ANONYMOUS: ROTOSCOPING

I really liked the use of rotoscoping and animation combined with archive images and live action footage in Tower, Keith Maitland 2016 and decided to explore and research this further. I was familiar with the technique and had a rough idea of how it was done.



As part of the idea for anonymous piece working in reverse and creating work style first and then finding subjects to use with it I wanted to investigate ways of making them anonymous. The idea being that the subject is never actually revealed but their character, narrative and story is still able to. I felt that the rotoscoping technique would be an excellent way to do this as well as being a really interesting style as demonstrated in Tower and added a contemporary original feel to documentaries.

Rotoscoping is the following
1. An animation technique in which frames or cels are traced from a live-action movie.
2. Named after the Rotoscope, a device for tracing from live-action movies invented in 1915 by Max Fleischer (1883-1972), American animator.

However to put it simply where live action video or film footage is traced over then the key aspects of the image coloured in. The background footage is then removed and more often than not replaced by another image. It can be hand-drawn on cels and this technique was used in the bearly pre-digital days of animation. Nowadays the images are most likely to have been drawn and coloured in on a computer and coloured in digitally. The technique has been employed for year on a multitude of sources including a multitude of Disney animated films, feature films a standout example being A Scanner Darkly by Richard Linklater (2006). It has also been used in music videos a pioneering one being AHA's Take On Me (1985) which combined live action with a hand drawn rotoscoping effect.



As an example of how it all works broken down here is the process in action without all of the technical bits just a demonstration of the process in action.



I will look to use the technique for my Anonymous idea once I get the right subject. I am confident I will be able to execute the technique but I will look to do a basic test to make sure before I use it within my work. My drawing skills are solid (if a little rusty and underused) and it is basically just tracing anyway and the colouring in will be the hardest part. I am confident in Adobe Photoshop but will need to get my head around Adobe After Effects a little more and learn to use a tablet. I will also need to make sure the best way to shoot the footage to make the process as easy and streamlined as can be. Whilst it looks great and will both fit with and be a technique that will hopefully serve the subject matter ideology aims and objectives of the piece the main issue is that it is very time consuming. However I feel it is certainly worth a go and from doing plenty of research found this excellent tutorial on rotoscoping to hold my hand whilst I try it out.

TOWER: KEVIN MAITLAND (2016)

Tower is a fascinating documentary made my Kevin Maitland in 2016 and it deals with what is widely regarded to be the first mass shooting on a college campus in the USA. The film uses an mix of archive footage, audio and photography to build the story of a sniper in the titular clock tower at the centre of the university campus of Austin Texas in August 1966 killing 16 people.

However it strays from the usual talking head and archive footage using an inventive animated and re-creation of the events of the massacre. Firstly recordings were made with the original eye witnesses and those caught up in the shootings. Then actors of about the age they would have been in 1966 are used to re-voice their reflections. Then these are rotoscoped and animated both as talking heads and as actors re-enacting key scenes and events. This is combined with the aforementioned archive footage but rather than making it seeming dated with archive footage only brings the whole series of events being discussed to life. Generally the backgrounds are rotoscoped too but often the rotoscoped characters are over super8 looking footage or photos from the actual event.

As well as avoiding the tired archive talking head documentary conventions this clever use of style leads to other interesting experiences for the audience. Firstly it makes it feel contemporary as even though the events happened over 40 years ago the colour, action on screen and movement makes the events seem contemporary, relevant and as though the action is actually being played out in front of your eyes as a living drama. Another bonus for audience and filmmaker is that this style obviously plugs actual gaps in the archive footage. Lastly the animated living style makes the film really accessible. I took a group of 50 students to see a screening in the Hackney Picture-house as part of the London Film Festival. Documentary films can be a hard sell to 16-18 year olds but they overwhelming loved it for the reasons mentioned above which I found really fascinating.

