Okay, so this week’s Looking at Photographs reading on photography made me realise how much I need to broaden my vocabulary. It was such a dense reading but a number of points I’ve found related to my current understanding of semiotics.

According to Victor Burgin, semiotics identifies “no ‘language’ of photography, no signifying system” but rather, “a heterogeneous complex of codes upon which photography may draw”. In other words, an image is open to interpretation if it weren’t bound by a caption or title. An interpretation that is instead, bound by their own experience and what makes sense to themselves.

Photography is also the middle of the spectrum between a painting and film. To differentiate between the mediums is to know that photographs are “offer themselves gratuitously”. If I were to mix photography with film, it would be considered experimental film. For instance, La Jetee’s use of audio, transitions and still images.

http://www.brixpicks.com/la-jetee-a-17810.html

Chris Marker’s experimental, science fiction film La Jetee (1962) perpetuates the perception of time lapse and movement from the point of view of the two main characters. The photographs are devised to trap the audience into the stillness of the images in order to empathise with the characters of the film that are trapped in time itself. With the use of transitions and subtle live action footage, La Jetee focuses on the narrative convention of time travel in order to explore dimensions of the human psyche and condition. Even though photographs are “received… as an environment”, the images are structured in a narrative order by the director (with the help of audio) so that the audience consumes a particular story and message. This however, still allows the audience to interpret the content they consume from a narrative perspective.

Nearly six weeks in and I’ve “survived” university.

Louise introduced us to the Sony MC50 video camera as part of our preparation for Project Brief Three. In a group of three, we were to take turns in interviewing our two peers on how to survive six weeks of university. Since time wasn’t on our side, twenty minutes was all we had to establish and isolate ourselves to a quiet location, set up our tripod, rotate from interviewer to interviewee and export the footage from SD card to computer.

What I enjoy about using the Sony MC50 video camera is the smoothness it has when recording footage. Compared to filming handheld on a DSLR, the Sony MC50 didn’t have any sort of “shakiness” or sensitivity that the DSLR tends to have. The only worry I have when using the Sony MC50, is the menu itself with its infinite options that it becomes time consuming when finding what you particularly want, especially using manual settings for focussing and exposure.

Surviving Uni focuses on one aspect that a majority both students and staff dread the most; 8:30am lectures and tutorials. Unfortunately, a few required shots were missing such as a reaction shot of the interviewer but I focused mainly on expanding on the relationship of audio and visuals from an interviewee’s answers.
Anyway, enjoy!

P.S. I apologise for the poor quality. Premiere Pro was lagging on me for some reason and I have no idea why YouTube uploaded it this way (Need to research and work on that).

http://giphy.com/search/holy-motors

Leos Carax’s 2012 film Holy Motors features an avant-garde form and genre fluidity that stays true to the art of film. Carax’s extensive use of paradoxes and symbolism criticises the modern yet “dying” medium of film.

At the beginning of the film, the mise-en-scene consisting of a low angled shot of a man on the balcony of a movie theatre overlooking an audience watching a film is a meta-narrative in itself. Meta in the way that I was watching a man observing movie-goers watching a film. The man exemplifies the importance of isolating oneself from the overused, regulated and recycled concepts in films.

Moreover, Carax’s relies on juxtaposing in order to subvert audience’s expectations. Towards the beginning of the film, the audience assumes that Denis Laurent’s character is an affluent, white-collar worker through his tailored suit, white limo, Celine as a professionally dressed chauffeur and the constant referral to “appointments”. As soon as the back of the limo transforms into a dressing room, so does Mr Oscar’s appearance into a homeless person. In conjunction with the sudden switch from a white collar worker to a homeless person, Mr Oscar describes himself as “alone, and they are everybody” through non-diegetic sound. This suggests that people can still feel isolated and alone despite the obvious contrast in social and economic factors.

Each “appointment” therefore represents as established narratives in film with contradictions. There’s the “anti” coming-of-age with Angele, the poignant romance with Eva Green, the science fiction interaction with the CGI aliens, the spontaneous musical number with the orchestra, the dark comedy of the “beauty and the beast” appointment and the nuclear family but with chimps.

Carvax even questions illusion from reality. The white limousine is used as a motif to epitomise Mr Oscar’s inner psyche and sense of reality. L’Homme a la tache de vin is a figment of Mr Oscar’s subconsciousness through his lack of interaction with Celine in the limousine. While communicating with L’Homme a la tache de vin, he argues that “there’s no more (eye of the) beholder” when defining beauty. Carax reiterates how people are blinded by societal trends and expectations that people conform and thus aren’t their own beholders.  Kylie Minogue’s character as she explains to Mr Oscar that her eyes are actually “Eva’s eyes” during an appointment and further reiterates how reality itself can be an “act” as we can often accept real life situations in film as reality.

Holy Motors stays true to what it conveys, as we as the audience have to think for ourselves and are left with a heap of unanswered questions. Well, that’s post-modernism for you.