Thinking with Pictures – Assignment 5.2 – Studio Review
From Thinking with Pictures
Two films I choose from my studio is Beatopia by Beatrice and Nothing is Everything by Cassandra. Both films are made in collages style mix with footages, which I found very refreshing and visually pleasing to watch. Collage itself is an archetypally modern technique of sticking old newspaper cutting onto canvas since 1912 (1843 Magazine), therefore the first impression of these two films is that they are nostalgically aesthetic, representing a vintage soul of the girls in their 21st century youth.
Beatopia by Beatrice Madamba
Beatopia is a story of Beatrice’s girlhood that is told in a linear way. But as it is heavily layered with moving footages and still images, it has a depth that adds so much more to the linear story. I feel like this film perfectly represents herself in many ways. Firstly, the color palette. The rosy, red, the warmth that creates such nostalgic feeling, and it does not stop at just 2017 but goes far back to those black and white screen and film camera period. Secondly, the details: dried petals, the hand writings, and the polaroid photos. It is like an interesting way of her to tell how the time passed through, how she has been so attentive to how the world surrounds her and how she is able to keep it by her side.
‘What is means to be a person?’, asked Beatrice’s friend. The way she used this conversation to question, first of all provides her own view, that she ‘hates’ the question. Maybe because it’s too hard, maybe because there are still so much more she has to learn to know the answer. But then comes the simplest answer from her friend: ‘to love, learn, and grow. And to feel, and be, and survive.’ Or is it her own way of saying, ‘I am a person.’? Either way, I love their expression, and it definitely the highlight of the film for me.
Nothing is Everything by Cassandra Nikoloska
Comparing to Beatopia, Nothing is Everything is a much more collage-heavy film. From the texts to the dinner table and the bedroom, everything is made magical and carefully put in collage. The contrast between the fantasy world made up with collage and the actual world is beautiful. Audience can easily see how differently, or how interestingly, how colorfully she views the world around her. The variety of objects (the eyes, the heart, the universe, trees, and skies) also shows how attentive she is towards the nature surrounds her, and the rhythmic changes in the music and stop-motion images are worth-mentioning, as I can tell there are so much effort putting in it.
Also, Cassandra’s film differs from Beatrice’s as in her focus is not on her inner self but her perception of nature and how it identifies her as a person. The story of the fox is the highlight. The fox died, and decayed, but in her eyes, it is still beautiful. And it allows her freedom to live her life. What an important message everyone needs to hear!
From Media Bodies – The Knowing Body: From feeling to experience on screen and in sound
Media Bodies is a studio where they explore the body senses and experiences, how it smells, hears, and sees, then share it on screen and sound. The studio focuses on nostalgia, color, and video.
Colours by Dean Zhao, Given Arya, Emma Fitzgerald, and Sofia Frabotta-De Los Santos.
Colours portrays how the three primary colors red, yellow, and blue manifest themselves human’s sentiments, reactions, and behavior. And this is my interpretation:
- Red equals danger. The red part of the film is portrayed under over-the-shoulder and close-up angles, which is very common in horror films to create a sense of someone watching from afar, accompanied with creepy sound effect to heightened audience’s cautiousness.
- Yellow is curiosity and fun, I guess. The girl followed herself in yellow, means she is escaping the boring life on the phone and run towards a much brighter life?
- Blue represents sadness and/or boredom. The juxtaposition of the harsh, artificial blue light in the room and the blue of the natural sea and sky works so well in making the sea looks like a dream effortlessly. Also, the same body movement in two different environments (such as the hand on the mouse versus hand in the sand) is phenomenal.
I also notice the accompanying colors such as the green exit sign in red, pink nails and flannel in yellow, black and white in blue. Intentional or not, those colors surely put another layer of meaning to the film.
Memories of Movement by Finn Corr, Maddie Hansen, Ruby O’Sullivan-Belfrage, and Shiloh Cavallin.
Memories of Movement (M.O.M) is a three-part project, of people describing their most joyous moment in life. Although taken in a simple form of an interview, M.O.M takes audiences through a journey of perspectives.
First part is what listeners see and hear: the ups and downs in their voices, and the pure emotions on their face. Part 2 is what the interviewees experiencing during the interview: the vague and blurry memories of their body within those memories, the sound, and the sparks of emotions, blend in with them talking it into words. Last part is what actually happened, which leads audience to experience those memories for themselves.
Apart from some unsettled changes in the audio of the interviewees, this is a very innovative way to approach the means of this studio.
Reference:
‘Stick ’em up! A Surprising history of collage’, 1843 Magazine, The Economist, viewed 5 June 2022, <https://www.economist.com/1843/2019/07/24/stick-em-up-a-surprising-history-of-collage>