This is my final piece for my Media Studio 3 Class “Ghosts of RMIT”.
Title: Mrs. Baines Goes to Court
Length (Including titles): 2:51
Synopsis: A stop motion mixed media film told through a poem about an extraordinary person named Jennie Baines who went to court.
Crew: Thank you to Rachel and Linh for helping out on the day
Intended purpose of the project: To explore memory in relation to building 20 using Jennie Baines’s case to highlight what history remembers and what history doesn’t remember as clearly. Using the remnants of photos and the physical site that it took place to create a piece to bring the memory and history of her back into the present day.
Technically, the stop motion varied in pacing however I quite liked the effect it had being more flickering and jolty. I think it helped with the theme of fading memory and how little history can remember sometimes with the past pace of the photos and stop motion. There were more smooth sections that was during the ‘breathing’ spaces in the film. I’m happy that I was able to try something new like stop motion. There was a lot of trial and error and test runs before the shot day. I researched online through tutorials and information about how best to shot my stop motion. Initially on the shooting day I was going to use a release cord however it didn’t end up being compatible with the camera.
In my individual project I was working by myself mostly. I did get feedback from my peers along the way and crewing help on the day. The project starting with exploring place and space through a particular building. There was lot of initial research taken to get to the final product and even a slight detour just before the mid semester crits. My idea started to come together more clearly after we visited the public records office. I realised how much evidence and documents and history they had collected and was interested in exploring the less a known ones relating to building 20.
The process was very explore and then evaluate how it fits at the start. With my research, guided along by Abigail’s suggestions it took me down a path of exploring different avenues to find out more information about Jennie Baines, I was trying to collect all the left behind pieces. A lot of the paths came to a dead end and trying to collect what was left.
One important take away was that every project will have a different way you will prepare. This one was time consuming in the sense of researching and the actual technical stop motion. Usually in other videos and projects I’ve done there isn’t that much research needed and more in the creative development of it however this needed both and in detail. I found that a lot more time was spent on research however it was needed.
If I could improve it I think I would have tried to incorporate the documents and images into the building more. Having them more connected or intertwined would have added to the overall themes of fading memories and place.