A Recipe to Smile – Jordan Belot

Jordan Belot – A Recipe to Smile from Media Factory on Vimeo.

Reflection:

Through the process of making my project ‘A Recipe to Smile’, I discovered that there are many ways to notice something. Through the devices of priming I was able to achieve my final piece, where I filmed friends and family smiling. However, before this I explored a lot of wondering and even some lingering at times. I wondered long and hard as to how I could create this footage, getting all the same kinds of style of recording from my subjects, I could take to the streets and records random people but I knew it wouldn’t have the level of consistency I required for this piece. I lingered on the thought of people smiling. Recording close up smiles could achieve this but it wouldn’t work with the constraints of release and I would fail to gather enough footage in the time frame. So, I found that priming was my device and in the process I primed myself more and more the further I explored this. By my last video I was both thankful and gratified by what I’d recorded. It sounds so simple but I had to force myself to meet up with friends and film them even if they or I didn’t really want to, I had prepared myself for this and for them. Taking this kind of positive attitude towards something that you’re not even 100% sure of is hard and can make for a lot of soul searching. Ignoring texts, rearranging plans to get the shots done and in time for presentation. I achieved all of this in the final weeks of the semester and I am proud of the film I produced as a result. It came together perfectly and I couldn’t be happier.

In terms of nonfiction, I found the idea of using a way in which to notice confronting, I feel like I am tuned into this aspect more than others and it would flow as a result but when thinking of my work I still tried to keep it story based and although nonfiction can be a linear film it also doesn’t have to be. With much of my inspiration coming from projects that took place when mobile cameras were first established I looked to keep my recording technique pretty simple. I did this so that I wouldn’t intimidate my subjects and so I wouldn’t have to lug around lots of gear for what was at times a simple 5-10-minute process. Back to the nonfiction side of things, to create some originality in my work, I think exploring programs like Korsakow would be beneficial. From what I’ve seen some amazing work has been created using it and a lot of different work can be created as a result. So, I have decided that my next project will look to be of the interactive variety and that I need to not be afraid of new things like this when making media. Allowing myself and my work to grow towards new concepts to conceptualise the world in a different way.

Through the course of the semester, I learnt a lot of things about media making, myself, nonfiction and noticing. All of which attributed to the kind of media I made with my final piece, all of the discourse surrounding my ideas, my visions, my side projects of photography that I use to both distract myself and express myself. I wrote in our last class; ‘A tool to notice is, Embrace the mess of life. How? (Go) Prime Yourself. Why? Life is moving fragments of obscurity + uncertainty.’ This isn’t necessarily a mantra for life but it is something to reflective upon when thinking about how I went about creating media in this period of time. This semester wasn’t easy with different types of conflicts coming up in my life and all of it a rollercoaster ride with no end but high’s and lows. In conclusion, I will take most from Frankham’s words in Miles’ ‘Digital Media and Documentary: Antipodean Approaches’ (2018, pp.33) when looking to make another poetic piece (because I know I will) and employ the following; ‘rather than documenting an originating event, these films developed within a poetic approach become metaphorical representations that suggest ideas and experiences beyond the immediate range of the literal content that is used to represent the topic being explored’. It is the poetics that draw me to immerse in media creation and that keep me afloat, with political motifs both an element and an underlying element of my work. This project has fulfilled its objective, in making me smile me now and into the future.

Miles, A 2018, ‘Digital Media and Documentary: Antipodean Approaches’, Palgrave Macmillan, UK

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