Daily Archives: 26/11/2020

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NEW NORMAL – Recording/EDITING

26/11/2020 Thomas L Leave a comment

Recording

The final film has been made to show the impact of the pandemic on teenagers using a lot of Jake’s and my own experiences. All shots in our film are moving images, not still images. In addition to this, when recording, our aim was to make sure that the majority of the video had a grey, dull atheistic to it, giving the overall film an impactful and negative effect. In order to achieve this, the shots were taken on darker days with a naturally grey tone or at night. The dark colours act as a metaphor for the negativity the pandemic has brought and help emphasis the eerie vibes, now commonplace as a result of the lock down.

This shot was taken to emphasis the eerie vibes, now commonplace as a result of the lock down

The film we be shot, mostly free hand was recorded on a Nikon DSLR camera. We shot the film free hand as we wanted to capture a natural and more relatable documentary style film. However some shots were be taken on a tripod which was especially useful in time lapses. Some shots were also filmed with a 200mm lens which helped capture long distance shots, where zooming into cars or buildings for example was necessary for our film.

Time lapse shot with Nikon DSLR Camera and 200mm lens filmed on a tripod.

None of our models/subjects in our film show their face. We wanted the film to appear anonymous and able to relate to anyone. A large focus will be on the behavior of a person, their hands and their actions as facial expressions won’t be included as anonymity is a key theme in our film.

Various shots of people doing various different actions, and as mentioned, no shot shows a persons face as anonymity is a key theme in our film.

The narrative is a cyclical narrative, as in it starts how it ends: in chronological order, someone is looking at their phone watching the news – the cases going up, then the imposing of lock down, cases then fall, releasing of restrictions, and then a repeat where cases rise and lock down is threatened again.

Editing Techniques

The film as a whole took many hours to edit. We used Adobe Premier Pro CC in order to produce the highest quality film we could as it offers the best tools and features to achieve this. The editing itself took lots of trial and error, removing many scenes and adding unplanned scenes/edits to help keep the flow and story intact throughout the film.

We used the clipping and splitting tool a lot as the film has been fully comprised of cut scenes, flashing through one another, possibly only having screen time for a seconds rather than one continuous shot. Many clips in the initial part of the film were taken from news outlets (all of which are cited/credited at the end of the film) using screen recording features available on iPhone, which is evident in the scenes where graphs and live broadcasts are projected at the almost immediate start of the film. Clip positioning was integral to make sure the story portrayed in our film made sense.

The film has been comprised of cut scenes, flashing through one another, possibly only having screen time for a seconds rather than one continuous shot. Here, someone is looking at their phone watching the news watching as the the cases are going up.

Some clips were sped up, and others also slowed down from real life in order to create the slow, dramatic atmosphere once lock down was imposed, essentially showing that time had felt like it had slowed down or even stopped.

The above photos were taken from clips where the video was slowed down for dramatic effect.

In the film, we only used one visual transition which is seen at the very end during the credits. We wanted to avoid too many transitions as it would make our film seem tacky, and our theme was already established that we would strictly use cut scenes made up of straight cuts.

The final part of the film with a repeat of our title page and credits as well as citation of news clips we used in the beginning of the film were all put together and was only time we used a visual transition in our film.

Lastly, we needed a title/opening scene as well as the credits. I designed them all on Adobe Photoshop CC as it offered the best tools for me to achieve this. I created them including a very high resolution image that fit the theme of lock down very well from the internet. However, I encountered a problem with my first rendition of the title page which is the top left image below, where the size was wrong for the film as the aspect ratio on Adobe Premier Pro would mean that the image would either have to be cropped, resulting in a lower quality image which wasn’t desirable. This led me to designing the image in the top right adjacent to the first rendition. This was my final design which included the correct aspect ratio for the film. Then, I decided to experiment with an end sequence which would be included before the credits of our film, however neither of the bottom two pictures made it into the final film.

Different title sequences of which only one was picked.

Sound Editing

Sound plays a very important role in the film with much of the pace, emotion and setting relying on the audio and is key for keeping the fluidity of the film. As a result of this, most of the film was made up of separately recorded audio and audio effect from Adobe Premiere Pro CC. In order to achieve this, we used lots of sound techniques and lots of audio layering. This is because by doing this, we were able to create atmosphere in the film, such as on an empty street with just the sound of the wind or the sound of laughter and chatter in a pub or restaurant.

