The projects for this
semesters Creative Media Practice Project module was to create a 3 minute audio
piece and visuals to go with the sound as part of the experimental project. I
worked in a pair with Hannah Grencis and together we planned out ideas we thought
that would work well with the theme ‘Sense of Place’ and decided on using the
concept of memory to achieve this. After changing parts of the idea and concept
a few times we decided on keeping our original concept of memory. The name of
our project is ‘Fragments’ as the film shows ‘fragments’ of the memory of a
person’s life .The overall idea of the audio only piece was to record sounds
that would remind people of certain aspects of their life e.g. childhood,
adolescence and achievements in a person’s adult life. The visual side of the
project we filmed for this sound piece tell the story of the sound, using
images that remind you of the sounds you hear from the audio piece e.g. a
birthday cake when hearing people sing happy birthday and work desks when you
hear the sound of an office environment. The concept of the experimental film
is that you are seeing these memories from the view of an old person who is
trying to remember certain parts of their life but the memories start to go
fuzzy because of the old age. The idea was partly influenced by people who
suffer from dementia and how in the early stages of this it must feel to start
losing your memory. One of the ways we tried to show this by using voiceover
and repeating the words ‘I don’t know’ towards the end and ending the film with
‘it’s just gone’ to show all the memories this person has lost. This film could
be targeted at any age as it shows sounds and images from childhood all the way
through to elderly life. However I think that this film could be interesting to
people who suffer from dementia or memory loss as they would understand it and
understand certain aspects we put into the film e.g. the out of focus shots to
show the memory is starting to fade. I would like this project to be received in
a positive way as the audience could be seeing and hearing these memories of a
person’s life that could remind them of something similar in their life that
could make them happy and nostalgic, however towards the end of the film it
could be received in quite an emotional way because of all the memories this
old women has lost.
One of the strengths of the
film is that we were able to film and record sound of a child for the childhood
memories as we received permission of the child’s parents and her sister was
with us during the filming process. This helped the film to seem more real to
the audience as they are able to hear a child’s voice playing and singing and
we have access to children’s toys for the experimental film. This was instead
of trying to recreate these memories using an adult or having difficulties
trying to find an alternative way to record this first minute of the film and
sound piece. The feeling of nostalgia would not have been the same for the
audience. Another strength of the film is our decision to use out of focus
shots for the majority of the shots used to show that the memories are slowly
starting to fade. I think this is a strength as I don’t think the film would
have made sense to have every shot clear and in focus in a film that is about
your memory starting to deteriorate. The use of the focus pulls and shots that
are just fully out of focus show the fading of the memory and the attempt to
try and remember them. For our film we used one of our peers Heather to record
the voiceover for this film, which is an aspect of the film that hasn’t been as
successful. Both Hannah and I originally wanted the voiceover to only be
included over a few shots for each stage of this person’s life. However after
watching the full film back on the mock-presentations the both of us and the
rest of our peers, who were giving us feedback, realised that the voiceover
does not work in some parts of the film. Certain parts of the voiceover were
irrelevant to the imagery, even though it worked for the ending with her saying
‘it’s just gone’ and the screen fading to black. I don’t think it helped that
we used a young person for this voiceover either as it didn’t work with the
emotions we wanted the audience to feel. If I could start this project again I
would try to get an adult or elderly person to record the voiceover to make the
film seem more real and effective to the audience. Another weakness of
‘Fragements’ is that I don’t think we focused on the adult and elderly life as
much as we did about this person’s childhood. When writing lists of what
memories to choose and what sounds and images went well with these there was
more to look at and to do for childhood memories especially since we were able
to film and record a friends sister. If I could change something about the film
I would think about more things you would expect to have as a memory in your
adult and elderly life and any achievements most adults make and try and record
those for the film.
I think that the end result
of the project is very different to how Hannah and I had planned in out at the
beginning of the semester. We originally planned to have a ‘life flashing
before your eyes’ concept and to use memory to show different stages of
someone’s life from childhood up until
this point in their adult life. Then we had to idea of using windows as if you
were looking into someone’s memories and life. After finding out we could get
some frames from Lee we decided to change the original idea and instead film
‘fragments’ of someone’s life using this frames as though you’re looking
through a window or snapshot of someone’s life who was losing their memory.
Both the sounds and visuals are different to how I originally imagined the
final piece to look as we have focused a lot more on childhood and the sounds
have drastically changed from when we had our first sound crit. At first we had
a lot of traffic sounds and just a few of everyday sounds e.g. kettle boiling
and keys unlocking a door. Even though it was just a demo both myself and
Hannah were not happy with the sounds we recorded and that’s when we decided to
go for more distinct sounds of people’s memory and use a clock ticking
underneath all over sounds all the way through instead of traffic noises as
it’s a much more calming sound. One issue we faced was when we were trying to
film with the frames it was difficult to get it to look right in the shots. We
had to direct each other in order for the frame to be in the middle of the shot
with the image of what we wanted to focus on in the middle of the frame,
without getting any other part of either me or Hannah in shot apart from our
hands holding the frame. Because of this difficulty and the frame being too big
for some of the images we wanted to capture within the frame we made the
decision to only use the frame on certain shots where the frame would be able
to fit perfectly around the main point of the image. After watching the edit I
wasn’t sure whether the frames worked as well as we thought with them only
being a few of the shots and whether they would need to be in every shot or not
included at all. However after the mock-presentation the feedback we received
was positive about the frame shots as they are a unique touch to the film,
which was helpful to hear as it reassured me that I wouldn’t need to re-shoot
some shots to fill in for the frames.
I was the sound recorder
during this project then when it came to the edit I also edited the audio
together. I had never used a zoom before starting this course but I was able to
catch on quickly and felt confident enough with it to make it my main role. As
sound recorder I had the responsibility of making sure the sounds were recorded
properly and clearly with as little background noise as possible, and I feel
like I have learned how to achieve this from this project. I had also never
used Pro Tools as a software for editing audio before but I was familiar with
the basics of sound editing. In previous projects I have edited quite a lot so
I wanted to try something new and learn how to edit the audio. I caught onto
the basics of Pro Tools quickly and managed to create a sound edit with
multiple layers with smooth transitions and correct audio levels. I feel like I
have learned a lot from using this software and have gained a lot of technical
skills from this role. I was new to the idea of experimental film and at the
beginning of the semester I wasn’t sure if I would be able to achieve the goal
of making one successfully. However after watching many experimental films in
lessons and understanding what one is I think that mine and Hannah’s film has
worked well as we have experimented with different and unique ideas for example
the frames being used to show a snapshot of someone’s memory.
I think that Hannah and I
worked well as a team as we communicated well when discussing ideas for both
the audio piece and experimental film and throughout the filming for both of
these. We always kept in contact about any new ideas or changes both one of us
wanted to make and as a team figured out how to about these changes. I feel
like we both contributed to the work equally especially when it came to the
edit as I edited the audio and Hannah edited the film but we gave each other
help when it was needed. Both of us had input on what to include in the film and
done our own research into it for example when deciding on different memories
for each stage of a person’s life and what sound and image can go with that we
each wrote separate lists then decided on what would work well. I would say
that one of my strengths in teamwork is that I am open to criticism if
something doesn’t work I am willing to discuss it with my team and figure out
how to fix it or come up with something might work better.
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