Overall, I am quite pleased with our group film and the way it turned out. I think we did adequate planning before going out and taking the footage so that we were able to use the vast majority of what we got, and we weren’t missing any key clips.
We worked well together as a team, splitting responsibilities equally and all having a say in how the final video should be edited and just generally put together.
I think we stuck with our starter words of “risk, absurd, anti-art” well enough too. The element of risk was incorporated through going out and spray painting the bunker, essentially vandalism, and the actual medium of graffiti is well-known to be fairly anti-authority/establishment/tradition, which ties in with anti-art. The way we put the different clips together also links to the absurd, in my opinion, because there was no clear storyline or orderly sequence of images, therefore making it slightly nonsensical in the way that it could be interpreted differently by each individual who watches it.
I think if we were to do the project again, we could maybe have tried to have a wider variety of close up shots mixed in with the landscape ones, or maybe even experimenting with using black and white instead of colour. We kept the film as a whole fairly minimalist and simple, which worked well with what we had planned, but I wonder how it could have turned out if we had made it a bit more eclectic or flashy.
Personally I am happy with the final product, I think we included the three key aspects that inspired the project well, and we clearly also combined it with our own personal artistic styles.
We started off by adding a recording of the first coronavirus announcement in Jersey from right before we went into lockdown as the main sound to run underneath the whole film, because it adds context to the rest of our film and makes it more specific to where we live. It was quite a bit longer than 90 seconds so we just cropped it down when it came to a natural pause in speaking around our time limit.
Then we incorporated a couple of other ambient sounds that we’d collected, like siren noises in the beginning and wave sounds later on, where we knew we would be showing footage of the ocean crashing against the rocks. We used the same skills of just cropping them to fit the timing of the associated footage, and raising or fading out the volume when necessary, using the Editing features in Premiere Pro.
VIDEOS-
We essentially used the same skills throughout the whole editing process, because we mainly only needed to crop video length, extend them by slowing down the speed, and also splitting videos into separate bits so as to make a more visually cohesive final product. We quickly learnt how to separate the video element from its original audio, because that would mess up our planned soundscape, and it would be a lot more effective and impactful if the videos were silent too.
Here is an example of the sort of effects/transitions we used. For these couple videos we thought it would be best if the previous clip faded into white at the end and the clip afterwards faded into black, because the beginning and end of the middle clip were quite bright/dark, respectively. We achieved this using the Effects and Video Transitions panels in Premiere Pro.
At this point we were roughly halfway through putting our short film together and we had finally decided on a title, which referenced the quote that features throughout the film, relating to Jersey’s historic Occupation period and also current affairs (lockdown/isolation). We thought a typewriter-style font would look good, and using a still image from the shoot at our location we switched to Photoshop to put together this title card, then imported it to Premiere and added it to the beginning of our film, leaving a couple of seconds of black screen whilst the audio started.
We had quite a long video which panned over the main quote as a whole, and we thought it would be good to cut it up into shorter parts, seeing as a lot of the rest of our clips were roughly the same length, and it would add some variety and make it more interesting if they were shorter. We had to slow the actual footage down to make the words easier to read, but it still had the intended effect, and we were able to incorporate much more of our footage by splicing it in-between each couple of lines.
By this point we had used most of our good footage and were coming up to the 90 second mark so we added a longer landscape clip to tie up the whole film, then switched back out to Photoshop and created a credits end card with the roles we assigned at the very beginning. We chose to have a couple of seconds of just black screen with the audio still playing as it finished, because it mirrored how we started the film and it was a nice conclusion that wasn’t so visually overwhelming, keeping with the simple and minimalist vibe of the whole thing.
Fashion – the clothing choices will be the main representation of the idea of gender stereotypes, but incorporating colour as an aspect aswell. We are going to use white, typically feminine clothing such as a skirt and ruffled top for the scenes representing the female role, with the male character also wearing similar in the reversed scenes. Then for the male role it will be a black/dark suit or blazer, which the female character will also wear reversed.
We are also going to place blue objects in the background of the masculine scenes and pink in the feminine scenes to give a subtle nod to colours that have also been assigned to represent gender. Then in post, we will edit the sides of split screen to separate these two characters
After filming the pieces inspired by my mood board. I print screened particular parts of the footage so that I will have some still images. After screen printing, I put them into Photoshop and edited them slightly through levelling so that I could accentuate different parts of my body in particular scenes e.g my rib cage. This fits my title of ‘DYSMORPHIA’ quite well when including the still images.
In these first few images in particular, I was looking to accentuate different features of my body for the movie, this gave the idea that I was picking at every little bit of my body due to the judgement that I have received. The use of levelling helped with the accentuation with my bones as it created shadows that fell beside the structures and helped them pop out in the image. I like these photos because my goal was achieved (accentuation) however I do feel as though the images are quite dark. This is due to the levelling however without the darkness I wouldn’t of achieved that level of accentuation of my bone structure. The darkness also creates a great contrast between my body and the background.
These images are a bit brighter and do not focus so much on different parts of my body but instead reflect in a way the numbness that I feel about myself on a day to day bases. The levelling in these images helped with the contrast and added a little boldness to the images in order to make them more intriguing. The stills represent a really mundane atmosphere which is what I was going for overall in my film. Overall, I really like these still images and I’m also proud of how I managed to replicate my thoughts and ideas from a story board to literal footage and still images. These really reflect my concept and allow my message to get across.