We used lots of sound techniques and lots of audio layering, this is because by doing this, we were able to create atmosphere in the film, such as on an empty street with just the sound of the wind.

The sound is also used to portray some of the most impactful events over the past year and we will be using audio clips from new reports, radio broadcasts and other media in our film, (such as the lockdown announcement on the news). The sound provides the most change and contrast in the film and impacts the visual element the most, making the film much more impactful and personal on the viewer.

We chose not to use music in this film, unless it fitted the environment however even then it simply is restricted to the background and not the main focus of the scene, i.e party scene with music in background.

The party scene in our film incorporates music with lots of bass in the background.

We used audio from the website ‘freesound.org’, aswell as some from the clips but mostly, specifically recorded sounds to add into the video. This in my opinion made the video seem much more professional than just using audio from the clips. This also gives us the opportunity to remove wind noise or talking that may have occurred behind the camera. For example clips such as the empty street clip we plan to capture had no audio from the original video but rather was superimposed with mp3 sounds downloaded from the internet.

ESSAY Q-

26/11/2020 Chloe B 1 Comment

In what way can the work of Claude Cahun and Shannon O’Donnell be considered political?

Both Claude Cahun and Shannon O’Donnell deal with similar themes of rebellion against society’s expectations and tradition in general, which could both be considered political in a way. They relate to the expectations placed upon women to look and act in a certain way, using self-portraiture to project their own feelings on the subject in a way that others can comprehend and relate. The two artists present the subject of gender, it’s link to biological sex, and their own personal experience in their photography in a way that directly and indirectly challenges both the individual viewer and society as a whole to reflect on gender identity, feminism, and the politics surrounding gender.

The theory that gender, “the roles, characteristics, and activities that distinguish men from women” (MoMA, Constructing Gender) is not some biological fact but rather a series of notions constructed by society, is apparent throughout much of both artists’ work, with the differences being that O’Donnell uses it to explore and experiment with her gender identity, and Cahun is much more continual and secure in representing herself as always on the line between society’s idea of a woman or a man, firmly placing herself on the spectrum of androgyny, instead of simply experimenting with it like O’Donnell. The idea of gender being a social construct link into the Surrealist art movement as well, which Claude Cahun was a key part of during her lifetime.

The link between gender identity and political rebellion is not a new one, as can clearly be seen in Cahun’s work, which dates over sixty years ago in some instances. The connection rises from the continued control of women in the law, from abortion and sexual health nowadays to the right to get married, own property, have a job in any particular career, all of which were limited to women in Cahun’s era, although they would be considered basic rights in modern times. This historic oppression and attempted control of women leads to rebellion from women and men alike, often resorting to art or literature as mediums to express their anger. The use of art as a form of rebellion against politics is one of a few clear reasons why both of these artists and their work can be considered political.

Claude Cahun’s work specifically has key links to the theme of rebellion (both political and societal), gender roles, and the concept of self-expression through clothes and other outward factors. She was a French, queer, Surrealist and Absurdist photographer born to a Jewish family and was active from the 1920s through to the 40s. During the Second World War she was residing in Jersey with her partner Marcel Moore, and while the island was occupied, they both became key resistance fighters against the Nazis. They weren’t originally seen as targets to be feared by the occupants due to their age and the fact they were women, which helped them elude punishment for years while they published and spread anti-Nazi propaganda, often mocking officers and higher-ranking Nazis, criticised fascism, attempted to incite soldiers into rebellion or desertion, and spread news they had heard (illegally) from the BBC. Eventually, they were both arrested and sentenced to death, but were held in prison and released when the island was liberated in 1945.

This image represents Cahun’s belief that she had multiple identities at once, famously quoted saying “I will never finish removing all these masks,” demonstrating how her gender was more of a performance than a set of rules she adhered to that were presented to her by other people/society. Her skin is clear and bright white due to the exposure, as a result her dark eyes stand out prominently from the whole image, inviting us to judge her expression and guess her thoughts through them. She was very fond of the double exposure method and often used it in her self-portraits to illustrate two separate identities, or “selfs”, sometimes with completely contrasting characteristics of emotions.

However, in this image, the double exposure is more used to demonstrate how she feels herself pulled between two different sides of herself, perhaps between genders. She said in Disavowed Confessions, “Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me.”, which is possibly what this image is visually representing.

