Jorgen Leth
In the first lecture, we were shown the first part of ‘The Five Obstructions’ (also known as ‘Fem Benspaend, De’ (Directed by Jorgen Leth)). It was a very interesting documentary from what we saw of it. It was something new to my minds, something that got me thinking, not just about the documentary, but also of myself as a media production student. What am I capable of; What skills do I have? What talent do I have? How good am I? How good am I at overcoming problems? All these questions come flooding in for me. It felt like it was giving off a message for me to step up, and improve myself. I began thinking of my final project this year, thinking that I really want to produce something of good quality, and that I have to test myself before I do so. Test myself, just like Jorgen tested his mentor Lars.
Cinema Verite
In the 3rd week, we began to look at cinema verite, to explain what cinema verite, look at the site/s bellow.
http://www.parlez-vous.com/misc/realism.htm
For me cinema verite is a ‘fly on the wall’ style of filmmaking that documents what is beeing shown without any interference from the film crew. Almost like a first persons point of view, hand held or free from the convetional forms of filmmaking.
Daybreak Express (D.A Pennebaker)
cinema verite
Direct Cinema
We also looked at Jan Svankmajer and some of his videos. it wasn’t the first time i had come accross him, tho still…when i look at his work, in some ways i think he was a genius to produce the videos/animations that he did. (more to follow)
ARTEFACT 1: MEMORY (idea & plan)
for my first artefact i have decided to go with the concept of losing memory. memory is very important to us as people. it makes us who we are, it’s what reminds us that we’re alive or at least have lived. we act upon our experiences, from our memory, in a sence it’s what makes us behave the way we do. i wish to show a number of images of experiences or objects, to signify the human memory, an how it forgets by repeating the images and taking them away one by one. this will be accompanied with a narration/voice-over.
MEMORY
For this video I wanted the pictures to show meaning, to represent life, to represent memories, so I took pictures of my memories and used them in the order of relevance. I used images of me and of places or things that hold or held significance to me at some point in my life. I placed around 15 or so pictures appearing one after another and then looped them. I recorded my narration about memories and pieced together the sentences to flow nicely. Around a 3rd of the way through I started to take pictures away, determined by importance to myself and who I am, and what I currently care about. Though I had placed more pictures than perhaps I should have, n therefore was deleting a few each time the loop occurred, so that the images could fit in with my narration. I don’t have a strong voice for a narration, however I felt that because I was using my memories and not someone else’s or staged ones. I felt it would be best and more believable to use my own voice. Overall I feel it is a decent piece to represent the loss of memory and how important it is or could be to us. Had I have given myself more time to think it through, I’m sure I could have produced something better. I will think over it in the next few days because I would like to reproduce or make another video. If I can find the time, then I will and hopefully it will be better.
Crying Men
during one of the lectures, we looked at pictures and how they can be stricking and attention grabing, powerfull images. ‘crying men’ was one of the series of photos we looked at. they were taken by Sam Taylor-Wood, a female photographer, who got famous actors to act out and cry infront of the camera. each actor is genuinly crying, which is a difficult thing to do even as an actor, so these pictures give a sense of how good these actors are.
these photos consist of actors such as, Tim Roth, Gabriel Byrne, Laurence Fishburne, Woody Harrelson, Michael Gambon, Jude Law, Hayden Christiansen, Ryan Gosling, Robert Downey Jr., Paul Newman, Ed Harris, Benicio Del Toro, Willem Dafoe, and Kris Kristofferson
POWER
For this artefact, I didn’t give myself much time to produce it, though I wanted to make it in the style of the first artefact, using images and a voice over. I tried to produce a video that would again, ask the audience questions and make them think a little about their daily actions. After looking into the topic of surveillance, it came to me that we are coming to a world in which we cannot go about our daily lives without being noticed through the power of surveillance. Only indoors we can hide, only if we do not use technology we can hide. If we use any type of device or walk outside, we are in theory being watched/monitored. Whenever a new means of surveying us is put into place, we are told that it’s being used by a certain company or the local authorities or the government. But how do we know for sure? How do we know it’s not all for a secret organisation or for a different purpose to that which we were informed of? How do we know other regular people cannot access the devices of surveying? It seems that anything that is introduced to the world is never questioned, despite the fact that we are never asked if it is ok. We are never the ones to give the go-ahead on things like surveillance systems, and yet we’re supposed to be living in a democratic country. In terms of the topic, I can say that I’m happy with it; however I still feel I can produce better. Hopefully I can learn from these first two artefacts and produce something better for my 3rd piece.
