Reflections Film: Final Review

This project was always quite conceptually difficult from start to finish. With my research into the initial spark of an idea I had to pitch, and then working with Nick to develop it. However I think in the end it turned into something much more interesting than I ever expected.

The idea surrounding illusions and coming up with the illusions that we eventually went to create required a lot of experimentation just to get our heads around the science of what we were actually doing (As seen below).

Working with mirror illusions has been an interest of mine for quite some time, and what we came up with was interesting twist on that I think, although initially quite confusing, once we had our heads around it we found some flexibility with it. It also made it a little easier to come up with ways of helping the audience understand that in the film. The only wish I had was that we had more time to really get to grips with what we could do with the project, but before we knew it we had to go and shoot something.

Similar to the set-ups above, we decided to take our illusions out into the world and try and use the environment, people and architecture to confuse the space and present our illusion to an audience. Working in a two man team was difficult, but we tried to keep as organised as we could, and the set was very lighthearted. We also enlisted our classmate; Rob to film our experience on set in the hope that we could use that in the film. I felt that we worked really well together on set and it was a very enjoyable experience shooting it, not only because of that but because we could see what we were creating and were quite happy with how it was turning out for us.

Once we were in the edit and could see what footage we had, we were happy with what we had and didn't feel that we needed to do anymore shooting. The only problem we faced was trying to convey what we knew about the illusions to the audience, without totally giving it away. This took some planning, and we spent a bit of time discussing it and how much time it would take to get to a rough cut so that we could keep to schedule as well as make the best film possible. A lot of initial time was taken by organising the clips, as both of us were novices in editing multi-camera work so we tried to keep the workspace organised. Our plan for the edit was generally to start with some short shots of each illusion, and to show some clips of the process and then to slow the illusions right down to give the audience some time to look at them and understand them, as well as showing more clips of the process of making the film to give some further insight. We felt this was the best way to let the audience experience the illusion, then to help them understand it, which we felt more confident about after Anne suggested the same to us in her tutorial.

Overall after the film was finished I was really happy with how it turned out. With all that's left is to display the illusion in a gallery space with the photography work, which I think will provide a better experience for the audience, I felt that we achieved what we set out to do. If perhaps we had a bit more time then we could have done more with the illusion, or set it up like an installation to begin with, but considering the time we had I think we did something that fit the brief quite well, and we had a good time making it which made it so much more worth the while.

The Film and the Peer Group Assessment

After a last hectic week of editing to get the film to a point where both Nick and I were happy with it, we had our peer group assessment, and last tutorial on our films with Rosie. After she had watched it, she commented that she liked the illusions that we had created, but almost didn't get what they were sometimes and felt that the audience needed more time to look at them. Although we are going to be setting up our illusions in a gallery space with the photography work, where people can come and view it, she felt it needed to stand up on its own as a film as well.

She also said that there were some shots in the illusions that she felt weren't necessary, and didn't add anything to the film. I disagreed as I felt that each split on the screen offered a different perspective on the space the cameras were showing, and so helped the illusion a little more.

There were a few other little things we discussed, like editing choices and titles, which I will be going back into the edit suite to change later.

Overall I think Rosie saw that both Nick and I were quite attached to the film, and we told her how much fun we had making it and how we felt we worked well together, so I hope that she saw that we really felt we gained something from the project.

Tutorial with Leah Gordon

After working with the comments Anne made about our work in our last tutorial, we now had Leah view our work and make some comments of her own. After watching the piece, we had a short discussion about the film and our intentions for it. She suggested that we try and figure out what we were trying to say with the film in terms of memory. She seemed fine with the film in itself, but felt that we needed to just try and be firmly settled in what we wanted to say with it, and then let that reflect in the piece as well.

I feel as if we do know what we're trying to say with it, but Leah made various references to different artists for myself and Nick to research for a perhaps educational purpose more into the theory behind what we are trying to create with the film.

