Dance Film is finally here, The class has been tasked to create a dance based art film. This task greatly interests me as I try to focus on movement and the juxtaposition of motion and stillness in my films already. After the briefing I already had ideas and this project around I've chosen to work with Grace. I approached her because I feel our skills compliment each other, she works well in sound and is highly capable in the realm of pre production, two areas of film making that I still haven't yet grasped as well as I could. Immediately we started working on ideas and doing research and we both want to make a film about our experiences with others perceptions of ourselves. Through talking we realised that the process of stereotyping, in the way we have experienced it, is a cycle. From this we decided to look into water and the water cycle as a visual representation of our experiences.
WATER -
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| Water Based Dance Film Mood board by Joe Palmer & Grace Pryer |
Above is visual collection of images and colour pallets for our film idea. We want to create a film in 3 sections; Underwater, Rain, and Smoke. This is to reflect the water cycle and in the film each section will be repeated to enhance this, we want a repetitive feel as being stereotyped ad bullied is very repetitive if I'm honest. There are only so many ways to glare at someone. The under water section will be mainly comprised of close up shots of myself and Grace in a tank of water so as to avoid distortion of us from the surface. the rain section will be, if all goes to plan, filmed with a rainmaker and be the most 'dancey' area of the film. and the smoke section will all be reversed footage to represent the evaporation stage of the water cycle.
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| Quick Rough sketches of Visuals |
The main visual inspiration for this idea are the music videos Singing in the Rain by JinSoul of Korean girl group LOONA, 4 Walls by f(x), and Move by Taemin. The main being Singing in the Rain as it covers all forms of water in the music video. 4 walls and Move are more in-depth looks in the underwater and rain sections respectively.
Singing in the rain is a great visual resource for this idea as it shows the use of water in multiple different forms. The music plays with all different forms and intertwines them throughout the music video to keep it dynamic and visually interesting. Critically I find their editing style of this music video very effective for promoting the music and making an eye catching video to draw in viewers as, in this case, music videos are to help sell the music itself. Move has given me a lot of ideas for shots and choreography for the piece. 4 walls only has small specific sections that involve water. The whole music video music video follows the theme of 'the butterfly effect'. 'The Butterfly Effect' is an aspect of chaos theory in which a small change to one aspect of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in extreme changes later on in the process. the term was coined by Edward Lorenz, who was an American meteorologist and mathematician. I find this a very interesting concept to look into as it is a hard theory to disprove and the bases of changing one small thing can change all of current history just makes you think. Unfortunately I feel looking into this further will go against the current theme of cycles as they depict a situation in which things repeat and often with small changes or different situations yet they all end the same. From this music video I decided to look into some more art based visual research before looking into conceptual.
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| Antony Gormley, Blind Light, 2007 |
I looked into Blind Light as a visual tool for the actual execution for this project. The original meaning of this piece is outlined by Gormley on his website in which he states; "Architecture is supposed to be the location of security and certainty about where you are. It is supposed to protect you from the weather, from darkness, from uncertainty. BLIND LIGHT undermines all of that. You enter this interior space that is the equivalent of being on top of a mountain or at the bottom of the sea. It is very important for me that inside it you find the outside. Also you become the immersed figure in an endless ground, literally the subject of the work." I find this so playful and interesting as I do enjoy art which takes common and everyday concepts and turns them on their heads. i fid i do because I like the turmoil and the sense of familiar in the unfamiliar. I just find them fun especially when presented to the audience in a visually pleasing way, like Blind Light. Similarly I like art which kind of challenges the audience by either questioning their values or opinions. I find this because creating art is a cathartic experience and presenting it is your chance to, not only display or perform to the masses but also your chance to speak. These combined work in that challenging sense. As for the actually building of this piece, myself and grace are being rather ambition with tis project and hope to build a tank like structure in which we could use in the same style as Blind Light but also to fill with water and use it for the underwater section of the film. This is a bit of a monumental undertaking especially in the time frame but Grace seems optimistic and I trust her.
We also briefly looked into this Japanese art installation piece which was for Matsuri ( Japanese Summer festival) organised by Fuji TV and created by teamLAB at DMM.PLANETS. This was an interactive experience in which the participance's could walk around multiple rooms (some with water, some without) which had 360 projections of visual effects. We are taking inspiration from the water aspect of this and might try and incorporate projection into all 3 segments of the film. I've worked with projection before and it works on black water or water in a black container, constant streams of rain and thick smoke. So we will have to do a couple test shoots to perfect the technique we we think it could add another layer to the film.
