Media Bodies Wk3 – Balancing and Dancing

 

A synopsis of Old Dog Balancing

  • In this work, the purpose is to highlight the balance a 16 year old dog has on different surfaces and the ways he moves in reaction to his environment.
  • Close up shots of Ben, the 16 year old dog, helps focus in on the way he is standing on the different surfaces, more so how he is finding his balance on the surface.
  • A mix of establishing shots and mid shots are used for a purpose as well. Whenever Ben runs around in excitement, it is because he has space to do so, for example, running around the yard. Some other shots are mid-close up shots and they highlight the restriction of freedom and therefore there is less excitement from Ben.

What did you discover about trying to evoke a physical environment and/or emotional environment using particular types of shots and the sounds you recorded for your soundtrack? What did the different media modes (vision or sound) allow you to do?

  • I discovered in this media work that you must focus heavily on what your surroundings are and how they are influencing the art that you are creating. I struggled with using recorded sounds in my piece so instead I used music to help enhance the emotional environment. The music definitely helped but it wasn’t able to convey an authentic feel of the physical environment. 

What worked well in your finished piece? What didn’t work quite so well? Why do you think this is?

  • Something that worked well in this piece was that I was able to capture lots of different angles and have Ben standing/walking on different surfaces. This weeks class activity of balancing on different surfaces influenced this part of my work. I found it interesting that simply standing on one leg on concrete vs doing it on a grass surface changes the way your body balances. I wanted to further this activity with a four legged friend and see if it is a similar experience to mine.
  • Something that didn’t work well was that I struggled to create a natural soundscape that linked to the environment that Ben was surrounded by. This did come from being in different locations as well as the whole piece being made up of short still shots. I managed to overlay a musical soundtrack that helped reflect the emotional environment of the piece, however I think with more practice I could make it smoother.

What is one idea from the reading that you think could be useful to the studio’s exploration of how to make media that evokes a stronger feeling of living in the body/ies shown in the media work? How did you use this idea in your own work?

  • An idea from the reading we discussed in class is how body language is a strong form of communication and helps us to understand how someone is feeling without them having to form words. As simple as that sounds, Block and Kissell’s text ‘The dance: Essence of Embodiment’ exclaims that ‘we often fail to value the decisions our body makes’. They are zooming in on the fact that people will typically react to certain things in a cultural and socially acceptable way, rather than how their body want to react.
  • This can cause people to question how they truely feel in certain situations and can cause a corrupt feeling to ones sense of embodiment.
  • A way that media can evoke a stronger feeling of living in bodies within different works is allowing characters to express themselves through body movement. It was in some ways easy for me to do this in this weeks media work because I had my dog as my main character, and the main way he expresses himself in through physical movement (he can not speak unfortunately). When he is excited, he skips around, when he is happy, his tail wags, if he is worried, his movement is hesitant.

What ideas did this week’s media examples give you about what ‘balance’ is, and/or how it plays into the experience of dancing (or other similar activity)? How did you use these ideas in your own work?

‘Figure 5 – Marcelino Sambé’ (2021) Bertil Nilsson [Video] Place distributed: https://vimeo.com/577131833

 (Links to an external site.) 

  • After watching Bertil Nilsson’s video ‘Figure 5 – Marcelino Sambé’, I could recognise a focus between the relationship of having control and being vulnerable. This was highlighted through Sambé’s dance life. He explains how dance allows him to express himself and feel most free. The style of dance that he performs is ballet, which is a style typically known for its structure and control. It is interesting that he find so much freedom and expression through this style of dance, but this could possibly be because of the steady balance that comes through each movement.

 

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