So I made a blog post a while ago about this but as our first uni assessment we needed to make this self-portraity thing… using video. I know it sounds weird, and at first I kinda hated it, but now… okay its not good, however, It was less painful to watch than expected. Don’t get me wrong I am still going to run out of the room when they play it, but I’m not cringing when I watch it on my own, so you know progress.
The idea behind this self portrait was to represent me as a person, though as this film was to be only 1 minute long I had to focus on a certain aspect of myself. So I thought I’d just do something about the things I do, or the stuff I enjoy. Showing myself through “doing”, and the things I surround myself with rather than simply telling the viewer who I am. Unfortunately about halfway through making this piece I realised how one dimensional it was. In the first cut I had bubbles and music and sketching, all the things I love, the stuff that keeps me grounded. However, it really didn’t represent me as a whole at all, I’m neurotic and quirky, not some fairy princess (no matter how much I wish that was true).
So that is why we start the first segment short film with a shot of me doing my usual freak out, and Mum talking me down. The footage was treated with dimming and desaturation effects to show the hopelessness of the perceived situation. Another important aspect of this first segment is my mother on the phone. Even before making the trip to Melbourne I rarely saw my mum, especially when I needed her as she does fly in, fly out work. Many a night did she receive midnight calls of me balling my eyes out about something stupid.
The second section contains a much more upbeat feel, most of my daily life is comprised of me doing homework or cooking. But the things that keep me happy and sane are the little things that I do or happen that make me smile. From sitting down to sketch for half an hour to seeing the light filter through the tree leaves. In Hobart (where I lived before Melbourne), I would go out of my way to walk through Fitzroy garden on my way home from school just to lie on the grass and look up at the sky through the tree’s. I know its sounds silly and childish, but thats who I am. The person who puts a flower in their own hair and sings to herself without realising it. That is where the random humming in the background comes in. Within this section there is also a series of photo’s. The tea for my culinary pleasures, the elephant because I used to live in Francistown, Botswana, and you know… elly large… elephant… It just kinda happened. The mismatched earrings are for my refusal to conform, also I wore those mismatched earrings (which were against school rules) for 3 years at my conservative christian school. And my glasses represent both my previous clumsiness (I didn’t know I had a stigmatism) and my now not falling over every 5 minutes. Yay for progress!
The Last segment both returns to the beginning in terms of audio and maintains the uplifting imagery of the sun through the tree’s. That is who I am both the good and the bad.