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Final Installation

Setting up the installation pieces

Southend shoot - Evaluation

Southend shoot - Evaluation

One of the consequences of climate change that we wanted to tackle was the rising sea levels. Initially, we thought we could represent that by shooting people in a living room in a house by the sea and having the water invade their space, reaching their feet. We came to the conclusion that the best way to shoot would be to build a simple living room set on the beach, so the water could easily reach our actors’ feet. This way we would be pushing the frontiers of filming a moving image piece by utilising an unconventional location to build a set in and even more so, by showing the construction, breaking the illusion crated initially. 

We decided on shooting first close-ups of a couple sitting on a sofa in their living room, doing banal things, such as watching TV, filing nails and eating cereal. Then, we would reveal the constructed set and it’s real location, panning to the water reaching their feet. This means of challenging the audience’s expectations was also used in the shoot at Dungeness, which created a link between the two that went beyond just aesthetics.

We decided to go for a vintage look. Not only would that create a link with the environmental destruction made in the decades of 1950/1960 - the time which we visually based our film on -   but it would still make sense in a future setting, considering the retro tendencies in fashion and design at the moment.

In the end, the set was destroyed by the intense wind, waves and the increasingly high tide. However, we decided to keep shooting because we thought that would go perfectly with what we were trying to say. It would also enhance the strangeness of the situation, especially by showing the couple on the sofa with no set in the end.

For the presentation we decided to build a similar set around an old TV that would show the final piece, so we would create a similar environment to the one being portrayed in the video. The poor quality of the screen went really well with our edit, which was made to look like a VHS tape. We also added an old weather forecast narration on top of the visuals so that the audio would also add to the theme of climate change and extreme weather conditions.

Dungeness Shoot - EVALUATION

Dungeness Shoot evaluation

The idea for this film originated from looking at deforestation as a direct effect of climate change. The first thing we needed to do was find an adequate location for this. Our main concern was that England isn’t well known for its deforestation, so it would be hard to find a place that showcased it accurately. After long looking, we found Dungeness. 

Dungeness is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of a cuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh.

After we found the location, we needed to think of the film. There is a straight link between the fifties era and our present issue of climate change, that generation having a complete disregard for the environment and us having to deal with the consequences. Referenced by David Lynch and his fondness to portray this generation, illustrated by his Twin Peaks aesthetic and his fascination with plastic as the representation of modernity. 

We have consistently gone with this aesthetic for costume and set design in our “rising sea levels” film, so we decided that sticking with the theme in this also more “narrative based” and “cinematic” film would be the right choice. We decided on a costume that was adequate to those standards. 

To also continue with the theme of the beach film, we needed to resort to the unexpected (also links to Lynch’s work) Creating an expectation, to challenge it with a strange and improbable outcome, using satire as an instrument to achieve this. 

We decided on the storyline of our film being: A girl dancing to upbeat 50’s style music only in closeups at the beginning, so the audience doesn’t get a clear view of what the location is or what’s going on. When we reveal the extremely desolate location on a wide shot, the music vanishes and we can only hear sounds of howling wind and loneliness, but she still dances as if there were music, completely ignoring her surroundings. With this we represent the disregard of this generation, how our earth could look like on its entirety if we keep going this path and shocks us with the dark reality we are facing right now. 

We also went with the old school look for the installation piece, using an old tv with a glitchy image and headphones that immerse you into the music just so when it stops, it's way more impactful. 

Beach Shoot 2nd Edit (VHS)

We decided to give the beach film a second edit, as we felt that our first edit did not possess enough narrative cohesion. When editing the first draft, we excluded one shot that proved to be crucial to our story. This is because the nature of the shot, being wide, and shooting into the sun against a dark foreground, meant that the it included areas of the frame which were bleached white, due to over exposure. This left us in a predicament as to whether or not to include it, however, we found that when showing others our edit with the shot absent, our audience was left slightly unsettled due to the relevance of the final shot, as there was no obvious link between the end scene and the scenes that come before. This meant that we had no option but to include this shot, as to us, narrative cohesion took priority over minor aesthetic details. Creating this VHS style effect not only aided us in slightly disguising this overexposure and distracting the audience, but also helped reinforce the context of a dystopian past-influenced future. In our opinion, this made for a more successful edit.

Infrared BTS

Infrared Behind the Scenes

Flipbook Video/Final Making Process

Flipbook final

Above, our final flipbook can be seen.

