GW: USING DOCUMENTARY MODES, TYPES AND STYLISTICS

In my Global Warmning piece I wanted to reflect back on the different modes of documentary and see how I could utilise them in this piece. A very interesting and influential approach to the study of documentary that I have used throughout my own work is Bill Nichols’  “The Documentary Modes of Representation”. In this he identified five different modes (or types) of documentary. He created a way of organising documentaries into catagories similar to film genres. Unlike genres though these modes, Expository, Observational, Participatory, Reflexive, Performative and Poetic, were defined with reference to documentary techniques rather than subject matter like their feature film counterparts.

Taking these modes as a starting point and exploring all the areas that Nichols devised in more detail will help me to define the boundaries of traditional documentary techniques. Whilst not the definitive tool it has helped me to understand styles, techniques and approaches and consider how to manipulate, stretch and possibly subvert them. Much as modern chefs are now creating “deconstructed” dishes such as reducing a cheesecake to its core elements and playfully distorting subverting and disrupting them I am looking to apply this same practice to my practice. All of these areas interest me and I can "borrow and be playful or even possibly subvert codes and conventions from all of them to help me create my Global Warmning piece.

My earlier works had been wanting to experiment predominantly in the poetic and reflexive modes and wanted to use stylistics, techniques, codes and conventions of these. They had the greatest scope for creativity and manipulation of sound and image and will get me closest to my aim of creating exciting works fusing documentary with fiction and avant-garde.

However the Global Warmning piece is a very different beast. The creativity here is in the content and the storytelling less on the creative stylistics. What will be more important is the mimicry and use of the codes and conventions of the modes to create pieces that feel like types of documentary that the audience are familiar with. I am working in the realm of a hybrid of the docu-drama which uses documentary form to tell an invented but plausible story and drama-documentary which is based on real events but uses conventional fictional forms (scripts, actors, narrative and structure) to tell the story. I need the audience to feel that the documentaries are right so an excellent understanding of the form is essential. I decided to look again at the documentary modes and to see how I could use them in the construct of my Global Warmning piece.

POETIC DOCUMENTARY MODE

From all of the documentary modes poetic documentaries were the area of most interest to me and my work. To use Nichols’ 2001 own description these emphasise “ visual associations, tonal and rhythmic qualities, descriptive passages”. He also added the poetic mode “moves away from the ‘objective’ reality of a given situation or people, to grasp at an “inner truth” that can only be grasped by poetical manipulation”. In other words, the audience are shown an abstract, subjective, representation of reality or “inner truth” achieved through techniques such as accentuated visuals and a narrative organised to fit the mood of the documentarian rather than the linear, logical organisation of the majority of documentary films.

In this they share similarities with the more cinematic use of film language that some Performative documentaries use. As mentioned on my performative documentaries post this manipulation of editing, sound, cinematography and mise-en-scene as well as structure to create an emotive response to the content matter. This highly cinematic use of film language will allow me greater creativity and for my documentary work to draw on fiction and avant garde film techniques to create mood, tone and more emotional meaning to the audience.

A good example is  Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia (1938) on the Aryan athletes representing Nazi Germany at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Riefenstahl glorifies the athletic ability and aura of these athletes through exagerated low camera angles and slow motion editing. In addition to this, Riefenstahl manipulated the sound editing of the documentary so that the background music matched with the movements of the athletes. These obvious distortions of reality in fact had the intention to use the ‘documentary’ as a source of Nazi propaganda to fuel patriotism within Germany and therefore demonstrate how documentaries of the poetic mode present a biased, subjective reality.

I feel that the poetic mode is one to stray away from in the Global Warmning project though. I do not want to work to feel contrived but rather be stereotypical versions of modes that the audience are familiar with. I am after nuts and bolts nailed on documentary styles codes and conventions. The audience have to feel that the content that i am creating is real and that they are not being manipulated.

PERFORMATIVE DOCUMENTARY MODE

Performative documentaries are defined in three main areas. The first two of these can sometimes centre the film around an actual performance or can even be a performance by a character in a role. The last relates to a performance by the documentary-maker being the central focus of the film and drawing the audiences attention to the construction and the filmmaking process with all the trials and tribulations this involves. Questions are often raised by this type of documentary with the director being the “star” and auteur and a lot of the work of Nick Broomfield is a good example of this.

The area of performative documentary that I was interested in previously was the one that experiments with form film language itself. This is the manipulation of editing, sound, cinematography and mise-en-scene as well as structure to create a performance rather than just subservient to the subject matter. They are generally highly cinematic and use all of the areas of film at the filmmakers disposal using style to create emotive meaning to the audience. A good example of a performative documentary is Night Mail by Harry Watt and Basil Wright using music, recreated sets, poetry and cinematic and atmospheric visuals to create a piece of good propaganda about society pulling together for a greater good and national pride.

The issues with this mode obviously overlap with the Poetic mode reservations.  I do not want to work to feel contrived but rather be stereotypical versions of modes that the audience are familiar with. The audience have to feel that the content that I am creating is real and that they are not being manipulated.

However the the performative aspect I am interested in exploring is the first two types. The first of these can being the film centred around an actual performance and the other being the performance by a character in a role. Whilst I have no desire to be in front of camera and have no real acting chops I am convinced I could hopefully play myself! I could be in the documentary as the film-maker interviewer for an added sense of reality. It is my piece I am the producer director so feel that this would be believable too which is the key. The second is self explanatory as I will need "actors" to play the roles. This will be tricky as I do not want the roles to look acted. Casting people who are real and not actors will be one way around this but for some of the larger parts, for instance that of Ben Wright this will be very hard as there is a lot to remember. I will have to mix this up but casting for type (typage) and playing on stereotypes will help in here too. Lastly possibly extending in web doco content direct address in a Vlog or video diary style of the main protagonist could be an area worth exploring too.


EXPOSITORY DOCUMENTARY MODE

Expository documentaries are the most common and familiar to audiences and are primarily made for TV. The techniques often employed include a voiceover narration, commenting on the images on screen and explaining them to a direct address to the audience. They can also use a lot of formal talking head interviews alongside general views of what is being communicated. Generally they develop and construct an argument and are not objective. Typical examples would be biopics and nature documentaries.

As Expository documentaries are such atypical documentaries that audiences are familiar with and due to this some of the techniques employed by them could easily be subverted to create new meanings. The use of talking head will work really well as that simply screams documentary at the audience and voice over may be a useful tool too. GV's of the action as well as archive footage could be used. One of the issue with documentaries is that their standard form can be long so mini web docos could be used. Also TV News features and packages are really just very short expositional documentaries and great for getting the points across quickly and I feel that this could be utilised in the piece. perhaps a news piece to start off with to give the detail and really simplified exposition of the story. If this could also be branded up ITV or BBC it would build the trust both I the fact that it is news and that it comes from a reputable source that the public by and large trust.


OBSERVATIONAL DOCUMENTARY MODE

Observational documentaries are also sometimes referred to as “fly on the wall” or “cinema veritie” and they attempt to represent the world as it is and capture a slice of life and with minimal awareness of the filmmaker. It does this through techniques such as long takes, hand held camera and no use of voice over and music. A film such as Etre Et Avoir and live Big brother is a good examples of this. Observational documentaries are often thought of being the closest you can get to truthful representation.

Using observational documentary stylistics, codes and conventions could be useful in creating a "version" of the truth as audiences tend to trust this mode and its camera techniques are often mimic'ed in feature films to create a reality to the subject matter. I was considering some slow cinema for a while as an element to the piece and this would have worked well on that looking at though the camera is simply following our lead character around. ben River's Two Years at Sea is an excellent example of this. I may be able to use it in this piece though especially the interview section, whilst not being fly on the wall as it will be scripted and acted a capturing of that fly on the wall sense would be good. A hand-held roving camera at the interview, the setting up of the interview and raw nature of reality being filmed could all be embraced in the piece.