As for actual dance based films we looked into three; a previous piece of work from my course Alkimia, Il lamento dell'imperatrice by Pina Bausch, and Rosas danst Rosas by the same artist. The previous UCA work we looked into because it has such beautiful transitions between a contemporary style dance and i feel this way of editing greatly enhances the flow and movement of the piece and creates a digital aspect to the dance that I would also like to look into and experiment with in this film. Both the films by Bausch We looked into because they both have a exaggerated movement style to them, were the actions of the dancers aren't overtly typically, for lack of a better term, 'dancey'. I find this style so interesting and personally my preferred style of movement to be used in dance film as it creates an uncanny essence to the pieces. I do also enjoy a choreographed contemporary style dance too, as seen in the above mentioned music videos but I enjoy them for different reasons, when in art based dance film I find the exaggerated familiar movements more intriguing.
Above is the painting Ophelia, we looked into this as it is an incredible piece that can be read in so many different ways. the pice was created as a sort of study of Ophelia's death scene in Hamlet, mainly because it all stage shows at the time the scene was never performed on stage. The audience would simply hear the singing before her demise, accompanied by narration. The death is renowned as one of the more well written and poetic death of its time and even to date. Everett painted this piece to be one of the first depictions of this beautiful scene and to great accuracy. I personally applaud the piece for its beauty but love to look into it further. The way Everett painted her in the tradition pose of a saint creates an interesting level to the narrative that suggests that her untimely demise absolves her of the crimely nature of her peers in the play. I find that I would like to play with the subtlety of the pieces levels in concept and try add similar layers into my film.
UPDATE
SO, we kinda realised our ambitions were so incredibly high.
We are currently looking into ways to create that some movement that being underwater creates with things like hair and fabric as we realised that these subtle movements were integral to the film. The idea of trampolines and slow motion are on the table, as we think that it should create a similar motion. Obviously the act of falling will add so many more different meanings and interpretations to the film so once we have conformation from the places we've contacted on weather we can film using their facilities then I'll be back with more research.
MORE CHANGES
SOOOOO, the trampolines fell through and we just kinda decided to take the essence of the film conceptually and rethink the visual aspect of the film. We felt the base of the film is our experiences with stereotyping, and how other people force their perception of us onto us and how this affects our self image and self worth. In social psychology a stereotype is defined as “...a fixed, over generalised belief about a particular group or class of people." And comes in two forms; Explicit stereotypes ( where the participant is willingly verbalising and creating action towards individuals), and Implicit stereotypes (which are unconscious and subconscious feelings and views in which we are unaware of but effects their views of any other). The latter of the two I find most interesting as implicit stereotypes come from the culture views of ones societal upbringing, or the conditioning that can come from someone entering groups or organisations. This is an interesting subject area as the implicity of this form of stereotyping is by description unconscious and something that can be difficult or even impossible to change about oneself. And yet the piece myself and Grace are trying to make is about our annoyance and struggle with peoples unconscious views of ourselves, at first a mute point. But, implicit stereotypes are unconscious to the holder of these views but can be visible to an outside perspective, so by theory these views can be altered with education which we want we want to do. Create a piece which is a depiction of our experiences with being stereotyped, to inform and also to be cathartic.
For visuals we were actually inspired by graces extensive sunglass collection. I realised that her funky and extravagant sunglasses, which all are different colours, really fit with the concept. We want to have the glasses to play off the phrase 'rose tinted lens'. The phrase is used to describe a person on situation in which someone is looking at a situation that is worse for wear in a very positive sense. we want to flip this on its head and have the glasses represent the obscured and narrow view being enforced on us. As the glasses all are different we thought to colour the film depending on the glasses so I looked into the psychology of colour. the main aspect I've been looking into is colour in regards to perception, for example; bread is often sold in areas of stores which are more golden in tone as well as the actual packaging will be brown or gold to represent that feeling of home baking. In our film we want to use this but colouring our film to convey meaning. We've decided on RED, BLUE, and ORANGE. Red to represent aggression, our frustration towards those who stereotype us. Blue to be melancholy, our unwilling acceptance of stereotyping. Orange is often associated with sexuality and expression so we wanted this to keep the link to our concept. to help draw these three sections together we want to have a monochromatic section of white, blacks, and greys to act as a neutral zone, where we aren't influenced by others. We also want to re enforce this sense of perception through the use of reflections and eye symbolism.