Process;
1) Taking the burst images of a gold fish to make a basic stop motion
2) Editing the colours of the image to provide more vibrance
3) Printing the images on paper
4) Reacting these images with acids and allowing them to dry
5) Scanning the bleached images
6) Cropping these images to a 16:9 aspect ratio and arranging the pages in order and aligned with the back pages
7) Printing these onto card (thick to provide flicking effect)
8) Printing covers and inside covers, sticking them back to back using a cold press glue mount
9) Foiling covers using laminating machine
10) Cutting binding screws to required size, aligning the book drilling 2 holes through
11) Binding the book using Chicago screws.

Foiling Cover Tests

Flipbook making process and tests of front cover foiling

The process involved printing onto paper using laser printer toner ink. We place the foil over the top then feed the paper and foil through a heated laminator unit.  After this we, removed the foil to reveal the toner now decorated with the transferred foil. Front cover fish was foiled with golden foil to represent healthy and alive animal. We foiled fish skeleton in holographic foiling to represent the acid damage to the fish. We were using smooth texture 160gsm paper, because we found out that the smooth texture, thicker paper (160gsm-200gsm) works best for foiling. We were using different types of foils and papers to discover best looking combination. We ended up sticking with black paper and golden foil combo. 

Second edit - desert film

Second experiment with audio: wind sound effect

We thought the wind sound was a better, more impactful choice. The clear contrast with the cheerful song and the strangeness of the image of the girl dancing with no music on created the disturbing atmosphere we wanted to achieve.

First edit - desert film

First experiment with audio: distorted voice

We experimented with audio distortion in order to create a disturbing picture, contrasting with the happy music playing in the beginning. The monster-like voice could enhance the dystopian effect we are trying to create with our choice of location.

desert film

We decided to touch on the idea of deforestation with another narrative-based film alike the beach one. The film consists on a series of closeups that create an expectation and/or a feeling of uncertainty about what is going on, only to reveal an unusal/improbable outcome as an ending.

The location we chose is the only desert in the UK: Dungeness

The way the story will develop is:

A series of closeups of a girl dancing to 50s music. Almost no background and the one that shows is out of focus. Eventually the shots change to wide and they reveal the desolation of the desert.

The aesthetic is heavily influenced by the 50s/60s era in which people had a complete disregard to environmental issues and it was left to our generation to deal with the consequences. This ties in perfectly with the aesthetic of the beach film as well.

Sound wise, we're playing with different versions of the same 50s song: the song by itself, using ambient effects, distorting, changing pitch, etc...

Cost sheet

Wide Angle beach shot

This shot stood out to us when reviewing the footage from our shot list. We felt that using this shot as an alternative to an edited piece with a continuous, chronological narrative could be a viable option. This is because the shot's length and simplicity allows for no distraction on the issue at hand. Also our choice of lens (11mm) creates a fish-eyed effect, which allows us to see the rounding of the horizon. Seeing this could position the audience to see this issue as something that therefore reflects the world as a whole, rather than us as individuals.

Acid Fish

Above, the scanned images that will be printed into our flipbook can be seen as a stop motion video.

Acidifying Stop Motion Fish Frames

Josh's Acid Experiments

Here is my initial attempt at applying chemicals to a printed image. Firstly we had to make sure that we printed from an inkjet printer. The main difference between laser and ink printers are the type of cartridges each printer uses. Laser printers use toner cartridges while ink cartridges are used by inkjet printers. also Laser printers, and in turn toner cartridges, are faster in printing versus the inkjet printer. When it comes to the quality of the printed product the laser printer and toner cartridge in combination will give you higher quality. The precision of a laser printer is hard to match with an inkjet printer. Once printed with an ink printer, the paper may also tend to be more likely to get smudged or ruined while the ink is still wet.This part was the most important to us we need the printed image to allow the chemicals to affect the ink of paper. In this experiment I applied bleach, vinegar and nail varnish. This chemicals all affected the image differently. The bleach completely eroded through the ink on the image, removing all information and leaving white marks. the vinegar started to slightly erode the ink but not on the same wavelength as the bleach. The nail varnish affected the image the least. However, when applying together i got the above effect which works very well with our intentions of illustrating the acidification of the ocean.

risk assessment dungeness shoot

Location Scouting

LOCATION SCOUTING

Dungeness, Romney Marsh

Dungeness is a very unique area located on the coast of Kent, having being referred to as the UK's only desert. Even though it doesn't have the characteristics to qualify as such, it definitely resembles one, due to its scarce vegetation. 

It is a very intriguing landscape, not only because of the mix between beach and desert-like scenery, but also because of scatterings of old boats, railways and fishing huts. This mix leaves Dungeness with a very eerie but also fascinating atmosphere. That which would contribute to the effect we are trying to achieve through dystopian-looking landscapes that could possibly show the effects of climate change.

The energy company EDF currently owns this area, since it is a private estate, and has one of its nuclear power plants situated in close proximity to the residents. Another element that only adds to the strangeness of the location.