PARTICPATORY DOCUMENTARY MODE

Participatory (interactive) documentaries are directly opposed to the observational style as the filmmaker is usually the central character of the film. They make it explicit that the film is their point of view and highly subjective and common techniques include voiceovers (with pronounced use of “I”) hand-held camera and informal interviews. These films saw something of a renaissance of cinema documentaries finding an audience in the early 2000’s of finding a through the work of Directors such as Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock.

I will borrow from the subjectivity that this mode allows to create my own message but I will not be at the centre of the piece. The character of Ben Wright is a composite of the best views, research and thinking that exist on Global Warmning all filtered through me and then portrayed though Wright on-screen. Behind the scenes glimpse at the construction of the documentary and therefore adds to the realism. As mentioned earlier by having web doco content and the character of ben Wright in direct address in a Vlog or video diary style of the main protagonist could be an area worth exploring too and would be a type of partcipatory mode.


REFLEXIVE DOCUMENTARY MODE

Reflexive documentaries have some similar codes and conventions to the participatory in that they sometimes feature the documentarian or interviewer either on screen or off. However they also show the struggle and nuts and bolts of the film-making process. They are have a post-modern feel to them examining the nature of the construction process, the creation of the narrative and the truth. The audience and their journey is paramount and the questioning of our assumptions and expectations of the subject of the film. A majority of the work of Nick Broomfield follows this mode with the often problematic journey to the creation of the documentary behind the scenes often the narrative spine and the subject the content of the films.

The philosophy behind the making of Performative documentaries and the creation of narrative and truth are areas within it are that really interest me. It is pretty much what I am doing for the interview piece with Ben Wright is exactly this. I want to add the drama of trying to get the interview and the struggles and cloak and dagger setting up of it. The drama will be a selling point to hook the audience into the narrative and conflicts to keep them interested and at the same time inform and educate them about global warming. So this will be a mode I can use in this area especially to do that. the struggle to get the interview with Wright and then possibly being blindfolded and taken to a secret location will add to the performative nature.

Returning to the idea of documentary modes being similar to film genres caution must be made and I must make sure there must be a fluidity of approach to strict definitions as illustrated by the cross-overs in the documentary modes mentioned above and I feel confident in using elements from all of these to create my own language of film. To borrow from some genre thinking from Steve Neale, genres are instances of “repetition but difference”. David Buckingham states “genre is not… Simply “given” by the culture: Rather it is a constant process of negotiation and change”.  So I am looking to use these modes and their stylistics codes and conventions paradigms to fool the audience but my manipulation of them can be fluid and they can play off each other.

GW: ACTOR MEETING AND RUN THROUGH

I met up with my actor for the part of modern day Ben Wright an old friend and colleague Brian Rolfe who was the head of performing arts at Suffolk New College.  Whilst thinking of the piece I always had Brian in mind as not only is the right age but has the right demeanor and look for the character that I am after. I had approached him and given him a skinny on the idea and his role a few weeks earlier and the meeting was to flesh out the details and clarify the project for him.

Before the meeting I did some prep so as to make sure that I had a good level of professionalism as Brian was giving up his time for free. I have not done all that much work with actors so the process was going to be a steep learning curve. So I considered and made notes on all of the following areas.

• A completed synopsis of the whole piece and specifically this element of it.
• A copy of the timeline of events so Brian could contextualise the piece.
• Polished the treatment for the whole idea and this piece and took a copy.
• Overview of the character of Ben Wright. Biography, character, temperament, motivations, background and backstory.
• Potential shoot dates.
• Potential locations, costumes etc.

I had a very productive meeting and the really positive thing was that Brian was able to get under the skin of the character almost instantly and understand his motivations, personality and character describing them to me exactly as I intended. Brian was happy to use the location of his outhouse he uses to work in at the bottom of the garden which with some set dressing will be exactly what I had in mind. We also discussed wardrobe and shoot dates were put in as was a date for a copy of the script (as of yet a work in progress).

 Things to consider moving forward.

• Check location will be OK for light, sound and space upon my return. Consider other locations.
• Pursue an idea for a second shoot. A Youtube manifesto from a disguised Ben.
• Reading around about working with actors to extend my knowledge base.
• More on getting naturalistic performances as this is of the utmost importance to this film.
• Get script completed and with Brian by Monday 13th August.
• Shoot dates put in for Weds 15th & Thurs 16th August.
• Start work on pre-production for the shoots. Storyboards, call sheet, etc.
• Source kit and crew for the shoot dates.
• Develp Mise-En_Scene. Prop[s costume etc needed for set dressing.

ARTHUR JAFA: A SERIES OF UTTERLY IMPROBABLE, YET EXTRAORDINARY RENDITIONS

On 26th July I visited the Serpentine Sackler gallery which is fast becoming one of my favourite venues to see the show by acclaimed US filmmaker, cinematographer and artist Arthur Jafa. Across three decades, Jafa's practice is dynamic and multidisciplinary and covers a wide ranging ranging from films and installations to lecture-performances and happenings. He is issue led and his ideology and therefore his work challenge and question prevailing cultural assumptions about identity and race. His work is driven by a recurrent question: how might one identify and develop a specifically Black visual aesthetics equal to the ‘power, beauty and alienation’ of Black music in US culture?

Jafa first trained as an architect, but made his cinematic debut as Director of Photography for Julie Dash’s 1991 film Daughters of the Dust, for which he won best cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival. He has also collaborated with directors ranging from Spike Lee (Crooklyn, 1994) to John Akomfrah (Seven Songs for Malcolm X, 1993) and artists including Kara Walker and Fred Moten. He has also been recognised for his work on the Solange Knowles videos, Don’t Touch My Hair and Cranes in the Sky (2016). Explaining his favourite medium, Jafa has said: ‘Film is one of the few things, particularly in the theatrical context, that takes up as much space as architecture but like music is fundamentally immaterial.’

The exhibition is titled A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions, and as with a lot of the work exhibited at the Sackler that I have seen is site-specific installation. Jafa has transformed the space with a collection of work that encompass film, photography and found footage that all relate to his central preoccupations. The Sackler on their web site describe the show "The title of the exhibition relates to the sense of absence that Jafa observes as haunting Black life. The word ‘rendition’ refers to the artist’s interpretation of the aesthetics associated with Black being, which are historically-inscribed in images, objects and artefacts. By re-performing these narratives in the present, Jafa imagines and constructs new possibilities for making them visible. Jafa creates work that approximates the radical alienation of Black life in the West while seeking to make visible or emancipate the power embedded in modes of African expression. With reference points ranging from Fang sculpture to Mississippi juke joints, Duchamp’s urinal to jazz, he is a filmmaker with a unique understanding of how to cut and juxtapose a sequence to draw out maximum visceral effect.

The exhibition worked well and also allowed for some interesting edits of your own to the show. To accompany you on your tour you were given headphones that were able to select the sound for the installation you were looking at and change this as you moved around. This leant itself to some interesting combinations of sound and image by putting it on the wrong setting. The idea was a good way of addressing the idea of noise pollution of AV works in a gallery.

A couple of Jafa's works really inspired me. One called Mix 2 Constantly Evolving was a collection of "found footage" that it was almost as if Jafa had curated to make one piece in the show. Exhibited on one screen it included an online soap opera featuring black characters and sterotypes of black relationships played out to the full. Another "Wildcat" by Kahlil Josepha moodily shot piece of Americana centres around the dust belt and cowboys but featuring black characters. This piece made use of all of the film tricks of slo-mo, high contrast and really played on the colours of black and white through mise-en-scene and especially costume. These were complemented by a very subjective mini documentary from the 1960's called Savages. It was about the Venice Oakwood projects and the white VO with images of a nice park states black people being uninspired, unintelligent and leading hard lives and that the "The Negro does it to himself". This was balanced by one black inhabitant stating about opportunities to get out of his situation "Not that don't wanna do, its that cannot do!". The contradictions between portrayal of the black and whites is frightening. There is then a short clip with a black man very visibly off his face chemically at an outdoor club looking and dancing manically. The last piece in this collection was 3 degrees to the proximity of disaster which was public footage of the Detroit marathon bombings. the sense of energy and horror is palpable in this.

