FM3 - The Creative Project

Reflective Analysis

I created a short film titled “Untitled 4” which was influenced by Stan Brakhage and Zineb Sedira. Abstract work such as these types are for an art house audience and would therefore be seen in galleries. This would be the most appropriate place for screening as the work is essentially intended as an ‘Art’ installation and would be appreciated here.

My influences from Brakhage and Sedira are very different. Brakhage painted ink on glass to create very atmospheric and aesthetically pleasing films such as “Black Ice“, whereas Sedira created a structured narrative for her film, which was then time-lapsed, called “Don’t do to her what you did to me.” In both films the artist uses ink therefore I used these techniques to create an avant-garde film by pouring different coloured ink into a jar and filming the results. Sedira used this technique to present a story whereas Brakhage used techniques that physically have ink on glass. I used Sedira’s idea of ink submerged in water, as I was already very intrigued by the movement and flow of the ink staining the water.

I was influenced by Sedira’s use of close-ups and still shots therefore I adopted these techniques by filming the jar and allowing the colours to slowly change and merge in a shot. All of these techniques together helped me create a mesmerising film. Brakhage often used atmospheric still images accompanied by non-diegetic music that is very ambient making an audience think by using sound and visuals. This is the impression I wanted to create for my film and I therefore used non-diegetic sound to create similar results by making my film more ‘dreamlike’.

I was inspired by Brakhage’s use of colours in his films and wanted to inject that into my work through editing, I made the colours more vivid by using the solarise tool on final cut, this then makes the colours change as the film progressed. I feel this effect produces a more thought provoking atmosphere, because it’s more dreamlike and out of context, the audience would not recognise this or would have seen before. Derek Jarman has made experimental avant-garde films where he has used a layering effect in a number of his works (such as ‘The Queen Is Dead’); I was influenced by this effect because it gives different depth of field to the pieces. I decided to add this effect into my film to make a more art house film and create confusion in an audience as to what they are looking at.

The concept of Brakhage’s film is to be aesthetically pleasing and thought provoking such as “Black Ice” is reflecting the flash of lights and colours we see when we close our eyes, this makes an audience think differently and create a different mind set because it’s something we have not seen before. I found this quite inspiring because it’s so imaginative, thus I wanted to make my film on a object that people have never seen before from my own perspective of something that relaxes me. I’m inspired by the original ideas that Brakhage has shown and wanted to make a unique film of my own by using effects such as colour enhancer and solarise creating bursts of colours reflecting space that create a thought about the universe as a whole. This then makes my film have a philosophical meaning that is very deep and hopefully provokes an audience to reflect while being relaxed and mesmerised.

During filming I had the camera on a tripod and the camera tilted landscape with an extremely close up of the jar, only a part of the jar was filmed with sides of the background showing. I felt this was not correct because it wasn’t filling the screen and creating the correct thought provoking atmosphere. As well as that, an audience would be able to see that it’s ink in a jar, this then would facilitate an argument about its ‘highbrow’ positioning as it was shot without the correct care and attention that most artistic works are given. For that reason I decided to tilt the camera portrait and fill the whole screen with an extremely close up shot of the jar with the ink coming into the left, this then created a stronger atmospheric look on the film, because the close up shot is making the audience see something that they have not seen before adding a sense of confusion.

I made four films which then I made into a split screen to show how I would want the audience to see the film as a whole, because if my film was in a art gallery the four films would be projected onto four different walls, but because I haven’t got an art gallery I have created this split screen effect so the audience and see the film as I want it to be shown. To enhance the artistic atmosphere I decided to add non-diegetic ambient music to all four films and made the music start at different times, this makes the atmosphere more superior as the ambient music will be coming from different parts of the room if it was in an art gallery. I like my idea of making the music begin at different times and in different areas in the room as this adds to the disorientating effect upon the audience.