As I said in my very first blog post when I chose Priming, I defined it as the exposure to one stimulus which influences a response to a subsequent stimulus. Seeing priming through this lens, I set out to prime the audience to react a certain way upon seeing my film, Disruption.
I think that the stationary wide shots lull the audience into a sense of calm and invites them to explore the scene. Our minds are always trying to find things to notice, to give meaning to. And these shots really get the audience to strain their focus and search for meaning. Of course, there really isn’t any and when the audience is in a state of intense focus, it’s completely shattered by the trains. The purpose of this project was to create that feeling in response to priming, but it evolved into something more. It, I would argue, forces the audience to sit back and take in the mundane. It explores the relationship of humanity and the natural world we reside in. Are we disrupting our own ability to notice so much of the world by continuing to push forward with technology and industry?
This assignment taught me the passive nature of noticing. This is one of the reasons I wanted to prime the audience to be disrupted and confused. I wanted to try and push the audience to explore their own notions of what is is to be in the act of noticing. The film forces the audience to actively decide what to notice in film. The genre of nonfiction is much broader than I initially considered, and lends itself to such a wide range of experiments into human nature. Before this project If I heard “non-fiction media” I would simply think it a synonym for documentary. But there is so much more to the genre. Easily the most interesting part, in my opinion, lies within experimental films. Exploring what it means to notice, and what it means to prime your audience to garner a certain reaction and delving into non-narrative film making has really sparked several ideas that I’m keen to explore in both my final assignment, but also beyond this class as a filmmaker.
To refine this experiment, I think I should have more than one shoot day. I got some great clips, but having more footage would have made for an easier, more flexible experience in the edit. For next time, I want to explore multiple spaces. I want to delve into a similar juxtaposition of nature and man but really explore the feeling of light and darkness. I think going to multiple spaces lend itself to that, because you can bring the audience from one completely separate environment to another. I think this would also lend itself to widening the scale of the project. I could really get in depth and explore each space. Expanding the run time mightn’t have worked in this case, it may have lost its impact if it was much longer. But if the audience was being moved from space to space and the feel of each is vastly different, I think that would give the film some legs and allow me to push the duration out further. This would allow me to deeply explore noticing and priming.