BRYDAN MEREDITH REFLECTION

I approached Project Brief 3 differently to Project Brief 2, instead of taking photos and videos and then constructing meaning (entirely through editing), I wrote a screenplay/script which I then shot and edited. This approach made for a much nicer (and slightly quicker) editing and shooting experience, due to the fact I knew exactly what I wanted to convey and what I needed to do to convey it. Surprisingly, the images I had in my head at the start of the project, closely matched what I ended up with. I’m glad I was able to follow and articulate my ideas from the point of conception to creation; this is a huge positive I have taken out of completing this media project.

A key difficulty I had was creating a defined rhythm to my project. In order to create contrast  I had 3 key paces. The first was the comedy bookending the piece, designed to highlight Joel’s eccentric character and absurdist humour. The second was the drum patterns accompanying the found footage, each drum pattern was slightly abrupt, never fully solid, I did this in order to create a nervous feeling, mirroring the nervousness and abruptness of theatre and live performance. And the final was a world war 1 march designed to contextualise Joel’s personality in the context the present and an era gone by, suggesting that it is timeless.

This is an example, of the creative possibilities I found when collaborating during this portrait- I found the process of collaboration of great benefit. I asked Joel to do something that he believed represented himself (which created initial meaning). I then added further meaning through some quotes, music and editing. My job was to mix, mash and contrast Joel’s thoughts and character in order to create a unique representation him. In many ways I saw myself like a ‘DJ’ bringing together something whole, new and unique from pre-existing media.

I learnt in the process of making this project how useful found footage is, it gave my piece a completely new tone that would never have been created with new footage.

The Tutorial

In todays workshop we presented our ‘Project Brief 2’ videos, which was great fun. I really enjoyed seeing how the class took on different aspects of their personalities rather than presenting themselves in a really broad, undefined way. It was also great to see how unique each creation was, some were really funny, others were a bit more introspective, some had strong themes as the backbone of their project, others were more raw and confronting.

In seeing these videos I got a bit of an understanding of where I was in the course, if my work was at the standard of my piers, which was useful. I also got some great ideas in terms of structure from them, which I really enjoyed. My form was an ‘A, B, A’ form, after a small introduction it started off as a montage, seagued into comdic interlude, and ended in a montage. For my next project, I might start with something more bold and the ease into what will be the main feel, pace of my piece.

I also feel as though I am getting better, I definitely stepped up from project brief 1 when making project brief 2, and now with project brief 3 approaching I feel confident that I can continue improving.

‘Story without end? Found footage in digital media’ an article by Tily Walnes talks of how due to technology and availability the art of found footage film making has changed. In the early days after  Joseph Cornell’s ‘Rose Hobart’ pioneered the art form, found footage filmmaking was significantly harder to do, with many film-makers using ‘scraps’ of previously unused films (often off the editing room floor) as the basis of their new creations. However in today’s day and age found footage is very, very easy to come buy, one website alone ‘Internet Archive has more than 140,000’ found films. An assertion Walnes presented was that the ‘subversive, anti-authorotive’ spirit of found film making was lost due to its presence in modern day culture. This is also supported by the fact that film, sometimes in its original print, isnt phsyically destroyed or cut anymore, it is done in a completely recycable, renewable way, making the artwork produced less risky, with a huge margin of error.

However Walnes did not purely go against the changed artform, stating that due to the amount of film  licensed under creative commons and in the public domain new creation is not only relatively endless, but also allows for a continuous flow of film making. This is because new films made from this footage ar also available to use as ‘pre-existing’ films in the public domain, perfect for new creations.

When reading this article I was thinking about a found footage film I saw in cinema studies by Martin Arnold entitled ‘Alone: Life Wastes Andy Hardy’. In my opinion this was the biggest load of crap I’ve ever seen, in saying that, I can appreciate the way Arnold creates new meanings out of film originally designd to convey completely opposite ones. For example in ‘Alone’ Arnold shows a weird mother/son relationship and in general a dysfunctional, broken family. Even though the footage was from a 1940’s show depicting a happy, healthy and traditional family. I think this is the great thing about found footage filmaking. The filmaker gets the ability to create new meanings and new stories from raw, generic material. I also think the devlopment of easy to use, easily accesible editing software is fantastic to the art form, it lets creators be able to warp, manipulate and cut their images in thousands of different ways, guaranteeing that each new film made is distinct, unique and individual. This is highlighted in Walnes essay by the line ‘Daniel Reeves mixes found footage, photographs, and newly recorded material, using techniques including layering, morphing, and flipping over images, bleaching out color and backgrounds, inserting frames within frames, employing paintbox effects, animation, and slow motion’. Surely, the new technology allows for more creativity, even though the process may not be as organic as physically cutting up the film.

Week 5 Lectorial

In todays lectorial we looked at Project Brief 3 and Found Footage aswell as learning about Academic Reading and Writing. Practically speaking, I thought the section on academic writing was really useful, especially the ‘goals in terms of succesful readings’ which gave me a handy step by step formula (summary, evaluation, commentary) that I will use when completing future readings.

During my brain storming I had a really good idea in regards to how I will approach ‘Project Brief 3’. Unlike with ‘Project Brief 2’ where my project took its shape and started to create meaning as I began shooting, with Project Brief 3 I am going to plan my project shot by shot and have a very structured template for which I will follow when creating it. I will then compare the two approaches and see which one worked better and suited me more.