I loved the way that Mix 2 Constantly Evolving used lots of found footage to build an idea as I mentioned in a curatorly way. This is definitely something I myself have been playing with for the Global Warmning installation BUT I am aiming to create all of the "found footage". Lessons learnt here are the variety of formats that make it more interesting. Art house B/W, online, archive and amateur public shot footage all combining to create a meaning.

Another one was very much in the vein of Craig Baldwin and the Media Jammer ideology and was made up by an AV assault on the audience. It was a rapid fire series of media, cultural (generally pop) and images and video clips edited together. It is similar to some ideas I was developing for an earlier Global Warmning piece. I loved the aggression and again the black rights and representational themes rang out in the piece but even though the work was unsubtle the message was certainly not. The juxtaposition of images alongside each other, Eisenstein's Soviet Montage style created collisions and new meaning.

An interesting part of the exhibition were all of the books with a wide range of imagery that Jafa uses to inspire his work. These are a set of source books of images he has been assembling since the 1980s and this ongoing archive has proved an enduring resource for his work. There were visuals, ideas, articles, headlines and these are an excellent idea and something I may have to adopt as a visual and conceptual inspirational library.

The exhibition also includes the work of three additional voices: the photographer Ming Smith, @nemiepeba - the Instagram feed of artist Frida Orupabo - and content from the YouTube channel of Missylanyus. Together, these three ‘platforms’ or ‘guests’ played against AND alongside Jafa’s own work and presentations throughout the Gallery.

What I will take from the exhibition and use to move my work forward.

• It is possible to address social/environmental issues in this case race but it does not have to be force fed. Jafa lines up the content and then lets you fill in the blanks. The collision of content and pieces being the equivalent to Eisenstein's collision of images in editing.
• I really liked the curating of the various clips that all combined to create a meaning. By placing them alongside one another as mentioned above they can come at an issue from different directions but complementing and enhance each other the end result being greater than the sum of its parts. The variety of these was key also.
• Start my own notebooks and collecting visual and conceptual ideas.

GIACOMETTI FILM SCREENING

Having recently joined the Tate one of the bonus's was that you get to go to members screenings that they put on. I managed to get tickets to a screening of the film about Giacometti entitles The Last Portrait directed by Stanley Tucci. I had previously been to see the exhibition as I love his work and the variety of it. The film was excellent and so was the Q&A afterwards with Tucci himself and Frances Morris who curated the Giacometti show that is currently on in the Tate Modern

Now I was not expecting to find too much inspiration as our practice is not very similar at all however the event proved to be a real revelation. The film deals with as well as the a few months in the latter years of his life the idea of the artist continually striving for perfection. It captured this perfectly and centred around Giacometti doing a portrait of an American friend of his. What was supposed to be an afternoons sitting for his friend dragged on for weeks as Giacometti could not achieve it. He got 90% of the way into the painting and then due to his insecurity, unhappiness with it and  a crisis of confidence at it not being "right"painted over it and was pretty much back to square one.

This was a revelation because it is something that I strive to do often crippled by the inability to achieve exactly what I want in my practice so not doing it at all. My issue has always been I do not practice my practice enough. Meaning I do not create enough work as the work i want to do has to be right. This creates dithering, excuses and due to fear of failure not much work at all. I can make excuses that my practice is harder than some as I need lots of crew and actors and collaborators to make it happen but this is just that excuses NOT reasons. I simply am not going to learn as fast unless I practice my practice more even if this means i have to endure the pain of the creative process!!!!

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/giacometti

GW: TV NEWS VERSION TWO

Following on from the feedback I received from the Big Crit with my peers and my own feelings I decided that I needed to amend the Fake TV News piece. The main issue was that of the news reporter and his attire leading to a spoofy feel to the piece. This was not my intention as I want the audience to buy into the TV news piece and installation as a whole.

Re-shoots
So I went back to Aldeburgh with the actor and a small crew and re-shot the news reporter element. I made sure he was in straighter attire and in a less lampoony style and delivery as well as dialling it down a little. I was annoyed that the sun was out and the day was ferociously windy but it went well. However back in the edit it looks good and less contrived and moody visually. The sound is OK especially as the wind the day we shot was ferocious but this time I kept the microphone out of shot and this worked.

I decided not to re-shoot the IV with the climatologist. there were some thoughts that he was a bit over the top and actorly and I can see the point. However from working on TV crews some people are more media savvy and experts used a lot can tend to over-perform for the cameras so I felt that this was not a huge issue.

TV NEWS FINAL from Jon Saward on Vimeo.


Edit Changes

• I replaced the footage of the reporter.
• I changed the voice over of the reporter and re-recorded it to make sure that the person purporting to be Ben Wright was a he. I was going to add some manifesto footage and it would be visible that it was a man and made it reflect that he was now not anonymous
• I lost a line from the end of the womans IV which kept it cleaner and shorter.
• I added in less of the photos of Ben Wright. I re-touched some of the ones I used to make it less uncanny valley.
• I replaced some of the Ben Wright photos with archive film footage of demonstrations. This gave a lot more authenticity to the piece and made the movement seem much more tangible and larger in scale.
• Replaced the newspaper headline with one that my props maker had made and this cerated a link to the artefacts that would be displayed in the installation..
• Replaced one of the book cover with one that my props maker had made, again this would be used in the installation.
• Shortened the title card at the beginning to 10 seconds and added Ben Wrights name to it. This gave the audience 10 seconds to get the clues from this and knock 30 seconds off of the piece.

The main issues raised that I felt related directly to the TV news piece I had to address were as follows and underneath is how I feel I have now addressed these. I am much happier with this piece. It is possibly the best news package ever in terms of all of the archive footage and photos but I feel it adheres to the codes and conventions of the news and feels real.

It needs to take us in more at the beginning. It has a comedic layer and seems a little "spoofy". Spinal Tap flavour. Is this intentional?
The re-shoot plays straighter in terms of costume and delivery. I feel this takes the audience in more.

The professor looks scripted. What is the in-between? Does it matter that it may be seen by viewers as a spoof?
As mentioned above I did not mind this and professional rent a gobs/media whores that are used a lot on TV can over-perform.

In the club or in the know? Should audiences get the "in" joke? How much do you allow the viewer to be in the know?
I feel that now it plays straighter this is less of an issue. It does feel close to the 99% real that I am looking for rather than the 90% of version 1. I feel that the clues are there but harder to find so a reward for those that do.

The photos need more work to seem real. A little too uncanny valley. Less pictures as main man looks too similar in them all.
These have been reduced in number and the ones left re-touched to make better. I have included less too and added the aforementioned archive film footage.

Link more the fictional characters with real historical ones? For instance highly influential Silent Spring book by Rachel Carson.
This will happen in other pieces.

Is the work historically and factually correct? Is this important? Fact checking.
I got feedback from my friend at Greenpeace and all good.

Possibly needs more on the "what if" factor and where we are now.
I felt that this is strong enough in a 4 minute news package BUT I must make sure i address it in the other content that complements this piece too.

Humour can be a good vehicle for triggering emotion and creating memories of what is happening.
The humour is there if you get the fact that the news piece is not real so it is still there just more disguised and less obvious.

How will the piece work in a gallery? Is it stand alone? Consider presentation in the gallery.
I have been doing this

What is the intention of the piece? Stronger call to action?
I still feel this would be clear once all of the elements are curated in the installation in a room or single space. It is hard to tell from the one piece.

GW: SCRIPTWRITING THE DOCO INTERVIEW EARLY DRAFTS

This was a long drawn out process. I had planned the narrative structure, characters, key events and character arc for the whole piece, the TV news piece had been written and created and now the doco script needed writing.

