of project documentation, summary, and daydreams

i discovered in almost no time at all that i have a knack for making uncomfortable, queasy faces. i amused myself for almost two hours before i got any real work done.

~~REAL WORK~~

it became apparent as i started filming that my original storyboard wasn't directly applicable to my now very tangible and chlorine-y environment. for one, my boyfriend was very unwilling to sink head-first into a 4' shallow pool, no matter how much encouragement i showered him with. i led a horse to water and he turned into a chicken.  i gathered footage of underwater movement, which i used transitionally, in hopes to still convey descent. unrelatedly, i collected a ton of footage that i didn't use, like this:

 in the editing process, i found out that i liked a different combinations of scenes than i intended. suddenly, the video wasn't about decent. my figure instead appears to be suspended in turquoise, and the camera eye is that of a curious fish. i kept the slurping audio, and added other voices that i recorded away from the y. i spliced bits of red in there, too, which i liked as a visual complement to the watery green. overall, i loved the way the water treated my subject. it looked dreamlike, floaty, and eerie.

besides that, i tried a few different things, after having reconciled that my video would turn out differently than i imagined. now that i could no longer feature a fixed perspective, i aimed to create a new one of alternating angles. i didn't throw out the idea of keeping my subject as center, and instead moved the camera around them. i disrupted the consistency of the video by adding red, and tried to provoke a feeling of dreaminess in the shuddering relapse of pool footage. i wanted my subject to make eye contact with the viewer in order to create an immediate, cinematic relationship between these two spaces, and then i wanted the viewer to feel dragged-long and ultimately expelled from the space with the abrupt transitions. i tried to make a linear progression on familiarity, like, the subject is the first thing the audience sees. they see him with clarity. and then he becomes removed from them, and the icing-type audio bit, "i didn't recognize you," is the defense-flavored farewell.

the other bits of audio in the video are as follows:

"can you hear me?" (that was actually asked by a kid in the pool, completely unbidden. he went underwater and i guess experimented without us knowing. i couldn't hear it in the playback. i found it when i amplified the sound in video-editing-place.)

"i was like, how did that happen?"

"hello."

"i didn't recognize you."





                                                         (((TEN MINUTES LATER)))


1. sincere
2. asexual
3. spooky
4. troubled
5. hysterical
6. diseased
7. scripted
8. situational
9. interview
10. musical

cinematic space project summary

although it is a viable approach to literally construct a space in which to shoot, i am not interested in building a scene in which to point a lens. My aim is to create a cinematic space as one directs a gaze: an intent look upon a thing. the lens always acts as an eye, and i am more than happy to allow the cinematic space to be that thing which is at its focus. i will shoot less than one minute of video, accompanied by the sound of slurping, gargling drain noise. i will be under water, in a pool. there will be several seconds of just the ambient blue water (or whatever color the pool happens to be painted) and the noise. then, there will be hair. i want the hair to appear as though it is being sucked downward. this will be followed by a head, and then the body of a peron, as they descend into the water, and then below the vision frame of the camera, until they disappear. for a few seconds, the slurping will continue, until the empty vacuum roar, which we will recognize as the sound produced by an empty drain.

if i'm able, i would like to make it appear as though the water is draining after the subject. so, i'd have to make the water level fall and film some air. i'll see what i can do in editing. but, if not, my above idea will work well enough. my boyfriend has kindly volunteered to be my model, and he has shoulder-length blonde hair, which may be long enough without extensions.

i drew inspiration from a short movie called breath, by samuel beckett (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1ZON66BbB0)

i also found a wealth of underwater photography, which is quite beautiful

i am also interested in the femenist vibe i'm channeling through the use of water, and especially with the image of a male figure being immursed and then passed through it. it's a visual interpretation of birth, supplemented with disgusting noises rather than blood and baby screaming. i suppose this means that my boyfriend will have to be naked, although i haven't told him.
tl;dr: underwater video of sinking person. drain suckage noises.