AMEN: COMBINING IDEAS (AMEN & ANONYMOUS)

I have been greatly struggling with trying to create a good interesting visual interpretation of the visual with the aural for Amen Brother. I have been too hung up on multiple (three) screens as I love working on more than the one I am used to and last years siblings piece I felt was a breakthrough for me in combining these to make an immersive three screen installation. I am also trying to combine too many elements and ideas and it needs streamlining. As I have mentioned earlier I feel using 3 screens was leading me to feel that I had to use them all and this was leading to too many elements. Even when I started playing about with one (split) screen there was still a confusion of elements elements. these need stripping back. Some good advice from the crit was to settle on 2 ideas (3 maximum) and do these well. The main areas are obviously the story of the break and G.C. Coleman's story and the appropriation of the break and it's impact on music and popular culture. These are the essence of the piece and what needs to be communicated simply, cleanly and with a narrative and little enigma built in and the revelation moment if I can make it work.

With the anonymous idea I have been trying too hard to work from the stylistics outwards. I have become very hung up on the styles I want to try and learn, develop and incorporate and have been less successful in finding that essential to all documentary ideas the narrative and most importantly the character. My big bugbear with some works is that they are all style over substance and I felt that I was starting to fall into this trap. Techniques should support and enhance story, message and character not overwhelm it or be at the expense of these.

A breakthrough today came when I thought why not combine the two concepts/areas I was interested in. The Amen Brother piece had become too much about style and idea and not enough about narrative and character which had been lost somewhere in the process. The Amen break and G.C. Coleman has a strong character at it's centre who is currently not represented as strongly as I want and the same goes for the narrative and concept behind it. It also has a real documentary feel and a message that I am trying to communicate albeit a very subjective one. The protagonist of the piece the drummer G.C. Coleman is also pretty anonymous. A genius whose 6 second drum solo has inspired or been sampled and appropriated in over 2400 other pieces of music. This is getting lost by me being to be too clever and need re-instating.

Stylistically the techniques I have been researching and playing around with have been just style ideas as I have not found the substance for them yet. Animation, roto-scoping, double exposure etc are great techniques but just that if they are not serving the material and the idea. However these techniques could be very well suited to the Amen Piece piece. Most importantly they may provide the strong visual aesthetic I have been struggling to uncover for the piece. Rather than using three screens a simplified but more visually interesting one screen piece with stronger use of surround sound may provide the audience dissemination I have been striving for.

This is the ideas I want to take forward in the development of the piece.

• Scrap the three screens for now.
• Strip back to the key elements and lose all superfluous elements. Bring in the character G.C. Coleman's role and story. 
• Make more of a narrative, inception, history of the break and impact on music.throughout the piece. VO/text on screen?
• Greater and more creative style and design. All too flat and caught up in lots of elements still to-date. Stripping back elements will aid this.
• Play around with double exposure and roto-scoping techniques. Embrace After Effects.
• More of my own footage. Loved the idea of appropriating all footage and shooting none of my own but need some footage from me. Drummer being the main one.
• Does it have to be an installation? Am I moving towards an avant-garde, documentary, narrative film?