I planned it out methodically drawing inspiration from Frost Nixon by Ron Howard 2008 where the two men go head to head one trying to get the other to confess. Similar was the aim for my piece Ben thought he was simply getting a platform to get his cause across as that was all that was on the table. BUT I wanted to get the dirt, scandal and inside information on Joes murder, Bens 40 year disappearance and the conspiracy theories surrounding these. The interview would be like a game of chess as I reveal my true colours and Ben tries to keep moving back to the issue to keep him sweet. before chancing my arm again. I was looking to make it about 10 minutes so about 10 pages in total.

I decided that it would play like a mini narrative in itself and following Syd Field plan as follows.

• Set-Up: Crew being granted a short IV and being taken to a secret location blindfolded.
• Plot point one: I reveal my true colours to the audeince somehow that I am going to try and get him to talk about the conspiracy theories.
• Conflicts: Me trying to get him to talk about the scandal and conspiracy theories and him rebuffing me with ever increasing frustration
• Plot point two: I push Ben over the edge he erupts and we have a very heated discussion.
• Resolution: Ben storms out of the interview very early and the disappears again?

I had carried out lots of research into the global warming topic from lots of different academics, scientists, sociologists and commentators and through these I had compiled nots on topic Ben would cover in the interview. I digested all of this information and became the gatekeeper of it I would be the conduit and Ben would be the composite character from all of this thinking and my subjective opinion.

Having worked on documentaries personally and in industry I was aware of the structure of them soft easy questions at the start to settle the interviewee in and then getting every more deep and personal. This suited the way I wanted the interview to play out perfectly.

I was playing me so my dialogue should be easy although I had to remember that it was in the context of an interview.I was pretty sure I also had Bens voice controlled, calm thoughtful, passionate and animated as well as being no messing and taking no prisoners. He would tolerate me as long as I was promoting his cause and would see through any underhand tactics and ambushes quickly. We were also subservient to him and on his home turf dependent on him to get home so in his mind he had the upper hand.

Draft One

This was a bit of a dog and I just sketched in the key areas. the interview flowed OK but I found the opening scene tricky and over theatrical of the crew being blindfolded somehow and taken to the location. Rather than getting bogged down in it I moved straight onto the interview section. I realised that the research I had was good but it was honing in on the facts figures and statistics and making them sing in the script and not just be a list. I got out something as a starting point but barely that. It did show the weaknesses though and that was too much flat information and preachy at that.

Draft Two

This was much longer and although I was worried about too much information on global warming I wanted to get it all out there and then decide what to leave and keep. This version ran to 15 pages.  I also added in much more scene direction to build atmosphere and to set the scene. It was still a little flat and a lot of Bens answers too wordy BUT he drama and conflict was starting to creep out of the pages. It was getting a little buried in a landslide of data and facts BUT was getting there.

Draft Three

Still wrestling with the global warming answers about the cause. They need to go in as the fiction is just a Trojan horse for debating the issue. Possibly against my better judgement I threw everything I had and wanted to say on the issue at the script. This was to see what I had on the page and what I felt Ben would say and also to try and create a narrative flow to the topics as would occur in an interview. It was far too much but did get it all out of my system and once on the page it was easier to see what could be condensed and what needed to go. I suffered from too much good research and not being able to let go of it and cute little answers I had for Ben to say to communicate the information and ways to describe the issue.

Even though I was overawed by the material in the background Bens voice was sharpening in my head and how he could cut through the colossal amount of information and cut to the chase. Asking him to explain things in layman's terms to the audience was one as and the other was me being cuter with the dialogue. Another plus was that the confrontations were starting to sing a little more on the page too.

I needed some time away from the script to think and regather so I tucked it away and left it to marinate in my head and to ruminate on. I would come back to it with a clearer head and a fresh perspective. BUT all of the material was in there it just needed a good pruning.

BEACHED WHALE

I saw this today in the news and loved it as it is only  few steps removed from what I am trying to do and on a much more physical sense too! It seems hoaxes can be art even when they are huge whale sculptures! Great way to highlight the environmental issues too.

PARIS—A sperm whale appears to have beached on an embankment in the shadow of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Or maybe not. A Belgian artists’ collective installed a very real-looking, life-size whale sculpture Friday alongside the Seine River, eliciting surprise and concern from tourists and Parisians alike. Bart Van Peel, a member of the collective, said the installation is about raising environmental awareness and awakening “the child in everyone who still is puzzled about what is real and what is not.”

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/07/21/beached-whale-appears-beneath-notre-dame-in-paris-for-art-and-awareness.html

GW: CONSIDERING THE INSTALLATION SPACE

I have begun to consider the installation space and the following ideas all need to be considered in the space. I do not know exactly what the space will be but from initial drawings from Sara the curator of the show it is likely to be a rectangular space, be able to be made pretty light tight so projections will work and approximately 3 meters by 4-5 meters rectangle. Obviously this may change but it is something to work to for now.

• What I want the public experience to be. I want the audience to question the nature of installations, the media of film and TV, as well as the museum/gallery feel of the artefacts. It is really a film with added extras but I want all of these elements to complement and be intrinsic to one another to build a whole. I also want them to get involved the idea is that by offering a range of elements there will be something for everyone but also a puzzle. and for them to question what are the elements? How do they fit together? What is the story they tell? What is the ideology? The aim is to make them consider the topic of global warming in a different way and perhaps to be left with some of the ideas or for it to generate discussion and hopefully response long after they leave.

• How the public will move around the space. How will they interact with the elements in the installation. If so to what degree. As some of the artefacts being created may not stand up to ultra close scrutiny a way for the audience to look at and read them if necessary BUT to keep them a little at arms length too. I do want movement to be free BUT feel some type of seating for the video work would work. It provides a sit down from the rest of the exhibition and will allow slightly longer video work to be delivered in comfort.

• Exactly which elements will be included. TV screen, projection(s), wall mounted artefacts, artefacts in cases or towers. Currently not 100% sure on this but my current thinking is that they MUST all be in the same space as this will instantly link them and promote the fact that they are a whole not separate elements.

CAPE FAREWELL PROJECTS

The arts are a core part of the Cape Farewell project: one salient image, a novel or song can speak louder than volumes of scientific data and engage the public's imagination in an immediate way. Using creativity to innovate, we engage artists for their ability to evolve and amplify a creative language, communicating on a human scale the urgency of the global climate challenge. Cape Farewell are committed to the notion that artists can engage the public in the issue, through creative insight and vision. Since Cape Farewell began, we have invited artists and creatives to join the expeditions, which have explored arctic science, sustainable island communities, urban regeneration and the Cleantech industries. We offer a unique route for artist development, which has led to the creation of a raft of original and essential artworks, films, music, books and poetry.

Between 2005 and 2013, Cape Farewell artwork was exhibited across the UK (London, Oxford, Liverpool, Newcastle, Folkestone and Cornwall), in Europe (Oslo, Brussels, Hamburg, Monaco and Munich, Madrid), and in North America (Colorado, Chicago, Michigan and New York City) and Asia (Japan). We work with partners across the UK and internationally to ensure the widest audience for our art and events.

http://www.capefarewell.com

GW: RESEARCH FOR INSTALLATION DOCO PIECE

I have carried out a huge amount of research into global warming and now it needs streamlining. Initially I did more of an overview for my earlier Global Warmning viral pieces but as the story and characters developed I needed to add the depth to this. I did my own research but also relied heavily on pointers from a close friend who works for Greenpeace and one of his main projects is dealing with the climate control aspects of this in the UK. However I looked around to make sure there was not too much bias and arguments I would not be aware of. Although the piece is

I wanted to give the character of Ben Wright in the piece to be an amalgamation of all best ideas and thoughts of the excellent people whose reports, articles, journals and books I had read to glean their information from. The idea of Ben Wrights character in the doco piece is to be the conduit for all of their excellent work and to communicate it to the audience in a clear, plain english way that will be understandable to the audience. These facts will then be woven into the fabric of the doco script seamlessly as the thoughts of our protagonist.

This will as I have mentioned be set in and punctuated by the Trojan horse that will be the fictional set up of the doco shoot. This will be it being staged as a documentary where a crew are taken to a secret location to interview Wright who is lying low and out of public view.

