For screen project 2, I initially plan on filming most of the footage myself with the help of a family friend (let’s call him Tim here). Filming my own clips will allow me to have more creative freedom in a sense that I can film whatever I want however I want it; playing around and trying out the ideas that I had in mind. So Tim happens to be a professional photographer, therefore he has all these equipment: a DSLR, studio lighting equipment, a light reflector, etc, which I would LOVE to try and use. So instead of just doing the colour grading during post production, Tim also has these different coloured things (I honestly don’t know what it’s called) that you can clip on to the studio lights to create a “cool blue” tone that I was going for for my project. I also think that using several light sources and a reflector could really create the sharp-edged shadows that I had in mind. But unfortunately, due to some unforeseen circumstances and things just not lining up the way I wanted them to, I wasn’t able to go through with all these ideas. But instead of me just sulking around and sitting in a corner, I decided to use found footage for most of my project. I originally thought that this would pose a challenge for me, in a way that I might not be able to find the exact shot that I had in mind. This in turn might not be able to communicate the narrative I wanted to convey.
But on the flip side (yes glass half full POV now), I actually got some new ideas from the Country House Vibes collection of found footage from Pexels (mentioned in a previous blog). I guess it’s safe to say that I’m pretty satisfied with the final result of the film, even if it’s not what I originally had in mind. In addition, I think that just the visuals (without the poems) lacked a sense of cohesiveness without any context—I imagined myself as a first-time viewer of the film and watched the whole sequence without the poems, and it just felt a little off. But maybe some people actually appreciate and prefer the abstract-ness and ambiguity of it all. So, I guess you could say that some shots were narrative driven, while others were driven by the visuals. Which is why I mostly chose stills, slow tracking and panning shots in order to not pull the attention of the viewers from the poem itself, also allowing some space for thought and reflection. However, I do like to see what the film would look like if I were to change some of the clips, and present it as a whole film without poems. I think that both options in themselves can have a different effect on the viewers.
The poems personally resonate with me. The viewers do not necessarily have to understand and read in between the lines in order to understand my perspective—in fact I don’t expect them to—but I would rather they be able to infer their own meanings from it that relates specifically to them. At the end of the day, it’s not so much a film about me, but a film for anyone and everyone. I think now looking back, my film is leaning more towards the “psych” genre instead of “horror”. I guess I was just too engulfed in the “psych” aspect and I just haven’t mastered the art of horror yet. Coming out of this, I think that I have always just gravitated towards anything that involves the mind; inner monologues, thoughts, emotions, memories, etc, and “horror” is just one of the many ways that’s representative of this idea.
On the more academic side of things, I think that researching and referencing specific texts that actually interest me do help a lot in the development of my practice. I like the versatility that comes as consumers of media; analysing a particular text and taking inspiration from that to recontextualize it however we please. As a key aspect of this studio, I also think that the weekly activities allowed me to branch out and explore things out of my comfort zone. Though not every single one of them ended up making its debut in my final film, I feel like it ticked the boxes of “experimental” and “sensation” in this course.