SPECTACLE ARTEFACT
For this artefact, i wanted to produce images that to me represent spectacles, something to look at and think ‘wow’ that’s amzing/cool and also hold meaning. Because i’m studying here in coventry, i wanted to show people, that coventry is not the dull, boring, tiny city that people asume it to be. I wanted to show that even a place like coventry which has it’s war wounds has some beauty to show, that it has places that people can go to for escapism. Coventry is finaly starting to blossm, it is finaly becoming the phoenix bird that it assosiates itself with.
Here are some pictures i took around coventry, pictures that i feel represent spectacles. maybe not to the naked eye but hold meaning as a whole if not individualy. i can only hope that these pictures make coventry look beautifull and not ugly.
The Shock Doctrine
we looked at this video by Naomi Klein, which i quite liked and found interesting. for me the phrase of the video is at the end, you will see when you watch.
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In the first term of my 3rd year, we focused on the themes/concepts of POWER, SPECTACLE, and MEMORY, coming up with thoughts and ideas that we would research into and produce artefacts to sum them up. Below is the my thoughts/research/ideas into each 3 themes.
THE HUMAN MEMORY
The brain is a very complex part of the body, and experts are still struggling to make sense of how some parts work. thought the brain can be understood in a simple way. it can retain event’s throughout a persons life, thought it can forget also. memories are first entered into the short term memory, and then enter into the long term memory. though it is not as simple as that. human memories are like jigsaw puzzles where different peices are put together to create an image. each memory is broken down into different elements, and each element is stored in a different place. though the more similar the memories are the more difficult it is for the brain to differentiate them, and therefore might replace memories or elements. though as long as the mind regularly retrieves it’s memories it will make it difficult to forget. retrieving memories is kinda like playing an instrument, the more you rehears the more efficient you become. so if the brain rehearses it’s retrieving process it willbecome better and more efficient at doing it. howver it is the action of not rehearsing/retrieving memories that leads to the loss of some memories.
In terms of losing memories, it is mainly that we simply fail to retrieve memories rather than failing to store them though failure to store memories is becoming more common. There are a few reasons as to why we forget our memories, and they’re very simple to understand.
the Decay Theory: over time memories that are not retrieved or practiced begin to fade
the Interference Theory: when a new memory that is similar to an old memory is attempted to be stored, they fight for a place or interfere with other memories. There are two types of interference;
- ‘Proactive interference‘ is when an old memory makes it more difficult or impossible to remember a new memory.
- ‘Retroactive interference‘ occurs when new information interferes with your ability to remember previously learned information.
Sometimes our brains fail to store memories because our memory is based on storing the most important details.
Motivated Forgetting
at some point in a presons life their brains will have recorded a memory that it does not want to remember, and therefore works to forget it (i.e. traumatic memories)
Suppression: is the concious form of forgetting memories
Repression: is the sub/unconcious form of forgetting, however there is no way to prove this theory.
Traumatic events/memories are often forgotten through lack of discussion or rehearsal or retrieval. Which is why we do not remember our birth, because of the pain that we went throught, was too much for our fragile young minds, and we cannot rehears the action or one that is very similar.
http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-memory.htm
http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/tp/explanations-for-forgetting.htm
Memory testing
i wanted to do some memory testing, so i tired some myself to see how i’d do.
with the bbc’s memory test, i had to remember two sets of pictures consisting of people’s faces and then go through a list of 48 pictures of faces that have been shown before and faces that have not been shown. in between each part i had to take a five minute break so that my mind could be distracted and potentialy forget. however out of 24 pictures shown, i remembered 23, and in terms of matching them to their designated part (part 1 or 2) i scored 60%.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/tmt/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/tmt/results.shtml
another test i came accross was this online game called ‘memory test’. it is a combination of colours that light up in an order and you have to repeat the order, it was pretty easy, and i’m pretty sure that it was aimed at kids, though i thought i’d try it anyway. i got upto 20 results on the master level before i got bored.
http://www.absolutist.com/online/memory/
Alzheimer’s disease
this is a diseas that occurs in the brain and affects about 417,000 people in the UK. it causes tangles and plaques to occur in the brains structure leading to brain cells dying, and it reduces some chemicals within the brain that help the flow of transmitions through it. over time, the brain becomes more damaged and symptoms become more servere, requiring the person to have someone care for them more and more.
