Fashion and its links to film has always interested me and I have recently been inspired by the high-end boutique windows, that are currently empty of products and staff, however the lights and logos still on display.  It was a strange thing to witness and walking down empty streets full of empty brand name stores felt unreal and unworldly.  This gave ideas of creating a film set in a fictional, fantasy world rather a film about the current situation and why the stores were empty.  To do this I drew on elements of speculative fiction and science fiction, “The setting, style and imagery all contribute to make the history and its events possible and believable on its own terms” (Selling 2004, p.22).  As I filmed footage, I imagined laneways as catwalks and the city as a fashion show, which was my fantasy world.  I developed the concept further commenting on the need luxury fashion.  The stores and the city itself were still beautiful and inspiring, they did not need a brand name or expensive price tags to be fashionable and stylish.  This gave me the idea to reference the layout of fashion magazines, but without the products and clothes, asking the question, how necessary is luxury fashion?  For my fantasy magazine, which I titled EXCE$$ using graphics, juxtaposing the superfluous world of fashion with empty boutiques.

To communicate the elements of fashion shows and magazines I utilised editing tools in Adobe Premiere, however I found After Effects more valuable in creating visual effects and graphics to create EXCE$$.  Using a template in After Effects, I was able to customise and manipulate it to reference a magazine layout.  I took the approach of video art, rather than a linear narrative storyline and the software allowed me to deliberately present the footage out of a usual screen format and layer various elements.  Holly Rogers describes this layering in video art as “Rather than focusing on a single object… or a piece of music, video artists and composers were concerned with the movement, relationship and sound existing between a number of elements” (2013, p.5).  Rogers notes the relationship between sound and other elements, I layered non-diegetic sounds such as camera flashes, high heels and cash registers and added an electronic music track, similar to those used in fashion shows to reference fashion runway shows and luxury retail.  Along with the elements of sound, I also referenced the layout of fashion magazines using graphics and texts combined with my video footage using After Effects.  It allowed me to add headlines and text for the fantasy magazine EXCE$$, which signals to the audience the links between the fashion world.  However, this technique was new for me and time consuming, therefore with more skills and experience I would have liked to edit and develop the text elements further.  The software did allow me to be more experimental, mixing various visual and sound elements and using my video footage in a more abstract way.  Although some aspects of the editing software were new for me, relative to some of the pioneers of video art, I was able to manipulate and edit quickly and produce abstract elements.  Carter notes the improvements in technology and its impacts on video art, “Today affordable video and editing equipment of near studio-quality has democratized video production by placing equipment not only in the hands of artist, but in the hands of people all over the world” (2014, p.20)

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References:

Carter, C. L. (2014)  ‘Video Art: Cultural Transformations’ . Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications. 523.
<https://epublications.marquette.edu/phil_fac/523>

Gordon, Kim. (2004). ‘Understanding Speculative Fiction’. RMIT University. Australia.

Rogers, H. (2013). ‘Sounding the gallery: video and the rise of art-music’. University of London. England