Found-footage Manipulation – dilemmas, dilemmas

Over the weekend, I’ve inundated myself with various Experimental Films, the found-footage kind. A Movie by Bruce Conner, aptly named, is a juxtaposed, almost-antithetical use of found footage to demonstrate the destructive nature of man by drawing on two different time periods: the modern-day present and the western-world past.

The film is a conglomeration of all things abstract and at times, ironically comedic, but what I mainly took note of was the sequence of scenes edited together. I previously mentioned in my Caretaker Project that I plan on creating a film that relies less on narrative sequence than spatial representation. What I want to present in my film is the nuances of the place, how the place itself gives the Caretaker his identity as the custodian of the great institution.

As such, I’ve come down to a bit of a conundrum: I do not know exactly how I go about in structuring my scene-by-scenes. I have collected some footage (still more to go) that I believe, represents my purpose and thematic element, but now, I am not quite sure how I could go about in storyboarding this without the narrative thread behind it to reign it in together.

Some questions to ponder:

  • Would a narrative thread help in alleviating the problem of storyboarding? And if so, how could I make it as implied as possible and as ambiguous as possible?
  • Would narration work instead of a narrative thread? And what would it do to the overall thematic of my film?

Hmm, lots to think about before the main shoot this coming weekend!