The film does at the end reveal the actual people who bore witness or were caught up in the shootings. The interesting thing is that this was the first time some of them had re-visited the events of that day. Back in the 60's people just buried the stories and did not want to discuss them, there were no counsellors, rehabilitation etc they just had to get on with it. The films power was in getting them to finally tell their stories and the respectful way it handled them the animations almost giving them a distancing effect from the re-living of the events. There are some lovely moments towards the end though when some of them were reunited for the first time since the actual events. The film was also clever in the way it did not really seek to try and understand the motives behind the madness of the sniper who wreaked havoc that day. It was inferred he had mental health issues but by not really addressing this it did in giving the impression that madness such as this could never be understood. The stories were of those caught up in it finally given their voice and the fear, courage, selflessness and character that they all showed on that day.


It is a wonderful text and really was an inspiration in moving my practice forward. I can see using some of it's ideas and technique for my Anonymous concept specifically and also my Nature of Love piece. Specifically the use of rotoscope and animation techniques to keep the identity of the subject obscured and subverted from the audience. Also however it will enable the re-enactment and representation of certain scenes to appear current. The use of voice being recorded then re-recorded by actors who then play out the roles both through talking head and re-enactments had a resonance with me

AMEN BROTHER: DRUM BREAK SAMPLING AND USAGE RESEARCH

Adding to my research of the band I also wanted to find out even more about the records, artists, bands producers and musical genres that had sampled the Amen Break and it's history and development from a B side of a soul funk record to being sampled on over 2300 tracks and counting.

In the mid-80s, sampling began to make its way on to the hip hop scene and the Amen break, as Coleman's solo became known, was rediscovered. So many years later however, the drum solo from Amen, Brother influenced a new generation of musicians.

"One of the first things that sampling allowed for was the re-use of older recorded material," says Nate Harrison, a Brooklyn-based artist and academic who made a documentary about the drum solo. "In the case of the Amen break, you could sample the drums and then replay them as if they were your own," he says.

One of the first acknowledged uses was in a slowed down form, on the song I Desire, from the 1986 debut album of New York rap group Salt-N-Pepa. A few years later it appeared on Wordz of Wisdom by another New York duo known as 3rd Bass. It also popped up on NWA's Straight Outta Compton from 1989.

In the early 1990s, British music producers on the dance music scene looked to the US for inspiration. Old breakbeats were dug out and the Amen break featured heavily in jungle music and many feel it was the backbone of the creation of this genre and also the Drum and Bass scene that evolved out of it.

Later, the break went mainstream - in 1997, Oasis used it in the song D'You Know What I Mean. The same year, it also appeared at the beginning of David Bowie's hit song Little Wonder from the album Earthling and was even used in Amy Winehouse's You Know I'm No Good in 2006.

Over the years, it has become the most sampled drum beats of all time and the break has continued to be used in in a variety of ways in a multitude of different types of music. As well as the Hip Hop and Drum and Bass scene it has been sampled on Pop, soul, indie and rock music by such acts as Nine Inch Nails on Perfect Drug, Korn's Coming Undone and even Ant and Dec on their track When I Fall In Love! The break was even sampled on used on the theme tune for the animated TV series Futurama.


So why did these six seconds from 1969 become so popular? "There's something about the groove of that break and especially the way people chop it up of course," says Harrison. "For me, it's this perfect blend between something very organic-sounding and very robotic-sounding at the same time. "The rhythm itself is syncopated so there's lots of variations on the drums you can derive from sampling the original break. It's really conducive to chopping and rearranging. It also sonically has this punch to it that makes it unique," he says. "It's the backbone of so much music. Both hip hop and drum and bass [musicians] have made a lot of money from it."


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32087287

http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/Winstons.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winstons
https://www.discogs.com/artist/48391-The-Winstons
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/frontman-of-the-winstons-finally-paid-for-amen-break-drum-sample-a6729996.html

AMEN BROTHER: WINSTONS RESEARCH

I have been aware of the significance of the Amen Break for some time and its multiple usage and influence on many artists and genres. However I did not know too much about the band behind it, the drummer and the history of usage etc so carried out some extensive research and the skinny below is the result of that. Below is the full record Amen Brother and the famous 6 second drum break is 1
minute 26 seconds in.