As I’ve mentioned before, I want my film to have soft, calm visuals with the lighting reflecting the mood of the movie. It will be in black and white and many short clips within it, mainly of myself representing the concept, landscapes and soft visuals. I will be filming the video, therefore I will need to think specifically and carefully about the angles and where I will place the camera. I will also need to think about any props and what the background will look like in each frame/where the shooting will take place. To remind, my concept for this video is Body Shaming and people having a false representation of women’s bodies, this therefore having a negative effect on young girls, teenagers and women.
Voice Over Plan:
I’ve decided that for my sound I will use a voice over of me essentially speaking out loud my stream of consciousness and how I feel and what has caused me to feel like this. Also in the background there will be classical music just to add that somber feeling to the film. I’ll have to plan it out and do a few drafts before I record the voiceover on my iphone.
This is a piece that I wrote in about 10 minutes that represents feelings about myself and why I feel this way:
I dislike my body, because of what you’ve said to me. I never took notice, until you did. My brain is ignored and my personality is discarded. My image is all that matters to you. No one cares if i’m funny, or smart, or sweet. They care only what I look like. I’m simply just a shell to you. An object. For your own pleasure. But what do I get from this? Never feeling good enough. And always trying to change. Do I look too thin? Do I look too fat? Will they approve of this? Will they like me in this? I’m sick of counting calories, and pushing myself to exhaustion. I want to love my body, but no one will let me. My body is my temple, and it keeps me alive, I know it’s not perfect, but it’s about the inside.
Story Board:
So, within my story there will be a number of frames. There isn’t really a set structure to my movie that normally films do have like a beginning middle or end. The first frame of my story board is a close up image of my body, I will be accentuating different parts such as my ribs; sucking my stomach in and out to create a morphed image of my body. This frame may be repeated a few times with different areas of my body.
The second frame will be me looking in the mirror, without my camera equipment in view so it looks real life. I may be doing numerous things in this shot such as brushing my hair, sorting out my clothes, staring and picking at my body etc. Again, there may be multiple scenes of this within my film.
The third frame is again more parts of my body, this time it’ll be things like my legs and my arms. The shot will be very close up from a head on angle so that it is clear to the viewers what they are really looking at.
The fourth frame will be a shot of me in the shower. Showering and washing yourself is quite a private, vulnerable experience where you are able to see all parts of your body which is why I think it’ll be a good shot to get for my body shaming movie.
The fifth frame will be a bowl of food, or any food really. Within my voice over I mention that I am sick of counting calories, so, this frame will match up to that piece of voice recording and also introduce the idea that eating and what you eat also comes into body image.
The sixth frame will involve me lying on the bed as f I’m exhausted, worn out and generally down. This again will match up with my voice over when I mention the fact that I am exhausted and that I just want to love my body. I won’t be just lying there I may roll over and cover my face with my duvet as if I’m really upset and wanting to get away from it all.
Cahun’s work focused strongly on undermining traditional concepts of gender stereotypes and gender roles, Cahun considered herself as gender neutral. O’Donnell’s work is very similar to that of Cahun’s; exploring gender stereotypes and the fluidity of gender through clothes and body language. Their methods of work are very similar, both involving self-portraits of themselves and having a mundane, atmosphere to their projects.
Both of their concepts and projects can be considered political in the terms of Identity. Identity politics is a form of politics grounded in and organised by a shared identity that has been the target of unjust practices. Identity politics emerged in the second half of the twentieth century as a way or organising political claims on behalf of oppressed social groups typically, but not exclusively, in liberal democracies. such shared identities may include: ethnic, racial, religious, sexual, disabilities or gender-based. As you can see, Cahun and O’Donnell’s work explores gender which is in the category of Identity Politics. Cahun especially (born in 1894) would’ve been stigmatized for her out look, dress sense, hair cut etc and definitely would’ve been oppressed in those times. Times are very different now and people who are exploring their gender and the fluidity of that are now more welcomed and understood, however you could argue that themes within gender such as gender fluidity, gender transitions etc are still oppressed and still attract a lot of hatred from others which is why gender would still be considered political.
Not only is the concept of both artist’s work considered political, you could also say that the photographs and still images that the two produce are political in themselves. Claude tended to create self portraits that would flaunt her then-stigmatized look, this would’ve been controversial then and would’ve stirred up quite a talk. The clothes she wore, for example wearing trousers, the way she styled her hair, the way she positioned herself in images would’ve been abnormal to have been created and thus oppressed in itself. The audience may have not know of Cahun’s gender fluidity, yet the way she presented herself would’ve been criticised; falling into the category of identity politics. Additionally, Cahun used to release images that were almost mocking the audience for being attracted to what’s not on offer (because women were seen as desirable objects to men that were aesthetic, and Cahun mocked this idea). For example, in the image on the left of Cahun, she is dressed as a body builder, prehaps referring to her identity or multiple identity. Her t-shirt writes in the image: “I am in training do not kiss me “. This is a straightforward denial of the invitation evident in the rest of the portrait (accentuated nipples, thick makeup, love heart on legs etc). This is an attempt to ward off sexual trespassers. O’Donnell’s work is very similar again, she tends to use still images and experiments with clothing that have masculine or feminine connotations. She regularly dresses up in things like suits, with bathing costumes over the top which even to this day would be considered quite unique and different. This is again a form of identity politics; exploring and mixing outfits that define masculinity or femininity. Experimentation like this are still, to this day oppressed especially in certain cultures.
I decided to instead of taking photos of couples to take images of me, my dad and my horse. As these images were more relevant to the theme of my photo-zine, which is mine and my dads shared love of horses and nature.