people with alzheimers begin to have memory lapses as well as struggling to use their intended words. they start to forget names, places, recent or future events, they become more emotional due to there increasin memory loss, and as time goes on they will begin to be more withdrawn from reality. it is a realy depressing thing to have to go through, and i can’t imagine the thoughts that go through a persons mind, knowing they have alzheimer’s.
http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=100
Alzheimer’s disease can be a very difficult time for a person if they have it. it is difficult to treat and can take away a person identity. here’s a couple of video of how it has affected people.
i realised while researching this, that my neighbour (john) had this illness, i always knew his memory was fading, and that he had some sort of memory probem, though i was never sure of wat it was. he got to a point in his life where he could no longer do any physical labour due to his age. so i would tend his garden for him. and during this time he would forget who i was, and why i was comming over to his house. he would always need his wife to remind him, to reassure him. he always used to tell me ‘what ever you do, don’t get old’.
i will never forget him. may he rest in peace……
POWER
The 2008 US presidential election definitely falls into the power theme. This is a global event, and why? Because
people want to see who has majority control over the world. Even though this event is not splashed on every media outlet we come across, we still tune in to the ones that do display coverage or news of it. Knowing that the event is taking place influences us for a least a short while, just to see who wins. Let alone the event being a powerful one, the presidential seat is also a very powerful one; one that has the strongest and biggest army in the world. This year we have senator Obama and McCain going up against each other for the presidential election. Though being the president of the United States of America does not mean that you are the richest man in the world, this is a pure case of STATUS power.
Money is also a form of power, as it can dictate. Money pays for everything in this world, and can be used to per-sway people to do as you please, giving a sense of control/power the user of money. As the saying goes, ‘money speaks’. Thought this is only because we need money that everybody has their own price. Money can also create a sense of status for the user, and therefore does not always need to use money to do as he/she pleases, but can do so, simply by being known for their level of status.
Profile Sites have the power to give users the ability to survey their friends and potentially other people. Sites like Facebook and Myspace are the most popular as they are heavily built up, allowing you to check what your friends
have been up to, as well as sending instant messages to them and tagging them in uploaded photo’s. This also implements the power of controlling, as these sites are for networking, a common interest, which is used
to influence people into setting up and using them.
And having a range of elements to give the users something to do is a sense of control as the sites have the say on what can and can’t be done through these profiles. As well as having power, profile sites give power…the power of knowledge as each profile page contains information, information that can be used to the users advantage.
Energy
i don’t mean electrical or physical energy, but the type of energy that is within us. we all have this spiritual/emotional energy that we carry around with us every day. however it empowers us to use as we please. we can either use it for good or bad, positively or negatively. this type of energy is neutral, and only becomes what we call ‘Positive’ or ‘Negative’ when we have an emotion about someting. this energy can manifest and overpower us, and to an extent controll how we think or feel. if we create negative thoughts or feelings we tend to become fixated in that way and the same goes for creating positive thoughts or feelings. the more powerfull this engery builds up within a person, the more noticable by others it is. this is often thought of as one’s presence, which can sometimes be felt even if they are not seen.
Meditation
Meditation is a state of relaxation, normally in a sat down position. The aim of meditating is to calm the mind by emptying its current thoughts or to focus on as little as possible i.e. a word. This action/process is used for many things, but they are all ultimately for a better well being. People use this to relieve the mind of stress or negative thoughts, and some people used it to function better.
Meditation has proven to not only be useful for soothing/relaxing the mind, but also to heal the body. As the mind is using less energy thinking and using its senses, it focuses on making the body work more efficient. Blood pressure is lower, cholesterol is decreased, oxygen is circulating around the body faster, and reactions are quicker as the mind becomes more alert after meditating.
when i looked at this topic, i wanted to try it for myself, so i practiced meditating for a week. and the informatin i read on what it does for you, was pretty much the findings i had encountered. i felt refreshed and wide awake, with the feeling of plenty of energy running through me, i felt positive and more calm about things, a state of ‘go with the flow’.
i found this simple easy guide to meditating through a video on youtube, which helped me to understand and get started.
Surveillance
there is a lot of surveillance out there incase you haven’t noticed. cctv is the major obviouse one, though i would probably place credit/debit cards, mobile/phones and the internet right up there along with it. here’s a link to an article about it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6108496.stm
Artefact Idea (Power)
for this artefact i want to look at surveillance, which i think is an important issue that is not thought about enough by society. and it is something i want to make my audience more aware of. again i want to use images and a narration. my plan is to take pictures of the relevant items which i will place in order to go along with the narration.
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Internet Black Box
I recently read an article on the net, of a future plan of the british government about implementing a black box system for the internet, to monitor what the british citizens are looking at and emailing to each other. please check the link bellow for more info.
