Creative Media Practice Project End of Semester
2000-word Individual Self-Evaluation
Explain the concept for your work, try to outline your idea clearly and concisely and indicate where your influences and inspirations for this piece have come from? Consider the intended audience for your work and consider how you would like the project to be received; is there a particular age group or background for example that the work is aimed at?
Give a detailed critical analysis of the finished piece of work for this project, try to consider your work as a member of an audience and recognise what has worked well and what has not been as successful in your project. Try to be objective and weigh up the pros and cons focusing on the positive outcomes as well as the areas that have room for improvement. Reflect on what you would change if you could make the work again?
2000-word Individual Self-Evaluation
Explain the concept for your work, try to outline your idea clearly and concisely and indicate where your influences and inspirations for this piece have come from? Consider the intended audience for your work and consider how you would like the project to be received; is there a particular age group or background for example that the work is aimed at?
| The concept of this experimental film is based on a man bored of living, not suicidal but one that despises mortality. An intuitive logical introvert, an unhealthy rational thinker that is unhappy with his life and has a realisation that he should seek for the opposition. He works in an office and has to wear a suit everyday, gradually in the film, it shows the character slowly transferring himself from the office environment into nature, his appearance also changes when this happens. The character is a protagonist that switches roles to an antagonist (himself) that forms a disdain for technology, a neo-Luddite that suffers from neuroticism and self-deprecation. It shows a cycle of human nature in which we cannot escape but to experience. This idea was inspired by the film Holy Mountain (1973), the pink wig from quirky films such as Clockwork Orange (1971), Party Monster (2003) and Moonrise Kingdom (2012), the smoke pellets idea was from Toro y Moi's music video 'Talamak', the broken mac products was just lying around my friend's house and we needed interesting props. The vomiting of black goo idea is from Begotten (1990), Exorcist (1973) and Prometheus (2012). Combining all these influences of the 'Kafkaesque', the quirky and the grotesque, it almost had a Kubrickian element to it as well. I thought it had a bit of avant-garde element to it which is what experimental films are all about. The narration that circulated around this idea included: "My inevitable death and disintegration makes me ill." "The iguana bites those who do not dream." The intended audience for this film is for people who are interested in surrealism and philosophy, middle-class background, mainly people ages roughly between 20-30years. |
Give a detailed critical analysis of the finished piece of work for this project, try to consider your work as a member of an audience and recognise what has worked well and what has not been as successful in your project. Try to be objective and weigh up the pros and cons focusing on the positive outcomes as well as the areas that have room for improvement. Reflect on what you would change if you could make the work again?
The pink wig idea stemmed from films such as Party Monster (2003) which included 'Club Kids' that wore outrageous high-fashion clothes, make-up and wigs. I thought this would contribute into the film more because the main agenda was to show extreme oppositions, even if it was his appearance, I felt that it benefited our experimental film aesthetically. The character starts off with brown hair and wearing a suit and ends up with a pink wig and a poncho, therefore the opposition is highlighted extremely. The contrast of his artificial pink hair against nature evokes a sense of surrealism and a sense of unease. I remembered a comment from Debbie saying it was 'creepy' and that was exactly what I was going for. This idea of 'creepiness' derived from watching a few Dada experimental films such as Ballet Mecanique and Begotten, with this in mind, I combined a comical pink wig with something grotesque like the character vomiting out black goo. Shot composition ideas were also considered using Kubrick's Clockwork Orange, his whole show reel of shots were presented in the book such as when Alex is smiling with his vampire teeth, I’m going to direct Ben to smile with black liquid coming out of his mouth, in this case, he looks disgusted which wasn’t the way I imagined the shots to turn out.  