WRITTEN REFLECTION
My project brief is a media portrait of a friend of mine Ellen Grimshaw. My aim was to explore her excitable, childlike and playful persona as well as her vulnerable and challenging inner world.
After my last project brief, I aimed to incorporate all original sound into my next brief. I felt it was much more personal, effective and allowed me to focus more on the placement of my footage and images. So I created audio that would enhance the story I wanted to tell about Ellen, rather than organise images around a found bit of audio or music. I did play with audio from CCMixer but noticed I was compromising far too much of my footage to fit in with a track that wasn’t mine. Ellen’s voice was also an element I wanted to include in the story before I started shooting. I wanted to put a recording of a deeply personal memory or dream alongside or in contrast with footage of her laughing and performing. This was my attempt to let the audience into Ellen’s inner world that often contradicts what she presents in public. I also wanted to create music or a motif that connected the middle begging and end. To give the middle a crescendo effect would also help the structure of the piece. Also the meditative, hum of the music was supposed to reflect or mirror what Ellen says about her father ‘he used to chant’. Ultimately it was music that was supposed to make the audience sympathise and feel for Ellen. Also I wanted them to feel close to her. I find one of the most beautiful parts of Ellen, how she lives between her deeply vulnerable and fragile inner self and her voracious and captivating persona.
There are three separate audio recordings. The memory recorded using the Zoom Mic from RMIT recorded in Ellen’s home, the vocal tracks and whistling I recorded using garage band and the answering machine I used the Zoom Mic by calling Ellen’s mobile and recording from the speakerphone. This was one of the areas that caused me problems when editing. The different background sounds of the two different locations when using the mic didn’t sound the same. Also it was really difficult to get a good clear sound recording on a speakerphone without getting distortion. It’s important that these recordings are done properly because they have to sit together in the edit sometimes and if the background is different it’s obvious and can change the mood of the image.
It took me a while to find archive footage that worked with my footage. I decided to work with footage that helped explore certain things I wanted to represent about Ellen, her fantasy fairyland imagination and her fairly absent mother. The footage I found has a dream like, surreal quality that I felt suited the tone of my piece and the way Ellen reflects back to her childhood in her voice over. The found footage was actually really helpful not only in it’s ability to suggest ideas about the person, but to structure the piece and give it somewhat of a beginning middle and end.
During editing, I noticed that by cropping out the cars in the opening scene, gave the opening shots more privacy within a big space overlooking the city. The world became more surreal or isolated. With the cars left in the frame it lost a certain intimacy and by cropping them out I felt like Ellen seemed more alone. This was a good experience of how important the composition of the shot is and how, by including or excluding certain things within the shot, you will represent something different. Things we may overlook can have huge meaning.
I really enjoyed this project brief and look forward to the next one.