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/11/07/british-government-spy
SPECTACLE
Atlantis palm jumeirah hotel in dubai was opened on the 20th novemebr 2008. Normaly you would have a large crowd to watch, with maybe a bit of music or someone with high status to be present. However in dubai it is not like that, for this hotel a £3m fireworks display was put on for show, as well as a kylie minogue performance. The whole ceremony cost around £15m, which cost nowhere near the £1.5bn hotel itself. So you can certainly see why the owner was happy to splash out a big show.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7740887.stm
the video is below if you cannot be bothered to watch it through the link.
Solar eclips
A solar eclipse is when the moon travels between the sun and the earth so that the sun light is obscured to the earth Therefore turning day light into darkness in certain parts of the world. Partial eclipses occur quite frequently, however total eclipses happen every few hundred years. This is a natural phenomenon that has become more popular over the past decade, as in the last total eclipse many people travelled to certain places in the world, just to get a good view . unfortunately a solar eclipse is harsh to the naked eye, and connot be looked at directly or through a telescope/lens, and therefore special solar filter glasses warn to protect the retina from the infra-red radiation of the event.
Aurora borealis
The aurora borealis is a beautiful natural event that can only be seen in regions close to the North Pole. When it occurs every eleventh year or so, it is as if someone is doodling the clear night sky with aluminous colour/s. Although there is the scientific reasoning behind it all, it reminds people that there is a lot of beauty in this planet we live on.
Here’s a video link that explains how it all works.
Marching Bands
a year or so ago, i was shown by a friend of mine this youtube video of the ‘Cal Band’ (University of California Marching Band), which performs for the university’s american football team’s home games. i don’t know why i didn’t remember this sooner, because at the time when i first watched it, i was astonished. for me, this definitly represents spectacle, as it is the best marching bad performance i have ever seen, and i have not seen anything quite like it.
Landscape
One of the things that sprung to mind when thinking about spectacle is landscape/scenery. i’ve visited a few countries and have come accross lovely views, so i remembered that, and started looking at images on the net of beautiful landcape across the world. We normaly associate spectacles with something we see, so why can’t beautiful scenery be spectacles? it looks beautiful, it is something that amazes us and only is that way during a certain time or type of weather, so in a sense can be thought of as a performance by mother nature herself. she is one big on-going spectacle. so here are some images of landscape that i found and thought ‘WOW!’.
Artefact idea (spectacle)
for my final artefact i want to look at landscape around coventry. coventry is often thought of a tiny city with nothin to offer and hardly anything to go around and look at in terms of site seeing. i’ve lived here in coventry for two years as a student and know the city centre very well, and some of the surrounding area. i intend to go around with a still camera and take photos of landscape or architecture that i find appealing or pretty in some way.
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when we first started the module and was told what we would be doing, i thought ‘cool’. We’re going torealy look into stuff, get inspired, think of ideas, and create some work that reflects our thoughts, views or concepts on these themes/topics.
Memory - i was in group 3, so we started off looking at ‘memory’. with this theme, i thought it was pretty simple, though i could find as much material to look at, so i focused a little more about the human memory and how it forgets, which led me to looking at alzheimer’s diseas. reading about it, and watching videos about it was 2 different things. reding it brought me the information which was ok, because i learnt something new, but i couldn’t imagine what people go through when dealing with it. the videos brought my emotional thoughts through. i just couldn’t comprehend how a disease could exist, because i felt it was a harsh thing to place upon a person and his/her family. however it brought me to thinking that memories are what make our identity, they are what create our personality, they are what make us feel alive. you take that away from someone and you have a cabbage…..nothing, there’s a house but the lights are not on….no-one is home. so i decided to make my first artefact based on losing memories and that if we lose them, we lose our identity, we become less and less ourselves. i wanted to use pitcures to represent the memories, and i wanted to use photos that i would take myself, but i wasn’t sure how it would help, so i used photo’s from my past as well as my time here and some of things or places that hold meaning to me. i placed them one after the other and then looped them. half way through i started to take photo’s away, so that the loop occurs sooner and sooner. i chose to do this so that it could represent the memories fading away. i also produced a narration myself using my voice. i knew i didn’t have the ideal voice, though i could not find one that was, and i felt that if i didn’t use my voice, yet used my pictures, from my past,then it would creat a sense of falseness. when i had finsihed it, i thought it was good, but there was something in the back of my mind that was saying something is not right. once i got feedback from my tutor, i totaly agreed with him. i had used too many images, which resulted in it not being affective visualy, and therefore only worked through the narration i did. for me it gets the point accross, but it was only a day after i had finished it, that i did not like it, and it was purely because of my voice. maybe i’l re-do the peice again at some point….we’ll see.