The notes are all written up from far too much reading around the topic but I have classified the voices I want to be heard through Ben into three main catagories and then my interpretations of their findings.

1: THE SCIENCE
This will deal with the break-throughs and those behind the scientific developments of the Global warming issue. I will not be attributing the science to Wright and Griffiths but use these to contextualise their own fictional work and to back theirs up. These are from before their time and can be used to fill in the gaps from more recent scientists and reports etc to fill in the 40 years of Wrights absence and recent developments. These scientists, researchers and academics will be cited by Wright in the documentary interview itself.

Svante Arrhenius, GS Callendar, Roger Revelle & Hans E Suess, David Keeling, James Hansen, IPCC Working Group 1, Paul J Krutzen, Naomi Oreskes, and Jeff Masters.

2: THE POLITICS
This dealt more with the governments attitudes, selling of the idea and the skeptics who muddied the water. As with any issue there are different points of view, personalities and vested interests. The list here includes prime ministers, bestselling fictional and factual authors, senators, activists and preachers. From an amalgamation of these I found it was easier to try and find Wrights own voice. His angles and who he would have sided with. My piece and the interview with Wright is obviously going tho be pretty subjective and most of those on the list are arguing as to how to address global warmning.

Al Gore, Ross Geldsan, Mark Hertsgaard, James M Inhofe, James Hansen, Michael Crichton, Van Jones, Billy parish, Mike Tidwell, Naomi Klien, Rachel Carson,  Bill McKibben, Adrienne Maree Brown, George Monboit and Mohamed Nasheed.

3: THE IMPACT
This group were all to do with where we are heading and what the impact would be on us as a human race. they are if you like to predictors of what next! There is again a range of voices in here but all of them are looking into what is a bleak future and longing for what we will have lost. This is good as the piece is meant to be a call to action and not to preach but engage, entertain and inform. However there must be a positivity and not too much negative as I want to try and inspire action not apathy from the work.

Bill McKibben, Sally Bingham, The Evangelical Climate Change Initiative, Peter Schwartz and Doug Rendall, Arundhati Roy, David Breashers and EO Wheeler, Dr Vandana Shiva, Gary Braasch, Elizabeth Kolbert and John Vidal.

1-1 TUTORIAL

A really useful tutorial today and some real pointers as well as confirmation of areas to work on moving forward. I had asked Emily and Kimberley for ideas of artists or theorists in the following areas. I am finding my research is becoming overwhelming as not only am i researching and reading about lots of different strands to my work. This is how I seem to work best lots of different areas and strands all all being pulled together. My concern has also been that I do not delve deep enough into a few central areas though and this had been flagged up in other modules. So the plan is to keep doing this but be more specific in the areas that I feel really apply to my work and go into more investigation, depth and detail in these.

The areas I have been investigating are obviously global warming but also artists especially those with environmental undertones, filmmakers and their work both fiction and factual. I have also looked at animators, online art and virals, installation artists, scriptwriting narrative theory and structure, scriptwriting, multi strand storytelling, hoaxes and puzzles as well as prop making and mise-en-scene. I need to try and work out the areas I have been using to develop my practice and ideas the most and explore and dig a little deeper and spend some time in the library to flesh these out as I head into the final stages.

To aid my own research Emily added some additional places to seek ideas and inspiration. Some of these I was aware of and had already looked into a little others were new avenues of enquiry. Those are listed below are the new areas to look at.

• Elmgreen & Dragsett: Tomorrow
• Cape farewell Projects.
• Methodologies of working with actors to create realism.
• Hoaxes.com
• The K Foundation.
• Sheffield Docfest experimental shorts and interactive works.
• Books: Cate Elves: Installation Art. Expanded Cinema. Chris Meigh Andrews: On Video Art
• Olafur Eliasson

Others things mentioned were the following.

• Possible re-shoots for TV News piece of installation.
• Stylistic considerations for other documentary/film aspect of the installation.
• Consider and work on all of the aspects of the installation and how they will work together.
• Performance, presentation cabinet of artefacts, TV, Film, web and on-line elements

ELMGREEN AND DRAGSETT: TOMORROW

I was looking for inspiration as well as confirmation that my Global Warmning fictionalised story based around factual evidence and set up as an actuality would work. I was wobbling a little as i had not seen anything like it before and was needing some affirmation as I was undergoing a bit of a crisis of confidence. Then my tutor pointed me towards Tomorrow by Elmgreen and Dragset.

From 1 October 2013  to the 2 January 2014 the V&A commissioned tomorrow by leading contemporary artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset. Their remit was to create a major site-specific installation in the former Textile Galleries. This exhibition comprised of a stage set for an unrealised drama to create an unexpected encounter for the museum visitor.

Now I had obviously missed the exhibition but it bore striking similarities to the work I was creating even though mine used video alongside artefacts.'Tomorrow' transformed the galleries into an apartment belonging to a fictional, elderly and disillusioned architect. FRom the images I couldfind the domestic setting appeared like a set for an unrealised play. Into their own sets objects from the V&A's collection were presented alongside artworks, furniture and every day items to create an unexpected experience for the audience. A script, written by the artists, was made available for visitors as a printed book. Visitors were able to explore the apartment, and interact with the furniture and also read the inhabitant’s books and magazines.

"Making this exhibition is like creating a detailed set for a film, but with access to the incredible collections of the V&A to choose from," said the artists. "While selecting objects to furnish the apartment we began to envision pieces of dialogue between characters that we could imagine might inhabit the space."

"We are excited to be working with two of the world’s leading contemporary artists on this ambitious project," said V&A director Martin Roth. "The result will be unsettling and provoking and above all will present the V&A’s collections in a radically new and memorable way for our visitors."

Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset said of their inspiration and intentions of the piece: “On one of our early visits to the V&A to discuss the show, we encountered the former textile galleries which were being used for storage and closed to the public. When we found these spaces we knew right away what we wanted to do. Making this exhibition is like creating a detailed set for a film, but with access to the incredible collections of the V&A to choose from. While selecting objects to furnish the apartment we began to envision pieces of dialogue between characters that we could imagine might inhabit the space. So we wrote a script. It was sort of a reversed process where the props in our film set initiated the narrative. Now it's our hope that visitors will interact freely with this set and discover their own clues as to who our fictional and quite eccentric inhabitant might be.”

Throughout their career the artists have redefined the way in which art is presented and experienced, raising issues around social models and spaces, and prompting a re-thinking of the status quo. Elmgreen & Dragset are known for their subversive sculptures and installations, which draw on diverse influences including social politics, performance and architecture. Previous installations by the duo include a sculpture of a boy on a rocking horse on top of the vacant fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square and a full scale replica of a Prada boutique built in the Texan desert.

I loved the idea of the piece and its similarities to mine are striking in the use of a script although I will film mine too, use of created artefacts to tell a story and a fictionalised world brought to life. Mine has the added extra of a strong sense of ideology and issue too. I loved the line "It was sort of a reversed process where the props in our film set initiated the narrative." Now my piece will not do this but it will use the pieces to help create the narrative and reinforce it creating a fictional world that is tangible.

It is reassuring to see that artists are working on similar ideas and being respected and well thought of too as whilst not in their league it validates what I am trying to do somewhat and has given me a little more confidence moving forward.


http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/tomorrow-elmgreen-dragset/

https://www.timeout.com/london/art/elmgreen-dragset-tomorrow

https://www.dezeen.com/2013/09/19/tomorrow-elmgreen-dragset-art-installation-at-the-va/

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/18/elmgreen-dragset-v-a-through-the-keyhole

http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/elmgreen-dragset-tomorrow

JULIAN ROSEFELDT: IN THE LAND OF DROUGHT

Berlin-based artist Julian Rosefeldt is known for his large-scale video works: often multi-channeled projections, with professional actors and high-quality production values. His films reveal the absurdity of human behaviour by highlighting repetitive social practices. I found this research online and I really liked his work and the way he approached his subjects. Predominantly landscapes but as you have never seen them before giving you a whole new appreciation of them and our planet. He hugely empathises with the environment and this written piece outlines his style, themes, ideology and working methods. The use of a drone and the sombre style deliver his message of the damage we are doing to our planet perfectly and beautifully.