Moving on, something I wanted to explore more into for my dance film were hands. in a lecture we were shown the piece 'hands' by Burrows, Fargion, Roberts - BBC/Arts Council (1995) which I really liked as I find on of the two main aspects of the human body I like to put in film is the hands (the seconds is the face) I find the dance piece fascinating as its such a simple concept and at first glance feels so simple and uninteresting but I cant not look away. I find the dance was originally created as an accompaniment to a musical score. A very simple film basically speaking but I personally read into it as a personification of the feeling of being uncomfortable. I find this because the movements are repetitive and lead back to some original starting point, this to me fits in with that uncomfortablility as it makes the audience feel uneasy and gives them the need to fiddle. I want to take inspiration from this piece as well as the the dance to go with the song Spending all my Time by Perfume. We want to create a dance that can act as a physical representation of Stereotyping, but having hands jut in and block the models face, to block their identity, to be very obnoxious in a sense. this is similar to the same in the Perfume music video but that dance was to act as a further signal to the actresses in the dance being weird psychic triplets. Finally I looked into the music video Dinner by Suho and Jane Jang, This was originally for colour and how they phase from colour to colour. But upon further inspection this was achieved by a huge hanging light box which was able to be the only light source as its so big so you could get the smooth transitions from just that big box (which i am very jealous of and want). On the other hand tho this music video helped with the set inspiration. I want the set to be this room facade dotted with mirrors and lamps, and the odd pieces of furniture. I want this becuase the facade style will hopefully bring a sense of uncanny naturalism so the audience can see the familiar in this abstract room, this is to show how stereotyping is something that happens in everyday life. The lamps are play on the phrase 'to shed light on the subject', becuase the film is about myself and grace showing our own experiences.
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| Ophelia by John Everett Millais (1851–1852) |
Above is the painting Ophelia, we looked into this as it is an incredible piece that can be read in so many different ways. the pice was created as a sort of study of Ophelia's death scene in Hamlet, mainly because it all stage shows at the time the scene was never performed on stage. The audience would simply hear the singing before her demise, accompanied by narration. The death is renowned as one of the more well written and poetic death of its time and even to date. Everett painted this piece to be one of the first depictions of this beautiful scene and to great accuracy. I personally applaud the piece for its beauty but love to look into it further. The way Everett painted her in the tradition pose of a saint creates an interesting level to the narrative that suggests that her untimely demise absolves her of the crimely nature of her peers in the play. I find that I would like to play with the subtlety of the pieces levels in concept and try add similar layers into my film.
UPDATE
SO, we kinda realised our ambitions were so incredibly high.
We are currently looking into ways to create that some movement that being underwater creates with things like hair and fabric as we realised that these subtle movements were integral to the film. The idea of trampolines and slow motion are on the table, as we think that it should create a similar motion. Obviously the act of falling will add so many more different meanings and interpretations to the film so once we have conformation from the places we've contacted on weather we can film using their facilities then I'll be back with more research.
MORE CHANGES
SOOOOO, the trampolines fell through and we just kinda decided to take the essence of the film conceptually and rethink the visual aspect of the film. We felt the base of the film is our experiences with stereotyping, and how other people force their perception of us onto us and how this affects our self image and self worth. In social psychology a stereotype is defined as “...a fixed, over generalised belief about a particular group or class of people." And comes in two forms; Explicit stereotypes ( where the participant is willingly verbalising and creating action towards individuals), and Implicit stereotypes (which are unconscious and subconscious feelings and views in which we are unaware of but effects their views of any other). The latter of the two I find most interesting as implicit stereotypes come from the culture views of ones societal upbringing, or the conditioning that can come from someone entering groups or organisations. This is an interesting subject area as the implicity of this form of stereotyping is by description unconscious and something that can be difficult or even impossible to change about oneself. And yet the piece myself and Grace are trying to make is about our annoyance and struggle with peoples unconscious views of ourselves, at first a mute point. But, implicit stereotypes are unconscious to the holder of these views but can be visible to an outside perspective, so by theory these views can be altered with education which we want we want to do. Create a piece which is a depiction of our experiences with being stereotyped, to inform and also to be cathartic.
For visuals we were actually inspired by graces extensive sunglass collection. I realised that her funky and extravagant sunglasses, which all are different colours, really fit with the concept. We want to have the glasses to play off the phrase 'rose tinted lens'. The phrase is used to describe a person on situation in which someone is looking at a situation that is worse for wear in a very positive sense. we want to flip this on its head and have the glasses represent the obscured and narrow view being enforced on us. As the glasses all are different we thought to colour the film depending on the glasses so I looked into the psychology of colour. the main aspect I've been looking into is colour in regards to perception, for example; bread is often sold in areas of stores which are more golden in tone as well as the actual packaging will be brown or gold to represent that feeling of home baking. In our film we want to use this but colouring our film to convey meaning. We've decided on RED, BLUE, and ORANGE. Red to represent aggression, our frustration towards those who stereotype us. Blue to be melancholy, our unwilling acceptance of stereotyping. Orange is often associated with sexuality and expression so we wanted this to keep the link to our concept. to help draw these three sections together we want to have a monochromatic section of white, blacks, and greys to act as a neutral zone, where we aren't influenced by others. We also want to re enforce this sense of perception through the use of reflections and eye symbolism.
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| Basic shot list and visual ideas |
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