• The band behind it were soul funk band The Winstons and the drummer was G.C. Coleman who was born in 1944 and died in 2006.
• The other band members were Richard L Spencer (lead singer and tenor saxophone), Phil Tolotta (organ co-lead vocals), Ray Maritano (alto saxophone, backing vocals) Quincy Mattison (guitar, backing vocals) and Sonny Pekerol (bass guitar, backing vocals).

• The song Amen Brother was the B side of the A side Colour him Father released in spring 1969 in Atlanta Georgia. 
• The B side was regarded as largely ignored at the time and was really just a filler.
• It is loosely based on an old gospel song called Amen, Brother.  Elements of it came from a guitar riff the legendary R&B musician Curtis Mayfield had once played to Spencer. 
• The song is an instrumental and legend has it that they could not find a suitable miuddle section to make it long enough so tried just letting GC Coleman cut loose, and the rest as they say is history.
• "The band didn't really want to rehearse the song. We weren't there to do 'original', we were a bar band. The guys were a little testy, they wanted leisure time, so I was kind of rushing it," says Spencer. 
• Halfway through the track, the other instruments fall silent as drummer GC Coleman pounds away on his own for four bars. "In about 20 minutes, we had a playable song," Spencer said. 

• Exactly who created the drum break isn't clear. Spencer says he directed it, while Phil Tolotta, the only other surviving member of the band, disagrees - he says the solo was "pure GC".
• The A-side of the record, Color Him Father, became a 1969 top 10 R&B hit in the US and won a Grammy award the following year. 
• Despite their initial chart success, The Winstons struggled to get bookings as a mixed-race group playing in the southern states of the US and split up in 1970.

• It is estimated that the song (well the drum break) has been sampled over 2300 times.
• Nobody in the Winston's ever saw any royalties. In the 1980s sampling was still a legal grey area - today musicians have to get permission from the original artist or the copyright holder.
• Richard L Spencer, lead singer of The Winstons. "It felt like plagiarism and I felt ripped off and raped, I come from an era where you didn't steal people's ideas."
• Coleman developed a drug addiction and died homeless and destitute on the streets of Atlanta in 2006. Spencer thinks it is unlikely that he was aware of the impact of his drum solo recorded decades earlier.

• An internet campaign raised money for Spencer who owns the copyright for Amen, Brother. Set up by British DJs Martyn Webster and Steve Theobald, the campaign snowballed far beyond their expectations through support from music fans and even some of the big name artists who have used the distinctive sound to help build their careers. So far it's gathered more than £14,000 ($32,000). "It's about giving something back to a 72-year-old man with heart problems who has never seen really seen a penny other than his royalties from the original release," says Theobald.
• Spencer retired from music more than 40 years ago and is now a novelist living in North Carolina. Although he was angry when he first heard the Amen break was being sampled, he now feels more at peace with it. "It's not the worst thing that can happen to you. I'm a black man in America and the fact that someone wants to use something I created - that's flattering," he says. 
• Spencer says of the fundraising campaign. "They didn't have to do that - I didn't even know them. Fifty years on, some young white boys that I've never met, halfway across the world said, 'We're going to give you a gift.' It's probably one of the sweetest things that's happened to me in a long time."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32087287

http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/Winstons.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winstons
https://www.discogs.com/artist/48391-The-Winstons
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/frontman-of-the-winstons-finally-paid-for-amen-break-drum-sample-a6729996.html

AMEN: APPROPRIATION RESEARCH

I wanted to research appropriation further to examine how far appropriation can go and the artist appropriating it still be recognised as the creator or author. I also wanted to look into the ethical issues surrounding it and the types of appropriation based work out there.