Film Updates and Tutorials

I know it's been a while since I last posted, but it's been very busy in terms of where this film is going. Myself and Nick have now filmed our illusions and are in the edit with them. They came out really well:

We are now just trying to figure out the best way to present them. To start with we have decided to do a minute or so of quick cuts to be able to give the audience a taste of what this is about, and then slow it right down and give the audience a chance to view each illusion in a bit more depth so that they can try to make sense of it. We also have some behind the scenes footage to add in to it somewhere as well, with the prospect of putting it more towards the end.

We had a tutorial with Anne Parisio on Monday, which gave us a chance to get some feedback on our film. She seemed very interested by our concept and quite impressed with what we had done so far. She commented that she thought the audience needed to see the workings of the illusions as a sort of personal interest part of the idea. We explained that we were going to do that in some way, but more towards the end so as not to reveal all at once.

Aside from the actual film we are also trying to get a studio space booked for our assessment presentation so that we can set the illusion up as an installation which people can come and try and play around with as opposed to doing a presentation. That way our audience and our lecturers can get a real sense of what it is we have done, and can see it for themselves.

The only thing we really need to focus on now is what we are doing with sound in the film. We are cutting to music at the moment to get an idea of pace, but we need to decide what we actually want our sound to be like in the film, and that will be our next step.

Reflections Experimentation

Myself and Nick felt that we needed another week to get our heads around this project, and do some more experimentation into how it will work. Our idea has essentially developed into a documentation of an installation, with the presentation of the installation mixed into the film.

What we are trying to do is create a pseudoscope with cameras as opposed to mirrors. We tried experimenting with this on Tuesday to see how this works and we had some difficulty with the setup, but overall it came out really well.

Our original plan was to have it set up like so:

Figures M and N being the macs with their cameras activated, and figures L and R being 2 DSLR's to simulate each human eye. However, because these are cameras and not mirrors, the R line bounced diagonally off of figure M as opposed to straight ahead as suggested in the diagram. We thought it would be good to try and get this effect, and so we ordered two A4 perspex mirrors to test out a more traditional pseudoscope setup. 

I edited together the footage we got from the 4 cameras from our test on Tuesday, and we still got a very cool and disillusioning effect:

Optical Illusions Further Film Research

After my film was chosen to be made on Tuesday, myself and the only other person in my group currently, Nick, met and discussed the idea. He seemed to like where I wanted to go with it and we decided to research more optical illusions and see what we could film. After having a look on the internet for optical illusions in the surrounding area that we could perhaps go an film (of which I could find none) I did find one that had been created in the local area that we could perhaps create a version of.

I love the simplicity of this one, and the photographer credited with this idea created a variety of these around the country, including Surrey.

I also came across a youtube channel featuring a wealth of optical illusions, with explanations of how and why they work. I love these because they use a variety of materials which offer a way for us to make our own illusions or at least use these in the re-appropriation part of the piece.

Now this is all well and good, but the aim of my piece is to show how little we see of the world based on how our brain incorrectly perceives it. When we see an optical illusion, it is because our brain is hardwired to try to make sense of the image it sees, finding patterns etc. Which is why an optical illusion appears to make sense, often in many ways, but ends up contradicting itself. 

So optical illusions are the tool, but the film needs something more to really run home the message. I was toying with the idea of hiding something in various points in the video, things the audience won't notice because they are focusing on the video. I feel like this would be something to give the audience a better understanding of the film by the end, and I've seen it work really well in other videos before. For example, the gorilla video and another video I saw many years ago:

It's just an idea, but I do think there needs to be another dimension to the film.

Reflections Film Idea

Concept

An observation of optical illusions and how they lie to us reveals how little we actually perceive correctly in our day to day life.

This films lacks narrative, and focuses solely on our perception of the world around us by the re-creation of various optical illusions, and revealing how they lie to us or rather how our brain lies to us.

The concept originally came from my exploration of why we remember, which led to scientific theory behind false memories that people may have and from that, how we actually perceive the world around us. It would seem that we have a selective perception, and we rely on our memory and our imagination to fill in the gaps of our perception, and so it's very easy for us to miss important details. 

Videos such as the one above demonstrate this idea very well, with about 50% of people being fooled by it.

Structure

The film will be shot using a variation of split screen, and mirroring to show the illusion, and also different perspectives of it that will reveal the lie of it.

