With one week left to complete my final video, it’s safe to say it has been one of the toughest projects I’ve produced. I am excited to experiment and create a piece of media with a purpose, but I have been asking myself whether I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.

Challenges

Although I knew creating a busy, mosaic layout would be challenging, I really did underestimate how much time and focus it would take to source, not only enough footage, but selecting relevant clips that complement/contrast one another. It has taken me an entire week to source footage from archive.org and YouTube, as well as creating a ‘selects’ project where I have cut and attempted to organise my footage into categories. No matter how much I try to keep things orderly, it quickly becomes an overwhelming mess, not to mention the painful lag in Premiere caused by the excessive number of files. To solve this, I had to create proxies so that I could work more efficiently with smaller files. A long process but effective nonetheless.

Constraints

When I first chose the constraint of ‘no voiceover’ I assumed it was referring to the conventional use of climate-related speeches but later realised it meant avoiding the use of human voice altogether. This became a major issue for me once I started collecting footage. I was gravitating towards videos with dialogue that had the potential to be recontextualised in order to create meaning.

There was a particular Aldi commercial where the character repeats a long list of tomato sauce options in a dazed tone. This stood out to me as I felt, if remixed/looped, it could reflect the unnecessary number of options we have. I sought feedback from Elaine, wondering whether human voice as a source of rhythm and sound (as opposed to having the words drive the narrative) is allowed. I got the go-ahead but am still reluctant to continue with this idea as I fear it isn’t entirely consistent with the constraints.

Responding to Feedback

In her feedback, Jasmine had raised concern over the potentially jarring transition from a familiar, positive image to one that is shocking and overwhelming. To respond to this, I’m aiming to create an eery mood from start to finish, which will gradually become more emphasised through fast-paced editing and the introduction of more images and sounds. To achieve this, I am planning to open with footage of people eating whilst creating an unsettling feeling by either keeping it silent or pairing it with unnatural sounds such as the ticking of a metronome or scraping of plates.

 

Adjustments

Another addition I’ve made is the inclusion of my own footage. Since my project is almost entirely based on found footage, I thought it might be nice to personalise it with some of my own by incorporating parts of old videotapes of my family eating. I thought it might be interesting to challenge my own ideas of food consumption and how these fond memories still have consequences. This thought is inspired by Clark’s discussion of the Anthropocene Disorder, defined by the “the mismatch between familiar day-to-day perception and the sneering voice of even a minimal ecological understanding or awareness of scale effects (2015:140).” My intention isn’t to make these special moments redundant, but simply to create some awareness over practises we rarely scrutinise because of their sentimental value.

References

Clark, T 2015, “Chapter Seven: Anthropocene Disorder”, in Ecocriticism on the Edge: The Anthropocene as a Threshold Concept, Bloomsbury Publishing, p.139-158.