MAJOR PROJECT
Consuming Women
WEEK 7: DEVELOPMENT – FILM REVIEW
Paradise Recollected (Jasper Rigole, 2008)
Written and edited by Jasper Rigole, Paradise Recollected (2008) is an ironically toned mockumentary and home movie fiction that reflects on the practice of capturing memories through home movies. The film draws on 8mm footage sourced from the illusive and essentially made up ‘International Institute for the Conservation, Archiving and Distribution of Other People’s Memories (IICADOM)’, with narration by Richard Wells. Wells frames the material through the metaphor of a fictitious dreamland or ‘paradise,’ a concept that resonates with both the language of home movies and the act of recollection itself. Rigole’s compilation of footage (gathered by the archive from garage sales and flea markets) blends smoothly with Wells’ narration and a delicate piano score.
At times, however, the relationship between image and narration felt strained. Certain sequences, such as extended shots of tortoises accompanying Wells’ reflections on chronology and simultaneity, distracted from rather than enriched the narrative. Similarly, while the sheer variety of home movie material was engaging, the reliance on simple jump cuts between shots caused the film to meander and offered little stylistic contribution to the mockumentary form, something I am keen to experiment with more deliberately in my own major project.
What resonated most with me, however, was the line: “By focusing on the act of remembering itself, time comes to a halt.” This idea of recollecting through home movies, of drifting into nostalgia and memory, is one I find deeply compelling. It is a notion I would like to pursue further, developing a work that combines both my personal archives and public media to construct my own interpretation of recollection.
Jasper Rigole. (2008, October 30). Paradise Recollected : IICADOM : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/IICADOM_0000
WEEK 8: PREPRODUCTION
During this initial week of preproduction, I furthered my initial ideas for what I wanted to create and found some inspiration from this week’s reading and films we watched as a part of our guest lecture from Dirk De Bruyn. This week I made the decision that for my major project I wanted to use a blend media from of my own personal home archives and found footage archives online, as inspired by the Rick Prelinger (2022) Foyer article reading, in which he notes that “Recording vividly and ennobling quietly, home movies make art from the everyday and make the everyday into art.” The notion of making the mundane, monotonous everyday into art really struck me as a motivator and great inspiration for creating a piece of media that is typically ‘everyday’ and giving it new meaning through experimental editing techniques such as juxtaposition, similar to my ‘Blooming Flower’ one minute piece I made earlier in the semester.
In our second class, we had a guest lecture from Australian experimental filmmaker Dirk De Bruyn. Before the class I had found some of his own films and was really fascinated with his physical manipulation of film, use of timelapse and rhythm – particularly in East Meets West (2015), a flickering abstract animation that is syncopated with a drum track. His work, as well as a Canadian avant-garde film we viewed during the lecture – Very Nice, Very Nice (Arthur Lipsett, 1961) continued my development of ideas for my assignment, and I want to reflect some of the experimental techniques used in these films throughout my piece.
Regarding what still needs to be completed, I need to continuing brainstorming a theme and narrative structure for my piece, as well as begin collating media to use for the major project.
Prelinger, R. (2022). Rick Prelinger on home movies. Foyer. https://readfoyer.com/article/rick-prelinger-home-movies
WEEK 9 PRE-PRESENTATION & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
During week 9, a lot of progress was made on my initial idea. At first, I began with a brainstorm, which narrowed down some themes I want to include in my film, such as recollection, satire and youth. In terms of form and media I want to use, I want to experiment with a blend of media from my own personal archive and media from the website Internet Archive. After a consult with Liz, I narrowed down these initial brainstorm ideas to a satirical narrative that will focus on my memories of my primary school sick bay and other childhood memories that have to do with illness and general medical themes. After this consult, whilst I was invested in this idea at first, I soon became detached from the idea – I did not see what I could parallel with my personal stories to create a certain depth that I want to achieve throughout the film.
Between the consult with Liz and our Wednesday class, I developed a much stronger idea for my final project that I am more attached to. Having done some browsing through footage on Internet Archive, I came across a compilation of 1950s and 1960s advertisements that featured mostly women as models advertising the products. From these clips I began brainstorming a narrative idea that focuses how advertisements can be used as a tool for corruption and control on women. I envisioned sourcing clips of women becoming more and more broken down and ‘dismembered’ by these commercials that focus on selling their products using the bodies/faces of female models. Over the next week I plan on continuing sourcing my media and figuring out a clear narrative that I can pitch for my work in progress presentation.
WEEK 10 PRODUCTION
Following my change in ideas for my major project, I went into the week 10 work in progress presentations with a clear idea on what themes I wanted to portray throughout the film, yet I was unclear on how I should structure the media sources I had collected over the weekend to create a coherent narrative.
In terms of the feedback I received following my pitch presentation, I was recommended to figure out the sound of the film last but not neglect the audio from the commercials as they are important to include. I was made aware that this material (the advertisements and commercials) has been used quiet a lot in other found footage and experimental works so I should ensure that I can bring a different depth and tone to the footage through my narrative.
Upon reflection I was not surprised at this feedback, but it was a helpful reminder that this footage and theme have been done before so I should stray away from repeating concepts, and ensure I can bring something new or different to the final piece. A possibly method that I could use to implement this feedback into my project is to experiment with how I could juxtapose the footage with darker and more distorted visuals to dissect the insidious use of women’s bodies to sell products within past and modern television advertising.
WEEK 11-12 PRODUCTION & ROUGH CUT
Over the final weeks of the semester, alongside editing and finalising my major project I have been event coordinating our Recycling Media exhibition in week 13. This divided my time slightly but I have managed to organise myself well to finalising my major project which is entitled Consuming Women. Leading up to the rough-cut presentations, I faced a slight setback in how I was to structure my narrative, given I had sourced a lot of footage from Internet Archive I was quite overwhelmed with the amount I had planned to include in the final film. I overcame this by stripping back and organising the clips into bins on my editing software, from there I could delegate which clip I wanted to use for what section. For example, I knew I wanted to use the animated overlay of the large bobbling eye at the close of the film to symbolise a voyeuristic audience watching over the women, and organising that clip with other pieces of footage helped me visualise the close of the film, from here I worked backwards.
Following the rough-cut presentation in week 12, I received some very valuable feedback. I was made aware that each section (beginning, middle and ending) dwindled for a bit too long so I noted where to make cuts in the footage for my next editing session. Additionally, I noted that I should be more explicit about the themes of advertising – to ameliorate I sourced more commercials that featured voiceovers that mentioned ‘sales’, ‘discounts’, ‘hot items’ instantiate the idea of the advertisement and commodification of the women. This feedback was ultimately very helpful in how I should move forward and finish my project to produce a thought-provoking and highly stylised final project.