The variety of optical illusions used will include;

• How you can look very large next to something bigger than you from far away (the moon, landmarks etc.)
• When a mirror looks like it goes on forever.
• When reflections on water seemingly reflect something perfectly.
• When a 2D object is made to look 3D
• The effect of looking through a kaleidoscope.
• Distorted vision, such as looking into a spoon/through a magnifying glass

The simplicity of the optical illusions means that it won't take too much time to set up, and will still be effective. However, revealing the optical illusions through a split screen is the most important part of the film, as it brings across the meaning of the film.

The inspiration for doing this film in this way comes from an exploration of how other films have handled this similar theme:
I came across a Honda advert that used optical illusions for a commercial use, also revealing the illusion.

I also came across a film from 1972 which deals with optical illusion in a digital, and hypnotic sense called Matrix III by John Whitney.

Overall my style looks to reflect the collage and collective style of Christian Marclay’s ‘Telephones’, but more upbeat with a use of split screen to demonstrate multiple perspectives on the same event.

[Updated] After kind suggestions from the comments below, I have had a look at the kind of pacing and visual style I want to have. Someone I knew at college made a film for his foundation in Arts & Media, and I really see the film holding this kind of style and pacing, and the use of mirroring gives it a kind of dynamic I want to get across in my film:

Also, with sound I was considering using vocals from clips discussing the theory behind perception and memory, as I know there are a lot out there overlapping one another in the background. However, I'm aware there's a danger it could become quite uneasy in doing so, so I might have to think about how I go about that quite carefully.

Leading the Eye Mk II

My post about leading the audience's eyes in a film last week still remains a strong part of my idea for my film, but after my tutorial with Leah today I realized a few problems with my film; when I pitch it the film will no longer be a surprise to the audience who will be assessing it, and also I feel as if the sequence in which I film this will be quite technically complicated.

While this is a good thing, I thought I'd take a look at a few other areas to explore how I could really demonstrate the points I want to show. I did a few searches about leading the eye in film and I came across optical illusions. It surprises me I hadn't been led to this through my research previously as it is so relevant to my topic.

Although this one is very creepy, it is interesting. I wanted to see how this was done and the science behind optical illusions when I came across this video of optical illusions in film-making with a very brief explanation into why this happens:

I then went and had a look at a few others online.

Leading the Eye

I've had a thought about what my film could be. After looking at how other creatures see the world, and what we miss when we see images, I think I could demonstrate this in a similar way to how the video with the gorilla does.

My idea is to record a situation, either a POV handheld scenario or filming a character and at first play it in real time. Then play it again in a split screen with that same situation slowed right down almost to a frame still, and have it slowly playing next to it. The idea here is that we will have hidden details in the original film that you may have missed in the real time version. The idea of this is to show you what you miss when you watch something, or indeed go through something in life. I want the audience to realize that what the eye actually sees and remembers in truth is very little. We rely very heavily on our expectations of what is likely to happen and just our plain imagination to fill the gaps in our memory, and as a result we see very little.

I think it's an interesting idea that could work very well and I may do some small tests and a bit more research into this technique to develop my idea a little more.

Light Spectrum

After looking at what humans miss in life in terms of what we see and notice, I decided to look at it from a different angle and a question I had previously considered; How much do we see in terms of light?

The answer is, well, not a lot. We see visible light but there is a whole other spectrum out there to view. Butterflies are thought to have the widest range in terms of seeing across the spectrum of light. Now, I know there is a way to shoot utilising waves such as Ultraviolet and Infrared, and so I had a look at them.

I found this film shot in Infrared film in Congo to capture the impossible, something we can't see. This article to accompany it that I found on No Film School talks more about it in depth:

http://nofilmschool.com/2013/06/infrared-cinematography-documentary-the-enclave/ 

I also had a look at shooting in Ultraviolet, and found a photography project which I found very interesting.

This project, and others have mainly focused on the human form and have been able to show the layer of skin directly below the epidermis, which creates and interesting effect and reveals a lot about the human form that we don't usually see.

