MEMORY PROJECT

With this Artefact I had just started experimenting with photoshop and wanted  to try and look at taking a photo from just bing a photo to something more creative and intresting, I used a style and format you do see to often in photography, give the pictures an animated feel to it, the aim was to steer away from the normal conventions of the genre that I was working with. The idea came from London 7/7 bombings, and It was looking at people who were classed as Local Heros as the project which will also form as the project title. at the time of the development of this project I was in the middle of a series lectures and dissucssion seminars around the theme of memory, with in the lectuers a theory Freud had  classed as the “Mystic Writting Pad” the idea of this theroy was that your memory is like one of those mystic writting pad you had when you were a kid, and what freud believed was that our memory never really forget’s but the themes of our minds thoughts just seem to fade but the memory never disappers, like the mystic writting pad there is an most of the time an indent is left behind.  The aim of this project to in effect represent the wax pad effect with regards to my own memory and how I perceived them with regards to the aftermath of meeting the “Local Heros”. The local Heros live shoot took place at the memorial day in a Village called Goodwood, it was an event where people from around the area go together and dressed in War period costumes.  out of the whole expirience the most co-oprative group of people were the fire fighters. I found that the police and the ambulance drivers were not deliberately trying to make it hard for me to get a photo, but there were a lot of  people I had to contact to get permission to take photos, involving process that I were a unnecessary. I had been told that I would have to go to birmingham and make an appointment with the press offices for the Ambulance services, and even then i was not garunteed an oppertunity for a photo shoot. With regards to getting my ambulance driver, was through the event at Goodwood Revival they were just there and it was the idea od right place right time.

“Hallelujah”

This is a song that orginates from the mind and soul of Lenoard Cohen a musician in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s, but the song it self has been covered by several popular music aritist’s including the legendry Jeff Buckley right through to the most current Rufus Wainright. I have herd many diffrent versions of this song, but each one is diffrent in variouse way’s and styles. The way this fits in with memory is that once we understand the basic melody, we then start to tweak the song untill the point where it becomes our own, and the intresting thing is the mark this song leaves in the minds of society as a cultural artefact. This song has become a tool of remeberance for both legneds Lenoard Cohen and Jeff Buckley. I find this idea of cover songs a strong tool for understanding the power of memory and this works in the diffrences between History and collective memory. As a society who hold on tight to cultural iconic artefacts, no matter what version we hear, it is instantly recognisable to us but as a song and melody it always has somthing new to show us so the memory is never really uptodate or complete with this song.

what’s I find really intresting is the way Leonard Cohen approched the song was almost preching it as if it was a gospel from the bible or a salm, but over time it has become a cultural iconic format for suppressed love for a girl, or a representaion of escape from a sitauation the main character got him or her self in too.

“Cinima Verite”

The Cinema Verite movement worked on a very minimal, free moving style of film making which allowed them to move around the location with just their cameras.The free roaming “Candid” Camera idea developed by Drew associates preceeded  the work of The Cinema Verite movement, working on  400 ft of film this style can be found in such films as Robert Drew’s “Primary” and D.A Pennebaker’s “Don’t Look Back”. Following their Manifesto of : -

• hand held cameras
• ditch the tripod and dolly
• don’t use overlaid sound,questions or ask anyone to do anything

In the class we watched a few clips from both the above mentioned films, I found the whole combination of the above restrictions from the Dogma 95 manifesto to be refreshing and insightful in the capturing and documenting the situations, it allows you to create your own opinion without the guidance of a narrator always telling you about what’s going on. You can see where the whole idea of capturing the scene and atmosphere in a film, television program, concert or Documentary has come from. In both the films the camera takes your around and allows you to explore the many moments building up to the main event and showing you aspects you would not normally encounter anywhere else.

I found a clip that we were shown in class and I feel this is a clear example of cinema veirte at work, the idea of interacting with the space around but not disrupting or interacting with the subjects in the room, since seeing this I have become drawn to not using a tri-pod and practicing to keep as steady hand as I can, but I feel the shake of the camera keeps to the realism of this piece and in the creation of other pieces, For the artefacts I will be working tri-pod free and see how it turns out. The Idea of not becoming to familier with your surroundings and setting your camera up almost as a point of view style shots and let the subjects around provied the narrative and information.

“THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS”

“The Five Obstructions”- Lars Von Trier and Jorgen Leth attempt a re-make of “Perfect Human”. The process was separated by Five Obstructions. The first four sections are constructed with limitations set by Von Trier. Watching the film I understand that Obstructions inform, restrict and Direct your efforts, adding focus and interest to the subject, moulding an idea and making it creative. The Ethics restrict our creativity because our values stop us doing things which might be viewed as wrong or tastless. The film demostarted in most of the obstructions that conventional film making ethics were followed.

and

There is a video I feel makes a very strong argument againts the idea of the perfect human, in this film we see kris Marshall play through out the film a stereotypical male who believes and displays an air of being perfect, but through out the film we discover he is not perfect at all.  The begining sequence is the strongest part of the film and gives a lot more across than the whole film.  I really like some the shots are very strong,diffrent and create visually intresting on screen images, The theme of black and white I feel convays more of a message and can create a stronge element  and meaning to the emotions we exprience in commercial cinema.