One interesting piece I read was Lisa Jones entitled Appropriation and Derogation. Jones draws a distinction between appropriation and what she calls "Appropriation Art". She states "The term "appropriation art" is the name for a genre of primarily visual contemporary art, which came into currency in the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly with reference to the artists Sherrie Levine and Jeff Koons." I like this distinction and feel I would be much happier operating in the realm of "appropriation" rather than "Appropriation Art".I want to use elements but change them in some way and incorporate them into my work not directly lift hem. This could be combining them with other elements, stylistically changing or altering them to create new and alternative meanings.

Looking at Sherrie Levine's work she used paintings by Monet and the depression era photographs by Walker Evans. The latter she simply re-photographed and presented as her own (see above comparisons). There is obviously questionable morals here and this is an area that does not sit well with my morale compass.

Jeff Koons regularly plunders "appropriates" from popular culture adverts, postcards or promotional materials. A good example of this is Moses where Koons simply frames an Nike advertisement and claims it as his own. Again my feelings towards this are similar to the work of Levine. is it an artist trading on his name to make a statement and a bit Emperors new clothes? Does it get us to re-evaluate work and re-contextualise it in a galley environment?

The term "appropriation" started in the 60's possibly starting with Pop Art but it's roots are much earlier in the start of the start of the 20th century. In  the collage works of Picasso and Braques and the readymade works of Duschamp and his famous urinal as a sculpture and appropriation of Mona Lisa called L.H.O.O.Q. In the mid 20th century the baton was picked up by the appropriation of art objects by the post-modern, post-expressionistic artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Then the aforementioned Pop Art movement and the works of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, whose populist work has in turn been reproduced by others creating a seemingly continual vortex or spiral of appropriation.

In the late 20th and early 21st century appropriation must of course include sampling of records of which their have been huge debates, law-suits and questions about usage. So my piece will be one in a long line drawing upon this concept. As well as appropriating shining a spotlight on it from the creative artistic end it also looks at the darker end of the original artist not always being credited and receiving the money, recognition and acclaim they deserve. As I have mentioned before I love the irony of the appropriated (GC Coleman) being recognised by appropriating the the work (music videos/songs) of the appropriators (the artists and bands). I have even considered not actually creating any original assets for my piece and appropriating everything music, files, visuals, action footage, video and film from online therefore making it uber-appropriation!

AMEN: APPROPRIATION INTRO

My interest in appropriation started with someone mentioning to me the quote apparently attributed to Picasso "good artists copy, great artists steal". This interested me twofold as not only does it deal with great art but the fact that a lot of traditional documentaries relying on archival footage. Can something purporting to be art such as an installation be made entirely from "stolen" footage.

Digging deeper into the quote it seems Picasso did not actual say the quote but there is some truth in it. if you consider the difference in participation of the two, when you copy something, you do so mindlessly and mechanically. But, when you steal something, there is more adrenaline, more creativity, more at risk. Copying is just technique. Stealing is an entire plot. Further research discovered is concept to have a name and to be an art movement concept referred to as “appropriation” It happens throughout culture, fine art, and graphic design.

For my Amen Brother idea the use of the Winstons drum break by over 2300 other records is simply just appropriation. I love the irony of re-appropriating and highlighting those doing it in an installation style documentary using the audio as well as appropriating songs and music videos to create this. Sampling the records and music and others must be the new king of appropriation in the 20th and 21st century and is something that greatly interests me. I also find the irony idea of contextualising this appropriation by artists of JC Coleman's drum solo by re-appropriating the re-appropriators fun. Especially when used to highlight the work of a man who received no money, acclaim or plaudits from those who used it

Appropriation of images in art and design has been around for a long time. From the strict orthodox iconography of religious images to the of Cubist collage works of artists such as Picasso and George Braque. From Andy Warhols soup cans to Richard Princes re-photographing of an existing image are the evidence that using popular or familiar imagery and representing it in a new and interesting form or work has been around throughout history. It may be just the change of context from advertising hoarding to gallery or the subversion and re-interpretation of an image to create a new meaning and new intentions.

This has even gone both ways from advertising being appropriated as art but also art being re-appropriated into advertising and the work of Gillian Wearing and Flischi and Weiss are testament to this. The following questions are raised by the Tate website on appropriation and all interesting avenues to explore further.