Those are my thoughts are the moment, and I think perhaps I could take this idea further in some way and try to interpret it into something I can actually make for a film, since I have set cameras I have to film on and so it is unlikely I could shoot in infrared if I wanted to, and also it would be fairly ambitious to do so.

How Much Do We Really See?

After a chat with Rosie about my ideas, I started talking about how much of what we remember did we actually see, and how much have we made up? It came as something I was thinking about in terms of fragmented memory and how the brain remembers. Looking at cases of complete falsified memories was really intriguing. I thought perhaps for a film idea I could explore this in an experimental way, so I started researching the topic.

Take a look at this information I found in an online article, which you can view here:

Picture the following, and prepare to be amazed. You're walking across a college campus when a stranger asks you for directions. While you're talking to him, two men pass between you carrying a wooden door. You feel a moment's irritation, but they move on and you carry on describing the route. When you've finished, the stranger informs you that you've just taken part in a psychology experiment. "Did you notice anything change after the two men passed with the door?" he asks. "No," you reply uneasily. He then explains that the man who initially approached you walked off behind the door, leaving him in his place. The first man now comes up to join you. Looking at them standing side by side, you notice that the two are of different height and build, are dressed differently, have different haircuts and different voices.
It sounds impossible, but when Daniel Simons, a psychologist at Harvard University, and his colleague Daniel Levin of Kent State University in Ohio actually did this experiment, they found that fully 50 per cent of those who took part failed to notice the substitution. The subjects had succumbed to what is called change blindness. Taken with a glut of recent experimental results, this phenomenon suggests we see far less than we think we do.
Rather than logging every detail of the visual scene, says Simons, we are actually highly selective about what we take in. Our impression of seeing everything is just that-an impression. In fact we extract a few details and rely on memory, or perhaps even our imagination, for the rest. Others have a more radical interpretation: they say that we see nothing at all, and our belief that we have only to open our eyes to take in the entire visible world is mistaken-an illusion.

Looking at this, it seems that there's a potential for breaking down what we see and what we actually remember. I can recall parts of my own past in which I can remember something being one colour, when in fact it was another and events which never happened in a particular place, but did happen somewhere else. This kind of thought leads me to La Jetee, which has a very static feel as it tells a narrative using images, which gives you time to view the whole image and maybe playing with the frame rate of a sequence might give a perspective on that. This is very much like 24 hour Psycho by Douglas Gordon, which is Pyscho by Alfred Hitchcock stretched to be 24 hours. In observing each frame you realise something you never did before when watching the film.

Also this makes me think of a video I saw many years ago which, like the article at the beginning of this post, shows what we do and don't see:

Not only this, but film-makers use techniques all the time to lead your eye and hide things that aren't quite right, and magicians do this too. It's such an interesting part of human psychology and I want to explore it further. Perhaps I could explore what other animals see compared to us? There are certain light waves we can't see too, what would the world look like through the eyes of something else? How much and what would we remember then?

Creative Writing

Today in our creative writing lecture, we were taught more about how to approach screenplays, and were given the exercise above, which was to cut up words from a newspaper and create a story or at least make some sort of sense with it. 

For those of you who may not be able to read it, it reads: 'Police advise Viv Groskop you can trust flat-lining balls. Your future could make a lasting sex chamber. An incredible response! David Nieper invites you to get ready for an x-citing expert service at Aldershot's beautiful bachelor pad with a Chinese musical legend.' Overall I found this exercise very comical, but I can see how it would be useful in a practical sense as well.

We were also given another exercise to take a newspaper article and pick a word at random. Once we have done this, write down the word and the three words either side of it to have a seven word phrase. Then, using this phrase we should write freely for five minutes. This is what my phrase was:

'I was left gutted, because I had' and this was my response:

'I had hoped that perhaps in some fantastical and impossible way that I would be remembered and even perhaps saved. However, I was left gutted of all feeling in the dark corner of an angelic room. Is such a thing possible? I'm not sure. Perhaps it is just in my mind. Though I don't have much time to think about that now. I hear footsteps, and real or not they are coming for me. My stomach drops and that gutted feeling recedes and is replaced by something even less desirable. Fear. The handle I can just glimpse twitches. My eyes widen. What happens now?'