The image is black and white, typical of the time it was taken (1920s). The focus of the image is clearly the two heads of Cahun in the centre foreground, with a plain dark background drawing even more attention to them. The image is titled “what do you want from me?” in French, which further reveals how Cahun is indifferent to the expectations placed on her by other people to be traditionally feminine, and that her art is a direct rebuttal and refusal of this. Another interpretation could be that the question is directed to herself, and she is internally struggling with how to define herself as a person and be content with it.

Shannon O’Donnell is a contemporary photographer who also focuses on gender roles as topic of exploration, and her work often questions authority figures and prescribed ideas in society. Her series “Shrinking Violets” mocks women’s traditional roles in the household, “Abort Mission” links the Catholic Church to the continued control over women’s reproductive rights and the general oversexualisation of women, and “That’s Not The Way The River Flows” illustrates O’Donnell’s own exploration of her gender identity and traditional ideas of gender in society.

This image is taken from O’Donnell’s project “That’s Not The Way The River Flows,” and it mirrors the image I analysed by Cahun in that it is a self-portrait of her face, representing her internal struggle and her perception of her own identity. She is dressed in a suit, which is stereotypically masculine, but we can see her feminine facial features through the fabric wrapped around her head. This piece of fabric could be interpreted to symbolise how she feels trapped by the societal norms she is expected to follow, or possibly it could be that she feels, much like Cahun, that she is wearing a mask and that the way she presents herself normally is not the way she wants to be.

The image is also in black and white, but less harsh than Cahun’s as the technology nowadays allows for far more tonal range. There are a lot of grey tones in the image, and the fabric covering O’Donnell’s face is practically the same colour as the background; it could almost fade into the background if it weren’t for the fact that O’Donnell’s eyes, eyebrows and lips are still visible underneath. The greatest contrast is between the blazer and the white shirt, as the shirt is quite noticeably brighter white, plus the textures of the two fabrics are visually different: the shirt is smooth, crisp and soft, and the blazer looks rougher and more coarse.

In conclusion, both artists use their gender identity and self-expression to project their rebellion against authority figures, which is in its own way a political statement. In Claude Cahun’s era, the images she created would be a good deal more political and rebellious than O’Donnell’s work is now, due to the growth in acceptance of different gender expressions nowadays and the increase of LGBTQ+ rights, however they are both making a statement in opposition to some form of authority figure. The historic oppression of people expressing themselves freely, particularly queer people like Cahun, has led to these sorts of statements and artworks being inherently linked to politics.

LINKS TO SOURCES USED-

26/11/2020 George W Leave a comment

Film Critique

The main idea of the film “Deception” is to show the contrast between alcohol and cannabis and promote awareness around the idea that cannabis should be a gift that should be cherished and not banned. The film is set in the early 2020 jersey, where cannabis is illegal. The film is shot in outside locations to provide a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere. The audience is not distracted by the theme as we have filmed it a unique and simple way of using cut scenes to create a visually pleasing film.

The film starts with Gabriel, our main character walking slowly down a country footpath. The sun is setting and there is a general dark atmosphere taking over the shot. The music gets intense, a loud sad violin noise is heard as Gabriel starts rolling a cannabis joint. The camera pans in at multiple angles to create a timeless sequence visually showing the audience that Gabriel is at peace. Gabriel lights up the joint and is seen smoking.

The film deception uses sound a lot to create atmosphere for the audience. The audience are made aware when Gabriel gets high as the music changes from a sad dramatic noise to a upbeat happy relaxed sound.

The film then turns dark with Gabriel seen cycling down a long country road. A car is seen swerving and speeding up. The audience has a third person view on the event which is about to unfold as they see the drink driver speeding towards Gabriel. Gabriel unknowingly cycles happily along the road. The car is seen to speed up then we hear a dramatic crash sound effect and an immediate black out. This creates tension and shocks the audience as we fear for the worse. The camera then pans into Gabriel mangled on the floor with his bike tire spinning.

Overall, I think this film is good as it examines the idea that alcohol is a lot worse than cannabis and therefore cannabis should be legalized. This use of rebellious behavior incorporates the theme of rebellion. Would the same outcome with Gabriel being killed happen if the driver was smoking cannabis?