Rosefeldt’s current exhibition, ‘In the Land of Drought’, now showing at König Galerie, retains all the elements of absurdity and suspense characteristic of his other films, yet marks a departure in pursuit of a more meditative, sombre tone, concerned with the catastrophic effects that humanity has inflicted on the earth.

Julian Rosefeldt, ‘In the Land of Drought’, 2017, installation view at König Galerie

Desolate landscapes of industrial ruins take focus in what Rosefeldt describes as a “post-Anthropocene world,” where humans no longer inhabit the earth. All that is left are wastelands, ravaged by humanity’s destruction and the abandoned ruins of human ‘progress’. “We’re looking back from an imaginary future,” states Rosefeldt, “on the Anthropocene, on the present, in which we fucked up the planet big time”. The film traverses between two locations; the first, an abandoned film set close to the Moroccan Atlas Mountains. The second, the industrial Ruhr area of Germany. Rosefeldt has deliberately sourced these locations as examples that represent the current state of destruction caused by humanity. Rising sea levels, mass species extinction, deforestation, and carbon emissions have driven Earth into a new geological epoch. What is most striking about this work is that these landscapes are not manufactured or digitally rendered to create this imagined future. The terrifying reality is that the film’s locations are not outside the realm of our experience, they are examples of what damage has already been done: these locations actually exist.

Julian Rosefeldt: ‘In the Land of Drought’, 2017, film still

There is a robotic stillness to the way the work is filmed, as it was recorded entirely by drones. The drones’ bird’s eye view removes any sense of human perspective and moves at a pace that is as unnerving as it is stunning. ‘Scientists’ slowly emerge on screen, dressed in uniform white overalls, adding a performative element to the work as they fumble for clues, exploring abandoned factories and film sets for missives from the former inhabitants. Their presence within the work grabs the focus, as our attention shifts from the immensity of the ravaged landscape to the figures within it. Their human-ness is initially distracting, raising questions about where these ‘scientists’ come from, and what they want.

However, these beings display behaviours that mimic our own, suggesting that there is a constant cycle of discovery, colonisation, and destruction at play. Towards the end of the film, the ‘scientists’ movements become more uniform and choreographed, creating a mesmerizingly hypnotic dance. This slight tonal shift to the surreal may have made more sense within the film’s original context, as an accompaniment to the performance of Joseph Haydn’s famous oratorio, ‘The Creation’, which premiered at Ruhrtriennale in 2015. However, it still works as a compelling piece of choreography and creates a surreal sense of unease that feels in keeping with the artist’s intentions.

Julian Rosefeldt: ‘In the Land of Drought’, 2017, film still

The work exhibited at König is a condensed version of the original film, no longer accompanied by an orchestra but a haunting minimalist soundtrack that builds in intensity. The film is installed in what functioned as the nave of this former church. The single screen covers the entire width of the space, and instantly draws viewers in. The immensity of concrete within the large and echoey Brutalist space mirrors the landscapes within the film. The buildings ochre hues, and bleak grey textures—the drama and scope of the space—all merge perfectly with the desolate immensity of the film’s subject matter.

From the comfort of a large bean bag, viewers can relax into the gloom of it all. This does risk creating a soporific effect to the experience, breeding a feeling of apathy and comfort that threatens to work in opposition to the political intent of the film. However, with a running time of 43 minutes, one is grateful to become fully immersed: the sedated atmosphere allows viewers to comfortably watch the film in its entirety, and to absorb the scale of its content.

Julian Rosefeldt, ‘In the Land of Drought’, 2017, installation view at König Galerie 

The tone of Rosefeldt’s work successfully creates an at once meditative and unnerving experience. It is a grim and urgent subject matter, that appears here with lighter moments of humour and absurdity. This visually stunning and impressive work creates a space for us to reflect on our relationship to the earth, how we have become so disconnected from it, and what this means for our future. berlinartlink-climatechange-rosefeldt.

http://www.berlinartlink.com/2017/07/14/climate-change-in-the-land-of-drought-julian-rosefeldt-at-konig-galerie/

GW: TYPES OF ACTING RESEARCH

I did some research and made notes on different acting styles. From working with some non-actors I felt that this would help me guide them to better performances. Also I am in talks with a couple of friends who are actors. On top of all of this i will be acting in the piece too so any help to get through this convincingly will help. The whole idea is that the finished video pieces have a real naturalistic style.

The System
This style of acting can be seen as the root of pretty much all modern acting. The System, sometimes referred to as “classical acting”, was developed in the early 20th Century by Konstantin Stanislavski, one of the most acclaimed actors and theatre directors of his day. His aim was to take the knowledge the most elite actors he had worked with had acquired by trial and error over a lifetime in the theatre and break it down into a methodology that could be taught to students. That way, students could quickly become consistently excellent performers without having to spend decades learning their craft. Before Stanislavski, actor training had mostly focused on vocal and physical training. Stanislavski’s revolutionary idea was to help actors develop their inner life so they could produce more grounded, realistic performances. He wanted actors to really feel the emotions their characters were feeling each time they gave a performance. “Every person who is really an artist desires to create inside of himself another, deeper, more interesting life than the one that actually surrounds him.” – Konstantin Stanislavski Students of the System are required to become proficient at studying and understanding scripts, so they have a clear idea of the emotions their characters are feeling at any given moment. They then need to be able to consistently summon up those same emotions in themselves on demand. The System therefore has a heavy focus on script analysis and techniques for stimulating the actor’s emotions. Although the System was first created with regard to the theatre, it became popular with early film stars as the subtler, more nuanced performances it produced were ideal for the close-up acting required on camera. It is still used by some modern stage, film and TV actors, although has mostly been superseded by more modern equivalents, such as the Method. Famous practitioners of the System include Sir Alec Guinness, Orson Welles and Basil Rathbone. 

Michael Chekhov “Real inspired acting is never DOING, it is always HAPPENING” – Michael Chekhov Michael Chekhov was a Russian-American actor and director (and nephew of the famous playwright Anton Chekhov) who studied under Stanislavski before going on to devise his own approach to acting. Chekhov’s techniques also focused on actors creating a rich inner life for their characters, but relied more on imagination than using real experiences. Chekhov’s approach relies heavily on developing the physical side of a performance, moving away from Stanislavski’s more restrained “real” style towards something bigger and more demonstrative. While the Chekhov technique is still concerned with achieving emotional truth, it relies on the cumulative life experiences of the actor to fuel their imagination, rather than recalling specific experiences to generate each specific emotion. Considered by some to be a less subtle approach to acting than the System and other modern methods, Chekhov’s techniques were still highly popular within the mid-20th century, used by actors such as Marilyn Monroe, Yul Brynner and Clint Eastwood. It is now more commonly used by stage actors than on screen as its more demonstrative style suits certain types of theatre acting.

The Method
 Devised by Lee Strasberg, the Method was initially based on Stanislavski’s System, offering a more advanced, modern expansion on Stanislavski’s techniques. As TV and film were increasingly becoming the main media for professional actors, an approach to acting that worked particularly well for the requirements of these media was essential. The Method’s enduring popularity is in large part down to its versatility, allowing actors to produce exceptional performances both in theatre and on film. Like the System, the Method puts a lot of emphasis on developing an actor’s ability to really feel the emotions they are required to portray. By refining and building upon Stanislavski’s ideas, Strasberg was able to come up with advanced techniques that actors could use to reliably produce real emotions with a depth and nuance unmatched by other acting techniques. Strasberg devised many innovative techniques, such as affective memory, sense memory and substitution so that any actor, with sufficient training and effort could learn how to produce elite-level performances. The Method also teaches key practices such as speaking out and private moment, which help actors take their skills effectively into a professional performance context. This is particularly important for professional actors as it means they can deliver the goods on stage or in front of a camera, not just in a classroom! “Work for the actor lies essentially in two areas: the ability to consistently create reality and the ability to express that reality.” – Lee Strasberg Method acting continues to be taught and used by actors all over the world, including some of the best-known names in the industry, such as Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Stella Adler
Another student of Stanislavski’s System, Stella Adler was also involved with Lee Strasberg’s Group Theatre where she learned about the Method and took on board many of its core ideas. However, like Chekhov, Adler preferred to focus on using the imagination, rather than real experiences, feeling that this was sufficient to produce realistic performances. Adler’s teaching requires students to put a lot of time into developing the physical and vocal side of their performance, producing actors who are often very proficient at creating realistic body language and strong vocal performances. As with the Method, she also taught her students to develop the link between their senses and their emotions, understanding that senses like smell and hearing have a strong, instinctive connection to our emotions. “Acting is in everything but the words.” – Stella Adler Well-known adherents to Stella Adler’s school of acting include Marlon Brando, Salma Hayek and Warren Beatty.

