I had a chat with Robin a couple of weeks earlier where he mentioned thinking more about narrative/meaning rather than focusing solely on the graphic. Initially I was hesitant about this because I struggle more with narrative so I tend to only think about the visual side of things. However, I do realise that I need to challenge myself by creating something has more meaning. Even if I don’t want to delve into a whole narrative or short film, I needed to create something that is more than just the image – something that is connected to ideas and metaphors so that it can be useful when put into the context of a film. I was a bit guilty of just going through the motions and not thinking more about what I could get out of these investigations. What can I learn? Other than just knowing that I have to plan better in terms of composition and continuity to get a good match cut through practicing the technical side of things, what can I discover that has more substance? I needed to do more reflecting and refining.
I was inspired by this match cut from Lawrence of Arabia:
The juxtaposition between the candle being blown out and the setting dessert sun conjures up ideas in the context of the film instead of purely being a creative cut. Similarly, I wanted to create something with this juxtaposition where the meaning is not explicitly stated, but where the audience is prompted to think about connection between two images – how and why they are similar.
I had the idea of comparing the four elements to the human body, thinking about the similarities between man and nature. I hope that I can shoot images and put them together in an abstract way without using obvious explanation, so there is no explicit definition. This way, I am not tackling narrative directly but am still thinking about creating ideas.