As you can see, I created a kind of narrative through free writing. It doesn't all make sense but I could develop it into something. The next stage of this exercise was to take a phrase from this free writing piece and turn it into something a little more concise. The phrase I chose was:

'I was left gutted of all feeling in the dark corner of an angelic room.' Again, this was my response:

'Throbbing in an indistinct area cause me to wake. Still with unopened eyes I reach up with heavy arms to touch my head. Wetness I needn't look at makes the severity of my situation more evident. Bruised, broken I lift myself into a seated position, shuddering as I lean against the icy wall on my left. My eyes flutter open, and blurs of colour focus into a crystal image. Stark white sunlight cuts through blood soaked, rose white curtains. Following the trail of red on to oak and dazzling marble, I begin to wonder why I am in a beautiful room such as this, only to stain it with my impurity? Then I remember. Welling up, I realise how forgetful I am. I had hoped that perhaps I would be remembered, or even saved. However I was instead left, gutted of all feeling in the corner of an angelic room. I hear footsteps, my stomach drops, and all my hopelessness recedes into something worse. Fear. The handle I can just glimpse through the tainted flowing fabric twitches. My eyes widen. What happens now?'

As you can see I added a lot more description and creative language. You get more of a sense of place and character, and this is now something I could develop into an actual story. This exercise was especially useful for coming up with ideas, and may actually help me develop a film idea. 

Re-appropriation.

As a short exercise, we were asked to use re-appropriation to destroy consumerism. As a starting point I searched on Youtube for TV ads. Obviously quite a few results came through, so I searched for full versions, perhaps uncut versions which would be more suitable for my minute long target. That is when I came across an extended Ann Summers ad. It was very suggestive and was very well shot, and so I saw it as a perfect target for re-appropriation. My first reaction was to do something to do with the aftermath of sex, namely children. This is because I feel as if advertising always focuses on the present, what you need or want now, and disregarding the future completely, especially in adverts such as this and this is a major problem in a world rife with high rates of teenage pregnancy and other accidental pregnancy. To show this, I found clips from other ads of children crying and edited them into the ad at points to disturb the flow of it.

Out of this, overall I felt that the ad was received fairly well. The criticism I got mostly was that it wasn't obvious enough what I was trying to do and perhaps if I had edited more clips of children into it, then it would have been more easily identifiable.

Was I there?

Cold Knap Lake by Gillian Clarke

We once watched a crowd

pull a drowned child from the lake.

Blue lipped and dressed in water’s long green silk

she lay for dead.

Then kneeling on the earth,

a heroine, her red head bowed,

her wartime cotton frock soaked,

my mother gave a stranger’s child her breath.

The crowd stood silent,

drawn by the dread of it.

The child breathed, bleating

and rosy in my mother’s hands.

My father took her home to a poor house

and watched her thrashed for almost drowning.

Was I there?

Or is that troubled surface something else

shadowy under the dipped fingers of willows

where satiny mud blooms in cloudiness

after the treading, heavy webs of swans

as their wings beat and whistle on the air?

All lost things lie under closing water

in that lake with the poor man’s daughter.

This poem for me, makes me think of memory in a very different way. From what I understand of it, the lake is a metaphor for the author's head, and the lake itself consists of her memories. These memories then get muddled and cause false memories, like the memory of her mother saving the child from drowning. I've always liked it as it presents an excellent metaphor for the experience of having a false memory.

Here is another piece of artwork dealing with false memories, called False Memory Archive which is currently touring the UK: http://www.falsememoryarchive.com/

There is also some compelling court cases which may question the use of repressed memory as the main argument for a prosecution of defense, purely under the argument of a false memory having  been created. It is interesting to see either side of the argument:

Catalyst: False Memories - ABC TV Science

I think this may be an interesting topic to create a film based on memory. You could go in many directions with it and it provides some flexibility to be very creative in the way I approach it.

Psychology

After thinking about memory, and how after a few minutes, days, years, memories can fade. The normal human brain can't recall memories from a few months ago as easily as a few minutes ago. However, there are cases of people who remember every detail and day of their lives as if it happened yesterday. This is an extremely rare condition called Hyperthymesia.