"And what are the effects of technology on this ongoing appropriation? Now that boundaries of authenticity and originality are even more blurred, artists (indeed anyone) can recycle and re-upload images, text and audio material more quickly and easily than ever before. Sampling, remixing and mashups proliferate online, and allow people to even adopt a social media profile that appropriates or parodies a well-known persona. But what is the right of the originator in all this? Can you copyright an idea? Or do you lose rights to control it when you put it in the public domain? "

Sources

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/546/appropriation-in-contemporary-art

https://www.quora.com/What-did-Picasso-mean-when-he-said-good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal

http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/blogs/tate-debate-when-appropriation-homage-and-when-it-plagiarism

LEARNING AGREEMENT: INDEPENDENT PRACTICE

Jonathan Saward: MA Arts Practice Proposal

What I Aim To Achieve. 

Having worked in the fairly mainstream side of TV but found the industry limitations and often formulaic nature of this somewhat confining. Due to my training and conditioning from my populist broadcast TV output I can also play it too safe and I want to stretch my practice, influences and approaches to factual filmmaking. Using this prior practice as a starting point I want to move away from my fallback position of a formulaic methodology and to study and move My aim is to see how far I can push the boundaries of factual, character-based narrative films whilst retaining the narrative and character based subject matter I love. However my work will always be within the service of the “factual” subject matter and the fascination boundaries and confines that this puts upon the factual filmmaker. My main areas of interest and aims are outlined below.

My aims at the start of the course were to push the boundaries of my current practice of conventional factual populist broadcast TV sphere towards a more creative, inventive and artistic approach. My aim was to see how far I can push the boundaries of factual, character-based narrative films whilst retaining the narrative and character based subject matter I love. However I wanted my work to always be in the service of the “factual” subject matter and the fascinating boundaries and confines that this puts upon the factual filmmaker. From my previous work on the MA work and my research and development I feel that these themes are what I will pursue further as my continuing areas of interest. Moving forward my aims and objectives are outlined below. 

1: Investigate Factual Film-making Form, Fictional and Avant Garde Film hybrids. 
When does a factual film become a work of fiction? When does it become avant-garde? What happens to fact when it is mixed with fiction and an approach with an art aesthetic. As well as being stylistic I want to develop my studies into the deconstruction of documentary modes and stylistics and the definition of what a documentary is, should be and could be. I want to experiment and subvert documentary form modes and boundary crossing into other areas.

2: Explore Documentary Style and Create More Visually and Aurally Creative Films. 
I wish to continue to explore the possibilities of the reflexive documentary style borrowing from other areas of the arts and moving image with more emphasis on the aesthetic to tell the story in a more emotive way. I want to investigate ways image can be used to tell a factual story and move away from simple expository documentary formula of talking heads and GV’s to a more and imaginative, inventive visual and aural style. This may include the fusion of animation, abstract images, use of music, motion graphics, sound design and sophisticated camerawork styles.

3: Push Possibilities of Character Based Factual Storytelling and Representation 
I have really enjoyed exploring the notion of representation in factual cinema and works and the fact that nothing can be a 100% true representation so it this important. Werner Hetzogs “ecstatic truth” being a construct of the film-maker and Guys madins “docu-fantasias” explore how creativity, subjectivity and objectivity can be treated individually or as interesting bedfellows. Is bias necessarily a bad thing? How far can the factual film-maker go when creating representations of characters, places and events before the piece is no longer based on truth?

4: Utilize New Documentary Formats, Exhibition and Distribution 
I have made inroads into this but want to investigate it even further. I have started to challenge the documentary form and distribution to try and find new audiences and audience consumption through my move to installation pieces. I love the idea of not being confined to one screen and the interaction and interplay between multiple screens. How much does the venue or exhibition method change the content? I want to explore formats and dissemination more through of micro-docs, live worldwide docos (periscope), VR documentaries, more installations, site specific work, interactive documentaries and online formats that challenge and develop the conventional documentary.