'My inevitable death and disintegration makes me ill' is inserted into the narration at the end of the film, to describe the character's situation. This is when the character is seen wearing a pink wig, fake eyelashes, wearing a poncho meditating and sitting in a lotus position with smoke coming out from behind in a forest setting. I bought some black food colouring that could intensify the aesthetics of him vomiting black goo. This was inspired from the unpleasant Begotten (1990), an experimental horror film about Genesis. Aesthetically, most of the audiences liked the photography but was struggling to understand the meaning. Some of my friends even wrote me paragraphs of what they thought the film was about, it really depends who we show this film to. The things that I could improve next time is to be aware of errors we make during editing sessions, such as our film equipment was seen in the mis-en-scene. Apparently the pink wig didn’t work, the way to fix this is to remove the pink wig and could have thought of different ways to show oppositions and through wider perspectives. Ideas, pre-production and shot lists could have been more organised. Different editing techniques could have been implemented more professionally. The way I wanted the audience to receive this experimental film is that it's so abstract that people would have their own interpretations, my aim was to make viewers think outside their comfort zones and watch something non-linear. It's Eisenstein's theory of intellectual montage, with the equation of x+y=z, 'z' being a new meaning created through a series of montage that only exists in the audiences' mind. An example of this being used in the editing is when there was a pan of the forest trees overlaying Ben in his suit, 2 images over-layering each other with 55% opacity. This was repeatedly done with Ben with the pink wig, to show the integration of human and nature.  It was interesting how I evoked some philosophical thoughts within a few viewers, it was definitely great to hear people's interpretation on it. Especially how we decided to end the film with a suggestion that the ending was the beginning of the character's journey as well, it's a very contradicting idea but it matched the genre well, showing the nature of oppositions and what happens when this integrates and disintegrates. "As above, so below."- Hermeticism Describe the process of making the work and your individual contribution. Did things work out differently from the way you had visualised them at the planning stage? What production issues did you encounter that caused problems during the creative process? |
A range of sounds were recorded around Sheffield, the idea of the experimental film is to show the binary opposition between civilisation (city) and nature, how both of them clash together with connotations of the inevitable human life cycle. It could have an idea of man against machines as well, its adverse effects will be presented. Tom Cunningham and I decided that we will split the roles in this production, I was in charge of the Director/Writer/Sound producer side whilst Tom was in charge of the cinematography and film editing. Both of us will be mixing jobs as well to get it on the right track. At the beginning, we used a Marantz and recorded sounds of ice cubes in a cup, door slamming, food wrappers, leaves rustling, car engines, hydrophone in a fountain, people talking and all this is edited with the experimental sounds I created with Thumbjam that was uploaded on soundcloud to show my progress. (https://soundcloud.com/huxleygirl)
"The iguana bites those who do not dream."
I recorded these phrases of David speaking and then edited it into the soundscape using Soundtrack Pro, effects were applied especially the word 'dream', I had to duplicate a small segment of the word and pasted it on a different stereo track so the word 'dream' is amplified.
I played around with Thumbjam on my iPhone 4Gs, there's a variety of instruments I combined together such as the Hammered dulcimer, Round Sine, Tenor Sax, Musical Saw and a range of Synth strings sounds. I wanted a continuous ambient atmosphere so I edited a Synth track over the entire soundscape so it all blended together as a whole. Thumbjam retain no copyright on recordings made using their software therefore I am free to use this in my work. The editing of all the sounds took about 5 hours and some tweaks that took an extra hour. I mostly played around with the effects, over layering soundtracks and samples I made, using reverb on footstep sounds and changing EQ levels.
Music influences included the song ‘Hazy Bones’ by Cut One, I told my friend David to play a riff from this song and I recorded it. A short monologue from 'Aleister Crowley Most Evil Man in the world' BBC Documentary was used in the soundscape as well. Moreover, An actor called Ben Wardle was found using the Facebook drama group which was an absolute necessity.
Tom and I finalised the editing on Final Cut Pro X, it was difficult at first but I prefer FCPx because it is simplified. One of the advantages would be that transitions don't need to be rendered and exporting the film was quicker. It took 3 sessions of shooting over the course of 3 weeks with 3 different locations (Office, Alleyway and Forest scenes) with the same actor. The editing took about 12 hours all put together with 5 different sessions. The filming probably took about 7 hours in total with 40 minute footage condensed into 2.54 minutes.
I was in charge of the props that cost less than £15 such as the smoke pellets cost £6, the white cloth £2, brown dye £2, the black food colouring £0.84, the dv tapes about £5, the pink wig and eyelashes are my own possession. The broken Mac products and hammer belonged to my friend David but he didn't mind us damaging it. Finding a volunteer driver to drive us to Endcliffe Park for the film shoot was difficult because the equipment we had to carry between two of us would be a major pain. At the end, I found a volunteer driver from a facebook film group. Many thanks to Thomas Fox that kindly drove us there and drove us back.