This documentary by the Nobel Prize deals with a case of it at the beginning:

I found it very interesting how this Lady describes her experience of this condition as like having a split screen in her head, and how she recalls seeing memories as if they are happening at that moment. I can imagine it might feel like you're leading two different lives in your head. I think this is also a more alternative way of thinking of memory, as opposed to focusing on the memory of a normal human brain. This documentary explains the science of memory to some depth so it's worth a watch for that as well.

Video Art?

Some people consider art to be something that has a reason for being made, and a considerable amount has gone in to making it. I'm not sure whether I believe that, but one thing that concerns me is video art. With the accessibility to shooting equipment nowadays (DSLR's etc.) can we really call that kind of amateur style camera work art?

Looking at a couple of pieces I consider to be art, you can see how it is possible to create a deeper meaning through video specifically:

The first piece that caught my eye was called Mercuriús on a collection DVD of video artworks. It was essentially a collection of film footage and amateur footage that all incorporated the light of a torch as the subject.

The gaze of the torch is very curious, and inquisitive if personified. However, the cuts between each shot especially at the beginning makes it sinister, with a horror film tone that reminds me of something akin to The Blair Witch Project or the youtube channel Marble Hornets, which you can view here. Similarly the music crackles and holds that amateur, fragmented sense that the film carries, in turn making it more sinister and bewildering.

For me I think this short film was trying to demonstrate something of a similarity in the way films are shot using strands of light and, because of this, the effect it has on us as an audience. Personally I felt a bit on edge throughout it, thinking something was going to happen or jump scare me, which really goes to show what this film was giving to us.

Another film in the same collection called Falsche Freunde deals with a lot of slow motion clips with no narrative and it cuts in a very fragmented way in the sense that it often cuts to black before the next shot. This to me makes it feel quite dream like and fictional. However, this film again has a sinister element without any immediate reason as to why, the conjunction of images and the overlays in the film makes it feel sinister when put in conjunction with the soundtrack which sounds very unnatural. It also reminds me of a video related to the Marble Hornets youtube channel called TotheArk, which can be viewed here.

The clips used mainly show a boy hiding and a shot from far away of two men going into some sort of institution. The nurse figure opens a door to let them in, entirely in slow motion whilst the boy acts to be hiding from them. I feel as if this is mainly why the film appears to be so sinister. There is a sense of distrust of institutions and authority about it.

Both these films I feel I could call artworks as there is a meaning behind them, and their techniques are completely justified and are actually delivered very successfully.

Unease

On our second day of screening for this project, we were shown a documentary by Johan Grimonprez called Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, which is essentially a history of hijacking on planes and attacks on airports. It has other things to say of course, but that is what it is presented as.

It is a very intense experience. In terms of editing there are cutaways to seemingly random imagery, such as rats dying. It is sinister and also very funny in a dark, ironic sense. With a use of juxtaposition of images and pop music to create irony, like images of staff mopping up blood for example, it's very easy to see the opinion of the director on hijacking and the issues that surround it. However despite this intense and disturbing nature of the film, it is constantly engaging and it definitely gets across many different messages about hijacking, and it is very reflective.

The messages of this film can be interpreted in many ways. Clearly it is not a film about just hijacking in a chronological and historical sense, rather it uses that as a basis for demonstrating to the audience a number of facts in the form of archive footage which we can interpret in any which way we please. For me, I get messages of governmental officials having not taken hijacking seriously when it first started, of a question of justification of hijacking as the people doing it want to get the attention, the help they need from us, and also a recognition and belief in the society of the spectacle theory.

With regards to when this film was made (1997) 09/11 obviously had not happened yet and so this film somewhat applies prior to that, in a time when people took it less seriously than they do now. However in many ways you can see how Johan saw 09/11 coming. Now, I say that they didn't take it seriously based on moments in the film when people who had been in a plane which was hijacked (mainly Americans) were recalling how exciting it was and with the press asking them what they ate and other non-important things. It actually fills me with anger to think about it. It all relates to the society of the spectacle theory which means that we as a society are attracted and engaged by large events, including tragedies such as plane crashes and hijackings. Also in many ways it highlights the extremities of the media, and reveals journalists as the major reason for hijacking being an effective means of publicity.

