Chris Marker was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist. His best known films are La Jetée, A Grin Without a Cat and Sans Soleil. He is known for challenging moviegoers, philosophers, and even himself for years with his complex ideas about time, memory, and the rapid advancement of life on this planet.

Marker’s La Jetée is considered one of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made, due to its use of the language of cinema to construct its narrative effect. The short film is composed of still images showing photographs of Paris from all angles and viewpoints. This includes underground caverns of future Paris, to the intensely detailed views across the ruined city, and the juxtaposition of destroyed buildings with the spire of the Eiffel Tower.

His film La Jetée (1962) is described as ‘A look at the past, present, future and the after effects of the World War III, tracing the life of a man, a slave who travels in time to find a solution to the world’s destiny’ and is a French science fiction associated with the Left Bank artistic movement. Constructed almost entirely from monochrome still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel.

Link to short film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MNkd0PXNJc

Elizabeth castle is located in St Helier, Jersey. The castle was built in 1601, making it 422 years old and for 400 years this contained a priory, and for the last 350 years a castle. It is accessible only on low tide by foot, if the tide is high, you have to get a boat over. Construction of the castle began in 1594, and continued in the first years of the 17th century under the then governor of Jersey, Sir Walter Raleigh, who named it “Fort Isabella Bellissima” (the most beautiful Elizabeth) after Elizabeth 1st.

Today, the castle is administered by the Jersey Heritage Trust as a museum site: among the historical displays are the Jersey Royal Militia Museum holding several centuries of military memorabilia. Every Sunday through the season when the castle is open, a team of historical interpreters recreate the garrison of 1781, at the time of the battle of Jersey. Displays are given of musket firing, cannon firing and civilian life.

Photo archive

Occupation

The Occupation of Jersey by German Forces during the Second World War commenced on the 1 July 1940. The Occupation was to last for nearly five years and eventually ended on the 9 May 1945 – Liberation Day.

Following the defeat of France, Winston Churchill reluctantly made the decision that British troops be withdrawn from the Channel Islands and redeployed. This left the five islands completely demilitarised. Around 25,000 occupants were evacuated to Britain. Almost all of Alderney’s residents were evacuated, along with around half the population of Guernsey and a fifth of the people from Jersey. The United Kingdom government provided ships to evacuate women, children and men who wished to join the forces when it seemed that Occupation was inevitable.

Britain suppressed the news that the islands had been demilitarised, so when Germany attacked it did so with bombings, killing 44 islanders on Jersey and Guernsey. The Nazis occupied four islands – Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark. It was the only British territory to be occupied. They would remain there until the end of the War in Europe in May 1945.

Hitler believed the Channel Islands might be a ‘stepping stone’ from which to invade Britain. They were also a useful propaganda tool – to show that the Nazis occupied British land.

German Military

The military consisted of varying numbers of troops, around 25,000 in October 1944, with an additional 15,000 Organisation Todt (OT) workers once fortification of the islands began in October 1941.

Gun Emplacements

To counter any attempted Allied assault, beaches were mined in vulnerable landing spots, anti-tank
walls of steel and concrete were built, large clifftop guns put in place, camouflaged gun emplacements installed, the walls of Elizabeth and Gorey castles reinforced, steel spikes planted in
fields where aircraft might land and a radar station established at Les Landes. In order to ferry the
vast amounts of concrete needed, a railway network was created to link with the Ronez quarries on
the north coast.

Synopsis

This short film will consist of images produced at various artillery sites around the island. A voiceover of an elderly man, discussing his experience of the war, will accompany the still images, starting at Elizabeth Castle and expanding to multiple heritage sites. Images sourced from the Jersey Archive will be compared to newer images photographed by us. The new images will consist of differing angles of the heritage sites/artillery emplacements (aerial views filmed by drone).

Mood Board

This mood board shows my inspiration for our short film and what we want the final outcome to look like.

Focus and Depth of Field: The focus is used to direct and prioritise elements in a shot and therefore prioritising certain information. It will determine who the audience should look at (even if we are not listening to them). It may switch the focus (known as a pull focus / rack focus / follow focus) between one element and another. Remember that the elements may not be people, but could be objects, spaces, shapes or colours, which may represent an idea, theme, belief etc.

Editing is the process of manipulating and adapting separate images into a continuous piece of moving image. This is used to develop the characters, themes, spaces and ideas through a series of events, interactions and occurrences. It is often linear and sequential and moving image products usually position the audience into a particular moment to leave them at an equally unresolved moment.

One of the basic rules in editing is not showing everything literally and just enough information to provide ideas and suggestions for your audience to develop empathy and a sense of involvement with the characters, themes, setting, plot. What you leave out known as ellipsis and is just as important as what you put in. The ideas of space/size/scale are really important, because it is necessary to frame your shots with appropriate SIZE AND SCALE and also trim shots so that they are not too long e.g. creating the appropriate SPACE for ideas, characters, themes, the plot etc to develop.

The Shot / Reverse Shot. The basic sequence runs from a wide angle master shot that is at a 90′ angle to two characters. This sets up the visual space for filming separate close-ups, that facing each other having a conversation. The shots are usually over the shoulder. Firstly, they include both characters – which are called EXTERNAL REVERSES. As the drama increases, the framing of each shot then excludes the back of the head of the other character and moves in to a much closer over the shoulder shot – which are called INTERNAL REVERSES.

Looking directly at the camera creates a very different relationship between the characters and the audience and is a technique that is only used for specific techniques / genres / film-makers.