I also found it a bit weird to be brainstorming ideas and concepts in relation to my friends, but nonetheless I am pretty keen to start creating.

Week 4-Tutorial

In this week’s tutorial we got given time to work edit and work on ‘Project Brief 2’. I think one of the things I walked away happiest about after this tutorial was a cut I managed to do with an image of Bob Dylan. As I talked about my love for music (through the use of overdubbed narration) I had a shot of him on a magazine cover looking dreary, I then cut to a close-up emphasising Bob’s dreariness and pain. This contrasted nicely to my narration which talked of how music allows me to clear my thoughts.

I also came up with an idea to give my project brief 2 some ‘breathing space’, I decided to put a comedic excerpt in the middle of my music montage to make my video a bit more diverse, but to not suffocate it through the repetition of the music and feel. I also tried to have a quick cut from video to montage for a comedic effect.

Week 4, Lectorial

1. I found the idea presented by Liam that editing is ‘breaking things in order to create meaning’ a really interesting one, especially after reading ‘Blood in the Gutter’. A particular example that Liam brought up was the famous cut in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ where Stanley Kubrick cuts from the bone flying through the air to a huge space ship of a similar shape. This, in my mind, is one of the greatest, boldest and most meaningful cuts of all time. Kubrick, by simply using shape and a huge gap of time and space between images, Kubrick infers that the same drive that made man kill each other is the same drive that allows us to create great things and build our world into a huge, expansive place. As if our thirst for blood and our want to improve is tied together.

I quite literally, derived this meaning from a gap between images, using nothing but my own thought to interpret a meaning Kubrick may or may not have intentionally placed. I think this example is one that truly defines the magic of editing and supports the idea that it is the breaking things into ‘bits’ that creates meaning.

1. What you perceive as the emotion occurs because of what is shown before this is ‘Kool…..’ effect. The meaning of the shot is what comes before it and after it. I found the example of pairing the photo of a game thrones character next to a politician interesting because I am forced to derive meaning from the pairing, at first I thought that Liam was stating parallels between the two characters, which he wasn’t necessarily doing, but because they were paired to each other, I instantly, almost subconsciously made a connection. This supports the idea in ‘Blood in the Gutter’ that images can’t be paired next to each other, when in the same form, and has no meaning. For example if a sausage was placed next to a pen, though they aren’t related at all in everyday life, I would derive a new, potentially unique meaning from this.
2. Liams idea, the bigger the space in the cultural medium you are working in, the higher the art is, I think is kind of interesting, because it is true. The best art creates gaps and voids for the audience to fill in and deduce meaning from. A good example of this would be Mad Men, through the pauses and silences you are forced to think and deduce things about the characters. In contrast to Mad Men, is Neighbours were there is virtually no gaps and the meaning is handed directly to the audience. This idea is again supported by ‘A Space Odyssey’ where masses of meaning is found in the huge cuts that skip and transcend space and time.

Reading Media 4

The reading of Scott Mcloud’s ‘Blood in the Gutter’ addresses and helps us think through conceptual issues at the core of an edit, such as the space between panels/shots; meaning and closure…….

‘Participation is a powerful force in any medium, filmmakers long ago realised the importance of allowing viewers to use their imaginations’. In comics it is the gaps between the panels that allow the readers to use their imagination in order to make assumptions. I really enjoyed how ‘blood in the gutter’ started off with the child believing that the world was created entirely for them and when they weren’t paying attention to something it disappeared. Obviously as adults we know that it doesn’t disappear, the world continues to tick on and our knowledge of the world is created through presumptions, assumptions and our imagination, just like the meaning with associated with the gaps in the comics, the ‘cuts’.

I also think ‘Blood in the Gutter’ is a fantastic title for the comic, I’m guessing it comes from the comic that used as an analogy to show how the amount of frames in a story determine the tone and style of that story. In this comic we continually observe the parts, the individual frames which we associated with the previous and future frames and by doing feeling in the gaps (closure) we form a story and coherent ‘whole’ piece of work with additional meaning. ‘Closure in comics is very intimate’ The audience participates and fills in the gaps, we commit the crimes. I thought this was a really statement, in the first frame we see the axe and in the next we ‘see’ the screaming, yet it is our minds that commit the crime.

Moment to moment, action to action, subject to subject, scene to scene, aspect to aspect (sets a wandering eye on different aspects of a place, idea, mood and finally the non-sequiter which offers no logical end to the cut, no resolution. I think when writing about these cuts I will just pick my favourite, I would really like to see more aspect to aspect, the cuts seem broad enough leave a lot to the imagination of the reader, but also narrow enough that the creator can infer a lot of meaning! I also drew a natural liking to the non-sequiter cuts, they were really cool. I might try a non-sequiter cut in project brief 3.

Is it possible for any sequence of frames to have no correlation or will the audience always deduce things? By having panels/images together we are forcing the viewer to except as one whole, coherent thing. I feel as though frames, regardless of how disparate they are will always be associated together and seen (an interpreted) as one thing, when presented in a film or comic.

Types 2-4 show things happening in a coherent, concise, efficient way which is why I think they are the most popular, to hold the readers, coherency is key!

Another thing I found interesting was with Asian comics, aspect to aspect was used far more frequently than in the west, which I thought was really cool. Because of the more frequent aspect to aspect cuts the viewer must put together the scattered fragments to create a whole moment and meaning. I also thought the use of silences and gaps (seen more predominantly in Asian comics) was also really cool, it leaves more to the imagination and can create mystery and suspense.