With the guidance of my tutor that I should try and avoid relying on a musical soundtrack, I decided to focus heavily on the audio. I wanted it to feel sort of disconnected and dream like, as if everything didn’t quite add up but the audience could still jump to the right conclusions. For example, the video of my cat matched with her purring in a different instant – you know that she isn’t purring in the clip, but you get the concept. The dreamy quality was also attempted through the ringing tone at the start (I’ve had many dreams where my alarm sound just seeps into it). I wanted that dream-like quality to match my thoughts (I’m a very visual thinker) and it also reflected me in that I often have very vivid dreams (plus I’m a daydreamer too). I think that element of the clip was my most successful.
I wanted to experiment a little with overlaying of footage – it worked to an extent, but it was my first time ever trying it so it’s definitely the weakest point. On the shot with my cat against a white wall, I found that overlaying the typed text made the quality of the original footage appear really poor, which was a downside. I wanted that in there because so much of my world is online, and I’ve always had a passion for writing. I also think that the audio at the end, ends sort of abruptly in the way that my friend is talking and if I could do it again I’d want it to feel a bit more final.
Each audio and video says something about myself on several levels. The two girls talking on the phone are my two best friends describing their favourite memory with me. I tried to create the atmosphere they were describing – first with the fairy lights in the dark (triggering an image of the memory she’s describing and demonstrating what I see when I go to sleep every night) and secondly in the bathtub with a little mermaid toy I used to play with in the bath when I was a kid, as my childhood was mermaid obsessed.
Anyway, here it is:
Media Project #2 from Lucy Wadelton on Vimeo.