CCM: PROMPT 11
Written over the course of a week: A journey in making microplastics poetic.
The researching and collating video content for this assignment has undeniably been difficult. I’m unsure if it’s my lack of motivation or general frustrations with the current circumstances, but I’m finding it quite difficult to find the ideal material.
I’ve really been taking this process day by day, some days it’s easier to find footage and edit, and other days it feels as though nothing looks right and all sense of direction is lost. Through creating this project I’ve been chatting with Elizabeth, we’ve definitely guided each other a little bit in this process and it’s been really beneficial having a peer (and friend) to reflect upon my work with. Just small check-ins to see how the other is doing have been reassuring, and a great reminder I’m not the only one lacking motivation.
Much of my footage has come from YouTube, however, ‘Pexels’ has been a really useful site when searching for shots more appealing to the eye, and often of a higher standard. I at first thought I’d check out ‘Artgrid’, a website I’ve seen advertised for having an abundance of footage available easily. The website allowed you to download clips for free, however, they came with a watermark straight in the middle, and to download the footage with no watermark, I’d be expected to pay $450 for a years licence – yeah no thanks!
I’ve been searching for a variety of content, including fish, seafood, plastic in use, plastic waste, microplastics, the ocean and sea life. These videos, in a particular order, allow me to demonstrate the journey of plastic, into microplastics, into our environment, and to human consumption. Rather than being extremely explicit in my project, I’ve opted for a more subtle approach. Instead of blatantly describing the journey through speech and text, I’ve allowed the visual material to speak for itself.
Piecing together the video hasn’t been as difficult as I thought. Once I found a structure to my video, it came into place quite easily. It was just a matter of tedious edits, some colour grading and searching for the right audio. Often when it comes to media-making, especially with video content, I tend to get a sense of rhythm, flow and structure once I get into the work. The video came together easier and easier as I continued to edit.
I wanted to create something that illustrated the cycle of plastics into microplastics which we then consume. I definitely surprised myself in creating something I find both informative and poetic. I doubted my ability to present information without using voiceover or textual work, but I feel as though I’ve definitely achieved some form of education through my work.