5: Develop a Body Of Work Exploring the Aims Outlined Above 

Amen Brother
An installation piece exploring the interpretation, sampling and post-modern aspects of art but with a focus on music and sampling and using this as a window to explore, plagiarism, homage and re-purposing of art. At its core will be the Amen Break by the 60’s funk band The Winstons. It is a 4-bar drum solo (break) performed by Gregory Sylvester "G. C." Coleman in the song "Amen, Brother". Lasting just under 7 seconds this one tiny drum solo has been sampled in 2263 other records to date across a multitude of decades, music genres and variety of artists. I aim to It will be either multi screen or on a large scale with emphasis on sound as well as visuals. It will combine a mixed version of tracks and visually it will name-check the artists by building a motion graphics/ kinetic typography of “Amen”. I am researching into the appropriation art movement both as idea and ideals and also possibly exploring religious themes given the hook of the song title.

Experiment with Audio and Visual Style, Modes and Formats 
I want to try and avoid the conventional talking head and record interviews which I will then cut together and use shot footage, animations, archive footage, roto-scoping, re-enactments, creative audio and motion graphics over them. They will also be playful with documentary modes and formats and what Hertzog termed “The Ecstatic Truth” a truth created by the author uninhabited by the constraints of reality. I aim for these to be short piece(s) aimed at an online audience and for film competitions online and physical. It will enable the exploration of a variety of styles as mini experiments to increase my skill-set and creative which will then combine into the finished film. This will be through one of of the ideas below.

1: The Nature of Love? 
An experimental documentary exploring the nature of love in all it’s facets through the eyes of my 92 year old grandmother. She has had two very successful marriages one lasting until middle age and then she remained single only re-marrying in her late 70’s. However she still carries a torch for her first and true love a pilot who she only went out with a few times but never made it back from one of his missions. Within the context of these three relationships I want to try and frame the three stages of love lust, attraction and attainment.

2: Anonymous. 
A documentary created back to front as trying to shoehorn creative style and formats onto documentaries has been to the detriment of the idea. So this will be a back to front approach on deciding the styles and formats I would like to use and then finding an appropriate subject. I like the subversive idea of the documentary subject being anonymous and not appearing except possibly a voice and working backwards finding a subject)s) to whom this would be appropriate. To this end I developed the anonymous idea of potentially working with subjects who wish to remain anonymous such as graffiti artists, political and environmental activists and criminals.

Cinematique
This piece will be site(s) specific and explore the love of cinema and viewing film as a collective audience and how that effects consumption. It will deal with the ways of seeing art from different perspectives and blurring the lines between audience and participation. The piece will be a site specific installation based in a cinema either real of created. However the audience will be the film and I want to explore multiple screens representing the cinema audience each one possible a talking head of an audience member explaining their love of the act of “cinema going” and cinema. Screens will be placed around the site sharing their experiences and reflections and the audience will be able to go around and choose whose recollections they want to hear. On the cinema screen will be the image of the cinema auditorium so shining a mirror back on itself and the audience interacting with the screens.

Global Warmning
A multi screen installation piece charting the history of global warming (now climate change) and the debates surrounding it’s validity. It will pitch the facts and figures, sound-bites from both sides of the debate, u-turns, alongside visual evidence of the phenomenon. The piece has interest and possible support from Greenpeace. It will be a collage of news sound bites, audio, images, video, physical representations, photos, motion graphics, animations and kinetic typography. I envisage the screens displaying the physical evidence of natural disasters, melting ice caps, shots from space and ozone imaging.

Planet Splendid 
A factual style TV program disguised as a children’s animated TV series. This will be the development of a the script, visuals animatic and possibly a scene heading towards a pilot. The pilot will be centred around a character from outer space in this case a planet with all angular edges and shapes. Coming to earth (Plant Splendid) he will learn about curves, wheels etc and take these back to his planet. Other themes colour, manners, music etc…

Natures Test Card
This will be an attempt at deconstructing the typical nature documentary down to it’s core elements then re-imagining them. Very similar to the trend in restaurants to “deconstruct dishes”. It will use image and picture to create a loose narrative but within the confines of a test card that will be created for experiencing in a virtual reality world inside a VR headset.

