Month: December 2017

This Buzzfeed video may be a bit ridiculous, but it does relate to my film.   Some of them after a few minutes can play their instrument. Its like learning a bike, you never forget how to ride one after. But this is honestly like how I play my cello, since I have joined university I have played my cello less and less and I constantly have to relearn everything even though I know a lot of it. However if these people practice, even after all those years, it would be like nothing changed.

 

Article – http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/powerful-art-exhibit-powerfully-answers-the-question-what-were-you-wearing_us_59baddd2e4b02da0e1405d2a

In the University of Kansas an art exhibition was curated called “What were you wearing”.

The exhibit, showcased 18 sexual harassment stories, with the outfit they were wearing at the time of their assault. The outfits were all very varied, from bikinis, t’shirts, jeans ect.

 

“What were you wearing?”

It’s a question people ask survivors of sexual violence all too often; a question wrought with victim-blaming and an implication that, maybe, the survivor could’ve prevented their assault if they had worn something less revealing, less sexy.  – (HuffingtonPost.com,2017). 

 

This particularly stood out to me, as it resonated with me that it shouldn’t matter how another human being is dressed, no form of dressing is ever an invitation to assault another human being sexually against their own will. This become a source of inspiration for the visuals for my video. The huge text throughout the visuals “THIS IS NOT AN INVITE’ and “SHE WAS NEVER ASKING FOR IT”, were influenced by the motivation and meaning behind this particular exhibition that I stumbled upon during my research.

 

My source of inspiration for this project is somewhat, to an extent, a sensitive issue – ‘Sexual harassment’.  The subject matter is something which normally isn’t spoken about or explored on a day to day basis, maybe being due to the fact that it’s almost a slightly ‘taboo’ issue. However, with the current boom in today’s social media, its become a topic which has been brought to the surface. The tremendous number of stories that have risen to be apparent was brought to my attention, as everyday.. a new story would appear on my phone across an array of different social media platforms. I began reading stories, articles, blog posts, interviews and youtube content by people effected. Being a woman, this all sparked a huge level of interest, after coming across so many shocking stories. However, after exploration, it was the number of ‘small’ stories that evoked emotion in me. Thus, I came to the conclusion that I wanted my video to have a purpose in society and to most importantly create change, and enlighten the viewers. I wanted my piece of work to be a form of activism, which led me to researching into art as a form of activism.

Through my research, I become aware how art can be an amazing way of provoking change. The video above states that activism in art causes “conversations to be sparked” and “controversy is sparked”, it can “enlighten” and most importantly to “educate”. Shannon Galphin, created a portable photography exhibition in open spaces around Afghanistan, she reinforces that art in war torn countries and places in severe distress is needed more so than in the safe western world and that art can be a powerful tool to send out messages or to make people feel a certain way. Her passion and remarkable work truly inspired me, to create a piece of art, that too, would hopefully make a change in a positive manner.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta8X3gqOw1I&t=144s

The media recently has been bombarded with sexual harassment stories from woman in the film industry in particular, which resulted in the formation of the #MeToo Campaign on social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. The astonishing amount of these stories taking a surface has been absolutely shocking. Being a woman myself, I can completely resonate with fortunately somewhat a lot lesser versions of sexual assault in a ‘verbal’ manner. This has been a huge inspiration for the sound for my project, as I wanted to create a sound that will be highly emotive on the matter and help to continue to create awareness on the situation. I wanted my sound to make the listener feel a certain type of way and to use it as an educational tool on the topic, to underpin how crucial it is to understand that sexual harassment is never justifiable.

I used this type of vintage sound along shocking real life images of the poultry farming industry in order to better emphasise the opposition between what people think about when consuming versus what the process is before the food arrives on our tables.

Thanks to the camera pivoting on subtle facial expressions and hand movements, we are drown to focus on the screen more than ever as the subtle movements pile up progressively, creating suspense.

This scene from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is an inspiration to the visuals of my video. This is because it is filmed to show a form of non verbal dialogue between the characters, where the absence of verbalisation is commonly considered “silence”.

A clip from Full Metal Jacket (1987), a war film directed by Stanley Kubrick, best known for the abusive behaviour of Sergeant Hartman towards Leonard Lawrance aka Private Pyle. In the scene which Pvt. Pyle committed suicide after he killed Hartman, the buzzing noise of the background makes the whole scene more intense and depressive.

I have been looking at the best way to approach my video and came over Tchaikovsky’s Op. 49 form 1812. The piece leads you through a mixture of feelings and pushes the listener into a corner – which is exactly what I want to achieve. Instead of music, I will however experiment with “everyday” sounds and how they can affect an image or, more specifically to my project, a dream. Furthermore, the piece gave me the idea to tell a story without moving images until the last scene or “dramatic climax”. I’m however not sure if I will be able to succeed to it in 30 seconds and will further investigate into it.

 

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Tchaikovsky (1812) Festival Overture Op. 49 Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C-YSq5flow [Accessed 19 December]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2RaRgmXqJI&list=PLEHbnvX_Fs45t2RLYfUB-NeTQ2x_-PO_J

Having decided to create an advertisement campaign for the brand Helmut Lang (promoting a more sustainable direction for the brand), I looked for inspiration in their previous advertisement campaigns to get a sense of their typical marketing style and tone.

To me, the sound in this campaign is reminiscent of the constant beat of a sewing machine, showing how even a repetitive noise can be used to create tension and suspense. For this reason, the ‘sound’ element of my film will comprise of my own recordings of sewing machines mixed with a techno track of a similar rhythm, almost as if the sewing machine were a part of the original track. I hope that the sounds of a sewing machine will resonate with the background concept of sustainability, since today fast fashion is one of the biggest sources of waste and is something which is pointing us towards a very unsustainable future.

In my advert, I want to use a sequence of flashing stills of my own Helmut Lang-styled photographs as the visual element, combined with some motion graphics to represent the movement of a sewing machine.

 

Andrei Tarkovsky is able to reach a sentimental level in his film ‘Nostalghia’ by capturing the movements of the soul in the characters of the film, focusing on the protagonist’s nostalgic yearning for his homeland and  his search for real meaning in his life. This sentimental sense of nostalgia that is certainly evident increases the ineffable spirituality throughout the film.