Meisner Technique
A student of Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner, produced his own variation on the Method. The Meisner Technique has a very strong emphasis on improvisation and works on a basis of focusing your attention firmly onto the person you are acting with. The idea is that, by carefully paying attention to your acting partners real behaviour, you can react truthfully to them. This means that you are, in a sense, not acting, but simply reacting honestly to your co-star. “Don’t be an actor. Be a human being who works off what exists under imaginary circumstances.“ – Sanford Meisner The one downside with this approach is that it means you are highly reliant on your co-stars in order to be able to give a good performance. Unlike the Method or the System, where your inspiration comes from within, the Meisner Technique requires you to take your inspiration from other actors. This can lead to very naturalistic, truthful performances when two or more highly skilled actors are working together, but can also lead to less reliable results than other approaches when working with less adept co-stars. Because the Meisner Technique relies so much on improvisation to create a good performance, it is perhaps most suitable for the theatre where there is often more time for a lengthy rehearsal process. Famous students of the Meisner Technique include Grace Kelly, Gregory Peck and Peter Falk.

Theater Games
“Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theater and learn to become stageworthy.” – Viola Spolin Devised by American actress and director Viola Spolin, the “Theater Games” [sic] is a series of improvisation games designed to help actors develop their improv skills for use primarily in theatre acting. Spolin taught actors as young as six with her approach, which emphasises fun, creativity and adaptability. The games involve concepts such as speaking in gibberish, acting like various animals and incorporating emotions suggested by onlookers into a performance. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this approach is highly popular for actors wishing to develop their comedic performance skills. Building on Spolin’s ideas, her son, Paul Sills, was one of the founders of legendary The Second City improvisational comedy group which has produced such notable talents as Bill Murray, Tina Fey and John Candy.

Practical Aesthetics
The creation of celebrated playwright David Mamet and the actor William H. Macy, practical aesthetics takes inspiration from the work of Stanislavski, Meisner and the ideas of ancient Stoic philosopher Epictetus. This approach breaks the acting process for any scene down into finding answers to four fundamental questions: “Literal” – what, in the most basic terms, is happening in the scene? “Want” – what does the character want the other character/s they are interacting with to say or do? “Essential action” – what key action is the character trying to achieve in the scene? “As if” – what situation from the actor’s own life can they relate the situation to, to help them find the appropriate emotional response? Practical aesthetics can be seen as a more externalised approach to acting than techniques derived from the System. Although the “As if” approach is also used in Method acting, practical aesthetics is otherwise much more focused on characters’ wants and actions, rather than attempting to create a realistic inner life for the character. Adherents of practical aesthetics are William H. Mac (unsurprisingly!) and Rose Byrne amongst others.

GW: FEEDBACK FROM THE BIG CRIT

At the Big Crit I showed a pretty complete version of the faux local regional news feature I will be having in the installation. The reaction was interesting and some were pretty sucked in by it, some utterly dumbfounded and others who knew the intentions put it under the microscope pointing out it's many flaws. The reaction was definitely mixed to put it mildly. The feedback was obviously clouded by the fact that this was one piece which will sit within a suite of elements that all work together as a whole to create meaning and describing this is obviously not as good as demonstrating it. The other works are being developed but are not ready for this crit. The critique and screening produced some answers and a lots of questions but as always lots of food for thought. Below is the piece that I screened to the group.

TV NEWS CUT BEST from Jon Saward on Vimeo.


See the main comments below and my feelings towards how I can use them to move forward.

What is the intention of the piece? Stronger call to action?
I feel this would be clear once all of the elements are curated in the installation in a room or single space. It is hard to tell from the one piece.

It needs to take us in more at the beginning. It has a comedic layer and seems a little "spoofy". Spinal Tap flavour. Is this intentional?
These two are linked. The piece starts with a title card to let the audience drink in the wording on the screen and for that feel of authenticity but this could be stronger. I feel the unintentional spoof quality also detracts a little from the authenticity of the piece. This was not intentional however I do want the TV news piece to be slightly flawed and 98-99% right to create the sense of uncanny and set doubts in the viewers minds. The balance is possibly about 90% right and this is making it look not real enough, although a few viewers seemed to be taken in. I need to dial down the spoofy TV News reporter at the start and play this straighter. I feel the script is working though.

The professor looks scripted. What is the in-between? Does it matter that it may be seen by viewers as a spoof?
Spoof claims again and on repeated viewings the Professor does seem to be acting and he was indeed an actor. This is a very fine line to tread as often media commentators from fields are used a lot and a degree of performance does come in if they are used to being on camera and are briefed/coached by the crew so they get exactly what they need and quickly. I know this as I did a little work in TV news. There is valid comment here though and perhaps a re-shoot would get to the in-between or at least closer to realism. This does hol up as the non-performer (my mum) in the piece no-one had issues with as she had that natural quality and lack of performance.

In the club or in the know? Should audiences get the "in" joke? How much do you allow the viewer to be in the know?
I always feel an in-joke or being in the know should be a privileged thing not for everyone and the flip side to this is that it creates discussion and argument which is what I am after. If everyone gets it then this does not happen. It should also be earned by picking up the clues. The use of the surnames of famous hoaxers or illusionists, the date of Ben's disappearance 1st April and photos that are a little uncanny valley. There will be more such clues within the other elements to the installation.

The photos need more work to seem real. A little too uncanny valley. Less pictures as main man looks too similar in them all.
I agree wholeheartedly with all of this and there are definite areas to develop here. I am not a photoshop expert and all of the photos used to graft onto originals of Ben Wright (played by a friends son) were taken at the same time and could be more different. I will look at making these more believable as some are OK but I do like the fact that they are not 100% right. However as with the whole piece I wanted it 98-99% right to create the sense of uncanny and set doubts in the viewers minds. The balance is once again possibly about 90% right and this is making it them look quite real enough. Another tactic is to use less photos and possibly incorporate other images and footage without Ben in it and/or to not leave them on screen for so long or zoom in to focus on them as this shows the flaws more closely.

Link more the fictional characters with real historical ones? For instance highly influential Silent Spring book by Rachel Carson.
There could be links to other real people around at the time and this is a fair comment. However the main purpose of the piece as mentioned earlier is to quickly and effectively set-up the story get the audience up to speed and get a lot of the exposition done. It does this really effectively in my opinion and serves this purpose well. I will look at the script again and possibly see about adding more real historical characters.

Is the work historically and factually correct? Is this important? Fact checking.
The facts about global warming are corrects and the fictional events all fall on the right dates. I have been very careful to do this as although the piece is based around a fictional narrative and characters the facts, figures stats and real historical figures I want to be bang on. I have a very close friend who is the head of UK's Greenpeace climate control campaign (Ben Stewart) and he will be double checking the facts for me.

Possibly needs more on the "what if" factor and where we are now.
I agree that this needs to be in the final piece but this is just the set up. This will be covered in other elements of the installation and I will make sure that it is.

Humour can be a good vehicle for triggering emotion and creating memories of what is happening.
This is a great statement and whilst I agree it depends on the type of humour. I do not want the spoof style humour of Spinal Tap but I do want t more knowing humour and getting the "in joke" and realising the artifice of the piece for what it is. I will need to be careful to not have the whole piece dismissed as fake though. But humour can be used to help remember moments, facts and to make points.

