short list and will add to it as I record this weekend:

• Washing machine 
• Microwave
• Squeaky doors 
• Cupboard doors slamming
• Dog barking

Portrait of Pope Innocent X

I shall record sounds this weekend and start my own Adobe Audition project to start creating my soundtrack. I hope to have a nearly finished piece by the end of the week for a tutorial with James.

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.

EXPERIMENTAL FILM: DIGITAL MATERIALISATION

With a new week comes a new mini experimental film brief. This week it was on digital materialisation and how modern life and technology control us and have changed our lives. In lesson Anne showed us some artists who had created this technique but with analogue film instead, creating double exposures with printers instead of editing software. 

Me and Danielle decided to do this film together and we played around with a few ideas but couldn't quite settle on any. Then Danielle showed me how to glitch photos to create lines across the screen and we started to build on that idea. We took photos next to bright coloured screens and then photos of old technology and glitched them. We then filmed us interacting with the online robot Evie. We recorded her responses to some sentences we typed and then warped the audio. Here are some photos and the processes: 

To do this you have to open the picture into its code, and then start the random process of deleting whatever code you like and re saving the image every time. You then achieve this look, I feel this is definitely something Danielle and I could build on, and we had a lot of fun doing so.

Here is the final film: 

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.