During the planning stage, we were focused on the idea of the clash between city and nature. I wanted to show this in the most artistic way as possible so we just started filming the actor doing insane things like smashing the keyboard in an alleyway, it is a generic idea but I thought a destruction of an object was necessary to show the disintegration of the character's mind. We were also thinking of using weapons such as a knife but chose a hammer instead. This all sounded ridiculous but filming it with the fake blood applied at the end of the hammer and directing the actor to smash it, was a strange sight. I wanted to make the character do strange activities such as plugging a usb into a tomato because this would provoke perceptions and ideologies from viewers, it would make them think about it during the viewing of the film. It is these small inserts of strange happenings that create a sense of unease and surrealism.
It is important to write in detail about what you have learnt during the project both technically and creatively. Outline specific skills you have developed because of making the work and new methods or approaches you have experimented with.
"The iguana bites those who do not dream."
I recorded these phrases of David speaking and then edited it into the soundscape using Soundtrack Pro, effects were applied especially the word 'dream', I had to duplicate a small segment of the word and pasted it on a different stereo track so the word 'dream' is amplified.
I played around with Thumbjam on my iPhone 4Gs, there's a variety of instruments I combined together such as the Hammered dulcimer, Round Sine, Tenor Sax, Musical Saw and a range of Synth strings sounds. I wanted a continuous ambient atmosphere so I edited a Synth track over the entire soundscape so it all blended together as a whole. Thumbjam retain no copyright on recordings made using their software therefore I am free to use this in my work. The editing of all the sounds took about 5 hours and some tweaks that took an extra hour. I mostly played around with the effects, over layering soundtracks and samples I made, using reverb on footstep sounds and changing EQ levels.
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| What the sound design looked like on Soundtrack Pro |
Tom and I finalised the editing on Final Cut Pro X, it was difficult at first but I prefer FCPx because it is simplified. One of the advantages would be that transitions don't need to be rendered and exporting the film was quicker. It took 3 sessions of shooting over the course of 3 weeks with 3 different locations (Office, Alleyway and Forest scenes) with the same actor. The editing took about 12 hours all put together with 5 different sessions. The filming probably took about 7 hours in total with 40 minute footage condensed into 2.54 minutes.
I was in charge of the props that cost less than £15 such as the smoke pellets cost £6, the white cloth £2, brown dye £2, the black food colouring £0.84, the dv tapes about £5, the pink wig and eyelashes are my own possession. The broken Mac products and hammer belonged to my friend David but he didn't mind us damaging it. Finding a volunteer driver to drive us to Endcliffe Park for the film shoot was difficult because the equipment we had to carry between two of us would be a major pain. At the end, I found a volunteer driver from a facebook film group. Many thanks to Thomas Fox that kindly drove us there and drove us back.
During the planning stage, we were focused on the idea of the clash between city and nature. I wanted to show this in the most artistic way as possible so we just started filming the actor doing insane things like smashing the keyboard in an alleyway, it is a generic idea but I thought a destruction of an object was necessary to show the disintegration of the character's mind. We were also thinking of using weapons such as a knife but chose a hammer instead. This all sounded ridiculous but filming it with the fake blood applied at the end of the hammer and directing the actor to smash it, was a strange sight. I wanted to make the character do strange activities such as plugging a usb into a tomato because this would provoke perceptions and ideologies from viewers, it would make them think about it during the viewing of the film. It is these small inserts of strange happenings that create a sense of unease and surrealism.
It is important to write in detail about what you have learnt during the project both technically and creatively. Outline specific skills you have developed because of making the work and new methods or approaches you have experimented with.
| During this project, I've learnt that sound is equally as important as moving image because it engages and controls where audiences’ perceptions lead to. I've never used Soundtrack Pro before so it was exciting to create my first experimental soundscape with the software. Comments from the critical review session were helpful, most people said the soundscape was cinematic but I did record my friend playing guitar at the end but the other instrumental sounds were created through Thumbjam. Technically, I learnt how to use EQ levels, reducing noise, applying the right amount of reverb, checking levels, creating tracks and correcting pitch of sounds. In final cut pro, I learnt how film clips could be dragged inward and outward more appropriately and errors could easily be changed without any drastic changes to the experimental film. An example would be syncing sounds with the moving image, that was challenging but we managed to make it work. There was about five editing sessions we did for the film. I experimented with the colour palettes which was fun because Tom and I aimed for great photography in each shot and didn’t want to include any shaky camera work. I treated the whole experimental film as an art photography piece with each shot having some sort of specific mood to it, such as hue/saturation and contrast along with the teal/orange look. |
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