How will the piece work in a gallery? Is it stand alone? Consider presentation in the gallery.
The piece will not be a stand alone and will work with other elements such as a doco, artefacts, web-site, blog and even possibly performance when the cast will simply be in and around the whole MA exhibition in character to see how people react to them if at all. The exact presentation I need to develop but there will definitely be a display case with ephemera in it and a screen or possibly two for the TV News piece and the doco. There may also be computers with the blog/website on them.


WHAT NEXT?
As well as developing all of the above I need to show it to different audiences who do not know the project, are not as critical of the work aesthetically in a art critique environment and to get their feedback. I will look to re-shoot and try out different elements in the TV News package too.

CLIO BARNARD: THE ARBOR & THE SELFISH GIANT

Clio Barnard is a filmmaker with only two full length films behind here but her creativity and ingenuity. She comes from the theatre back ground and this shows with her ability to get strong performance out of her cast. Her ability to get under the skin of her topic, empathise and find an inner beauty in the everyday and harshness of the environments and characters in which her work is set been something that I greatly admire. Her films have a message but it is a subtle slow burning one handled with care and empathy. She never forces the message and ideologies of her films down your throat and always leaves plenty of time for the audience to find their own path through them.

In my work I can be a little heavy handed where hers is deft and often light of touch and often subversive. She manages to get naturalistic performances out of her actors that at times claw at you with their awkward realism and at others have a raw power and energy that leaves you floored. I am looking to try and get this rawness in my Global Warmning installation piece especially from the documentaries which I want to feel as raw, edgy and at times awkward as her work. I decided to look again at the documentary The Arbor (2010) and her first feature film The Selfish Giant(2013)

The Selfish Giant (2013)
At Canne's in 2013 Clio Barnard's film The Selfish Giant was described as "hauntingly perfect" and "jaggedly moving" by critics as it premieres in the Director's Fortnight section of the film festival, with the director herself hailed as a significant new voice in British cinema. She comes from a tradition of filmmakers working around the fringes of society and the marginalised and is proud to cite Alan Clarke, Penny Woolcock, Ken Loach, Lynne Ramsay and Andrea Arnold as inspirations and influences.

The Selfish Giant is much less formally experimental than The Arbor, at least superficially. Itn her own words she "wanted to make a feature film with a very clear narrative and to not question the filmmaking form as The Arbor did. It tells the story of two boys, Arbor and Swifty, who are drawn into "scrapping" – collecting scrap metal with horse and cart, in the loose employ of a charismatic, shady and enigmatic figure known ironically as Kitten, the story's "selfish giant". It follows their ups and downs, trials and tribulations at the fringes of society that does not want them and for the large part of it they can see no place within.

The naming of Arbor is a nod to her previous film: the idea for The Selfish Giant came from Barnard's encountering a young lad at a school workshop while making the documentary. Through him, Barnard learned about the culture of keeping horses and trading in scrap metal on some of the city's estates – a tradition originating in, though not confined to, the settled traveller community.

The film has a gritty feel but bubbling underneath the surface is a fairytale-like, Wilde-influenced narrative the film contains a passionate political subtext. The setting of the film is a post-industrial landscape of looming pylons, barely functioning estates and gloomy semi-rural wastelands where the spectre of unemployment and poverty glowers over the children. However where Ken Loach would have shot these straight Barnard finds a bleak beauty in them. They are not the mist swept dales and moors of classical literature but they capture this same poetic quality. Electricity pylons and expansed of desolate waste lane on the edge of towns have never looked more moody and beautiful. The BFI's Jonathan Romney describes it as an "essay in lyrical realism belongs in a very familiar British tradition that connects such films as Kes (1969), Ratcatcher (1999), Sweet Sixteen (2002) and Fish Tank (2009) – depictions of the immediate conditions of social deprivation from the point of view of children and teenagers." This is an interesting list of works especially for me as it just about nails all of my favourite British films and directors.

Barnard has stated that there was a strong social-realist imperative behind the film: "This economy is declining and there are not many opportunities for these boys and I guess I find that upsetting. The 'selfish giant' of my film is a selfish ideology. I liked Glenda Jackson's speech [in the House of Commons after the death of Lady Thatcher] when she said that under Thatcher selfishness and greed had become virtues. The film is about what got lost. And what we need to value and hold on to. It's a fable about that as much as about an intimate and loving friendship and about loss." Barnard is not afraid to wear her politics on her sleeve as I mentioned earlier but it is the characters, narrative and performances that drive the film and story not the politics.

One of the most striking things about the film is the performances Barnard draws from her two young stars, who were cast after holding auditions in local schools. Conner Chapman, the 13-year-old who plays Arbor, is from Bradford's Buttershaw estate and Shaun Thomas, 15, lives on the Holm Wood estate; the latter is a veteran of scrapping himself. They bring an edge, passion and raw energy to the film never overplaying and there is a definite chemistry between them on screen. Conner especially is a continually ball of pent up energy, frustration and angst and lights up the screen.



The Arbor (2010)

The Arbor” is a mesmerizing and beautiful documentary fusing narrative and documentary on the tragic playwright Andrea Dunbar. It’s cinematography is stunning very cinematic in places and it also uses scenes from Dunbars’ own semi-autobiographical plays to help tell passages of her story. These are performed by actors on a stage set in the middle of a green on the estate she is so intrinsically linked to and the current residents watch on as the scenes play out adding another dynamic to the piece.

The technique that really inspired me however was the use of frank and honest recorded audio to get a real intimacy and honesty from the subjects largely her emotionally scarred daughters. What Barnard then does though is to employ actors to lip synch to this dialogue and also use some beautiful cinematography. Whilst not wishing to replicate this recording lots of audio only first and then creating the visuals around it was also employed to great effect in “The Possibilities are endless”. Perhaps employing it creates a truth to the documentary whilst at the same time allowing for interpretations and a poetic quality through the visuals to accompany it. This is a definite way forward for me for my piece "Poetic Love" where my Grandma has said she does not really want to have filmed interviews but is happy and more comfortable recording audio interviews and I feel she will be more frank and open with these more conversational interviews with me.

However a technique is just that unless it serves a purpose and with further research I found some enlightening interviews with Clio Barnard and agree with her sentiments. She states “Cameras change the relationship between interviewer and interviewee. I think the interviews were intimate because there was no camera, no lights… I want the technique to raise questions about the relationship between fiction and documentary – to acknowledge that documentaries, more often than not, have the same narrative structure as fiction. I want the audience to be aware that they are watching material that has been mediated. It is a distancing technique, a form of direct address. I think that it is important to be reminded of this, particularly when the subject matter is so emotive.”

Barnards Influence on my Work

I find Barnards films fascinating and especially her playfulness with representation and thoughts on the "truth" and "authenticity" In the clip below Barnard describes some of her working methods and the notion of authenticity and truth in documentary and feature film making. This is something that I strive to do in my work.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/video/video-clio-barnard-selfish-giant

Barnard candidly lets us into her thoughts on this issue saying "My work is probably borne out of thinking about representation itself and thinking about why their is this desire to close the gap between what is real and what is represented. I do not believe in this idea of documentaries ability to tell the truth and I do not believe in any real idea of authenticity in a style of filmmaking, no matter what the subject matter is. Thats what The Arbor in some ways was exploring it was a critique in some ways of social realism, direct cinema and verbatim theatre."

• Working with real people form those locations to get a feel for them and their stories and to help create a realism for the performers.
• Finding real people form those locations to be the performers. Make sure they have the character somewhere within them.
• There is beauty in even the bleakest landscape. I love the work of Loach but there is no reason why social realist cinema cannot have some beauty too.
• It is fine to play with truth and authenticity and film form to use these to the benefit of the material.
• The political element of work can be woven within fabric of the film, characters and narrative the film but it is best as nothing more than a sub-text working between the lines and not being them.