Shot progression usually involves the following shots. The use of these shots allow the audience to understand SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS between locations, people, movements etc. The length of shot will determine the drama, empathy, theme etc. The choice of how to sequence each shot will determine the AESTHETIC QUALITY of the product. The next sequence will then follow a similar pattern, which again allows the audience to understand concepts such as SPACE, TIME, DISTANCE, MOVEMENT, MOTIVATION, PLOT, THEME etc.

• establishing shot / ES, moving to
• wide shot / WS,
• to medium shot / MS,
• to close up / CU,
• to big close up / BCU;
• and then back out again

• parallel editing: two events editing together – so that they may be happening at the same time, or not?
• flashback / flash-forward – allowing time to shift
• montage – a series of independent and perhaps unconnected shots to be edited together

Continuity editing can be seen as the opposite of montage editing as the main aim is to create a sense of realism or ‘believability’ known as verisimilitude and has it’s own structure of rules where shots are edited together at particular times or on particular shots. For example:

• match on action
• eye-line match
• graphic match
• sound bridge
• 30′ rule
• 180′ rule

An archive is defined as a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people. This can be seen in many different forms such as a personal collection of items from the past, corporate archives, museums, galleries etc. They are an important source of facts, data, reports, notes, memos, photographs, and other primary sources. Serving as a gateway to the past they offer people an insight into different times enabling people to envision life in a different era or even century. This is important as they contain evidence of activities and provide us with details about individuals and institutions. They can even tell stories and increase our sense of identity and understanding of cultures.

A repository is defined as a place where or receptacle in which things are or may be stored therefore making a repository of knowledge a large store of information.

In my opinion, an archive is a repository of knowledge as in any form, an archive holds items and information from the past. This knowledge can be used to discover the history and meanings behind aspects of the present day and also show us how things have changed. Archives are important as they give us an insight into the origins of our family and heritage which teaches us about our own history and identities.

Societe Jersiaise

We visited the Societe Jersiaise archive to see what an archive actually is and looked at old images from jersey. Established in 1873 the Société is a registered Jersey Charity. Their aim is to produce and facilitate research on the Island’s history, culture, language and environment; and to share that knowledge with the widest possible audience for the benefit of our island community. They specialise in various fields of study, from archaeology to zoology. Providing information from many different viewpoints and areas of interest. These volunteer sections produce the raw data and research which make long-term studies possible.Their archives contain extensive bibliographic, cartographic, photographic and research collections which act as their long-term memory. These collections provide us with vital resources informing contemporary study and value for the community through a greater understanding of our shared heritage, identity and environment.

To summarise, Société Jersiaise is an active example of a repository of knowledge as it is a large collection of memorabilia, information, photographs and historical artefacts that can tell us about the history of our island.

An archive is a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people.

We visited:

Established in 1873 the Société is a registered Jersey Charity. They achieve their aims through our active Sections, research collections, community outreach and collaboration with local and international heritage partners.

We looked at the old images from and before the war and from Elizabeth castle.

This gave us an insight into the history of jersey and gave us ideas on what kind of things we could consider for the theme of NOSTALGIA.

No Place Like Home features the work of local and internationally acclaimed artists and invites Islanders to consider their ‘home’ on a personal, national, global and even cosmic scale.

The exhibition features 23 gallery based artworks and three external installation pieces, all of which explore ‘home’ from different perspectives, including considerations around Jersey’s housing crisis and international perspectives on the health of our planet. Whilst we live in a time when this can be a complex and serious subject, the pieces on display are often playful and interactive and invite the viewer to reflect on their own interpretation and experience.

On InDesign i made a 16 page layout and started to place my images and decided which was my preferred layout. I changed some of my image selections and had to decide whether i wanted the images to have a boarder, be full bleed or cover a double page spread.

For some images I decided to use photoshop to add a bit of colour to my black and white images of graphiti however the rest of the images remained monochrome.

For my zine I am using all monochrome images as this suits the urban style I was aiming for to show the more grungy side of the city that often gets overlooked by the traditional buildings and pretty beaches.

Mood board:

This is a mood board of zine’s that I am inspired by and that look similar to how I want my zine to

I selected a variety of images, some landscape and some portrait and then positioned them over the 16 pages.

STORY: What is your story?
Describe in:

• 3 words
• A sentence
• A paragraph

NARRATIVE: How will you tell your story?

• Images > St Malo street photographs and AI generated images in relation to theme of NOSTALGIA…
• Archives > Old photos of St Malo or any found/ stock imagery…
• Texts > Typography, words, street signs, graffiti..

My Story and Narrative:

I chose to look more at the urban side of the city as well as the traditional view of the beautiful beaches and walled in town. This included things such as street art and graphiti as well as images of people enjoying time at the beach and trying out the restaurants and bars. When choosing which people to photograph I tried to get a range of different age groups and, in my zine, formatted my images from young to old showing the varied activities and different experiences of the place depending on their ages.

A narrative can be described as a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fiction. A book, literary work, etc., containing such a story, or the art, technique, or process of narrating, or of telling a story.

In summary the narrative is the way in which a story is told. It is possible to have different narratives of the same story as it is a very subjective process with no right or wrong.

Narrative is constructed when you begin to form relationships between images and present more than two images together. Your selection of images and the sequencing contributes significantly to the formation of the narrative. However, it is essential that you identity what your story is first before considering how you wish to tell it.