To support this, it uses footage of interviews with hijackers to show an alternative side of the story, which brings about an interesting point of view. From the film's perspective, it seems that the western world does not understand their troubles and that we refuse to help them fight and keep their people alive. To me this highlights the message the film is trying to present that we didn't take hijacking seriously enough and that is why it continued to happen. In some ways, 09/11 gives us a very unique hindsight into perhaps what should have been done earlier.

An extremely well delivered, engaging and darkly enjoyable film that I will be watching again.

Blue

By the time of his 1993 film Blue, Jarman was losing his sight and dying of AIDS-related complications. Blue consists of a single shot of saturated blue colour filling the screen, as background to a soundtrack composed by Simon Fisher Turner, and featuring original music by Coil and other artists, in which Jarman describes his life and vision. When it was shown on British television, Channel 4 carried the image whilst the soundtrack was broadcast simultaneously on BBC Radio 3, a collaborative project unique for its time.

Jarman's work broke new ground in creating and expanding the fledgling form of 'the pop video' in England, and in gay rights activism. Several volumes of his diaries have been published.

We watched only part of this film as a class. At first I was slightly confused, even with knowing the background information. The soundscape and the dialogue in the background is slightly disorientating as it forces you to rely on senses that we often take for granted. It is an interesting insight into the perspective of Jarman in his last days. I love how immersive it is, it's a way of bringing the audience into the film and really showing them what it is like to live through the film's main character, in this case, Jarman himself. Also, it's very hypnotic and ambient, and quite soothing in a way. The noises and the consistent monologue is something I could perhaps sleep to, in a good way. Though the fills me with a sense of unease that it has that effect, it gets me to question the world around me and see it in a different light. It's a very interesting insight into the life of someone else, and presented in a very memorable way.

La Jetee vs Twelve Monkeys

After our screening of La Jetee on Monday, I was left quite bewildered as to what the story was trying to tell me. I understood some of the story, such as that they were going back in time from a post-apocalyptic style future, but little more than that.

The storytelling style was something that reminded me of a kind of radio play, or a story told using pictures and sound effects on a children's TV program. Taking into consideration the time it was made in (around the time of the French New Wave) I can take into account any styles I am not familiar with. However, the story itself is a bit difficult to comprehend, and even the Hollywood version of it, Twelve Monkeys, can be a bit bewildering at times.

Overall it's nice to see how both stories differ and how they are both similar. The pure nature of the original, the length and style and such lends itself to be a simpler story. The core elements of the story are there, but from what I can gather the protagonist is collecting information in a lot more simplistic way than in the Hollywood version, and it almost feels a lot more calm and freely flowing than the Hollywood version. Whereas in the Hollywood version you have Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt stomping around, with a more action feel to it and a more sinister undertone, the story has been fleshed out to create a larger sense of good and evil, of a distinct purpose. Although it is catering to a more action hungry, and less patient audience.

Personally, I preferred the original for its unique style of storytelling and it is visually intriguing throughout, although it is a bit confusing. The Hollywood version has its benefits too, in a sense you gain a greater understanding of the story and that helped me appreciate the original more, however it is a good film in its own right. I just don't go for that kind of action thing. I feel that the original told the story well enough without needing to do all of that.

Something Blue

The last thing I decided to do for this task was a nod towards my hobbies. Outside of being a film-maker and a lover of the digital world, I enjoy doing things creatively that have also been around for centuries. I often find myself battling with the necessity of the digital and the distrust I have for it. As someone who knows and is familiar with many elements of digital life, I trust it very little. I think we rely too much on it, and although it is important, and technology is the future and I embrace that, I sometimes feel that you just can't beat being able to make something physical, something real and tangible. As a result, I spend a lot of my time knitting and making complicated origami figures, because I love having a skill like that.

To memorialise this, I knitted a square in a pale blue, and made a simple origami heart, using needle and thread to bind it.