Power - this was the next theme we had to work with. and i knew it would be tricky. however i realy wanted to produce something good, something better than my first artefact. so i thought to do something different to wat was previously done by the other group. i looked at what they had done, the topics/concepts/ideas that they put forward. in doing so i only found myself stuck in a dilema. the other group had all put forward different ideas. so, imagine 20 or so different ideas about power……now try and do something different. by doing this i put myself in a mental block, i struggled to think of something. i wasn’t sure what to research, and although i had shot myself in the foot with this, i still didn’t want to think of a concept that was simple.
when i was visiting home in london it reminded me how heavily surveillance the city was, and all the kinda of systems they have in place, and i had also recieved a new passport at that time, which i looked at when i was home, finding the chip inside on the back page. i thought to myself, ‘man, we can’t escape’, thinking of a conversation i had with my college teacher a few years back. it was when the new oyster cards were being braught out, and we were sayin how we can be tracked through them because they are swiped through a system. we ended uup going through various other methods we could be tracked if necessary. so i thought about making my second artefact based on surveillance. though by the time i decided this, i didn’t leave myself much time to put something together. i thought i might as well do the same thing as the first artefact, using images and a narration by me ofcourse. i didn’t have time to arrange to take all the pictures, so i took some from google images….not something i’m proud of. as with the first artefact i felt simillar towards the second artefact once i was done. this was due to the fact that i produced the same thing, just a different topic, so the flaws were there from the begining. if i was to re-make the video, i would probably try to use moving image of smillar stuff. but i do feel that i put the message accross….just in a very cheesy way.
Spectacle - when it came to producing something based on the theme spectacle, i knew it wouldn’t be so easy. i looked at various stuff through research, and i was more focused on natural spectacles, natural beauty. i wasn’t interested in making a piece based on a performance or play, as i didn’t want to be obvious. so i thought about taking pictures around coventry. i’ve been a student living in coventry for two years already and have learned a fair bit of the inner city, so i pretty much knew what i wanted to take photo’s of. there’s not a lot of beautiful scenerey in coventry as it is quite built up, but there is some good architecture, modern architecture. Coventry is often thought of as a small city that has nothing to offer, has no beauty. but that’s not how i see it, there are places that you can go to for brief escapism.
Overal - this module has been different to previous ones. it isn’t so open, there are limitations due to the 3 themes we were given. though it is easier to work around a theme or a word, it is more focused, giving us options. to me, it has made it easy, it is down to the individual as to how hard they make it fr themselves…..with me i made it tricky for myself becasue i fell into bad habbits.when i look back, i think i did ok, but i feel i could have and should have done more. i should have experimented more, and tried something that i could benefit from. some people had side projects going on, and that’s something i feel i should have done myself. also, i feel that i did not plan things to the level i believe i can do. for next term i know i have to be on top of my game, and be more productive with my time and be more organised. i plan to practice and experiment things which will benefit my final project, which will involve improving my skills and learning new ones. i have a few ideas for next term, but i’m also very cautious about who i share my ideas with. hopefully i can produce one of m own ideas, i’m worried that if it is not my idea, i might not be interested, enthusiastic or motivated enough.but i lookforward to seeing what happens.
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bellow are a list of all the materials i have used so far.
GENERAL
Images – http://images.google.co.uk/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi
MEMORY
Human memory – http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-memory.htm
- http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/tp/explanations-for-forgetting.htm
POWER
Energy – http://rainbowsendpress.com/troe/negposenrgy.html
Meditation – http://1stholistic.com/Meditation/hol_meditation_what_is.htm
- http://1stholistic.com/Meditation/hol_meditation_how.htm
- http://1stholistic.com/Meditation/hol_meditation_healing.htm
- http://1stholistic.com/Meditation/hol_meditation_benefits_physical.htm
- http://1stholistic.com/Meditation/hol_meditation_benefits_psychological.htm
Internet Black Box -http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/11/07/british-government-spy
SPECTACLE
Atlantis hotel – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7740887.stm
Solar eclipse – http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/sun/solareclipse.shtml
- http://www.mreclipse.com/Special/SEprimer.html
Aurora borealis – http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/aurora_borealis.html
University of California Marching Band – http://www.calband.berkeley.edu/calband/about/
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