Residue
Currently still in very early research stages it will be an exploration into the notion of memory and it’s selectivity. I would like to work with alzheimers patients creating one off bespoke personal documentaries about the key events in their lives to act as memory triggers. Possibly extend to life lessons from older citizens for today’s youth.

Indicative Reference Material: Factual Film References 
I have a profound interest and cultural awareness of a huge variety of filmmakers working in the field of documentary film today and also those from the past. Far too many to mention here but here are some pieces of work that I greatly admire and continue to draw inspiration from.

Zero Days: Alex Gibney (2016) 
Uses an actress to play an amalgamation of interviewees about the Stuxnet virus malware cyberweapon “allegedly” created by the US NSA and Israel to destroy Iranian enrichment centrifuges that spread worldwide. It uses CGI imagery to disguise the actress on screen. 

Tower: Kevin Maitland (2016)
An innovative telling of Americas first campus mass killing. Told by actors voicing the words of those involved 50 years ago and also shooting new footage and rotoscoping the action over archive footage, reenactments, photos and animations. It brings the story to life and makes it feel contemporary.

Notes on Blindness; Peter Middleton & James Spinney (2014) 
A documentary on academic John Hull’s dealing with his impending blindness through an audio diary. Over three years John recorded over sixteen hours of material, a unique testimony of loss, rebirth and renewal, excavating the interior world of blindness and this documentary uses the recordings lip-synched by actors to illustrate this. It was accompanies by a fantastic VR recreation of visuals demonstrating how John built a sonic landscape through sound.

Exit Through The Gift Shop; Banksy (2010)
Banksy’s documentary on Thierry Guetta, a Los Angeles-based Frenchman who videotapes various underground art escapades, and later is transformed into an art phenomenon dubbed "Mr. Brainwash." The finished film overlaps and blurs the documentary between what is real and what might be fake blurs, as modern art and celebrity are put under the microscope.

The Possibilites Are Endless; James Hall & Edward Lovelace. (2014) 
A fusion of high art and delicate storytelling about the rehabilitation of Scottish singer Edwin Collins after a life threatening stroke. Always inspirational, never taking the obvious tabloid route.

The Arbor; Clio Barnard; (2010) 
A mesmerizing and beautiful documentary fusing narrative and documentary on the tragic playwright Andrea Dunbar.

The Kid Stays in the Picture; Nanette Burstein & Brett Morgan. (2002) 
A stylistic and creative documentary on infamous Paramount studio head Robert Evans. A real raconteur he is only on screen through clever use of archive materials from layered and moving photos tand archive film clips and footage.

The Filth and The Fury; Julien Temple. (2000) 
A wonderful documentay extracting often painful rememberances from the Sex Pistols against a mismatched collage of image and sound with a punk style aesthetic.

My Winnipeg; Guy Maddin. (2007) 
A crazy free-wheeling and intriguing documentary of the filmmakers formative years growing up in Winnipeg. Re-enactments, archive footage and dreamlike camera-work create a compelling and beguiling docu-fantasia.

Night Mail; Harry Watt & Basil Wright. (1936) 
A pioneering documentary and subtle propaganda of a postal train travelling from London to Scotland. It fuses poetry from W.H. Auden a score by Benjamin Britten to fascinating effect.

Other Indicative Reference Material and Inspirations Specific Works 
Vinyl Requiem: Lol Sargent/Philip Jeck
The Clock: Christian Marclay
Now: Chantal Ackerman
A Free and Anonymous Movement: Jane and Louise Wilson
Martyrs: Bill Viola
Can I Get an Amen?: Nate Harrison
Door Into The Dark: Anagram 4
0 Part Motet: Janet Cardiff
Raw Materials: Bruce Nauman
Palisades: Rachel Rose

Art Movements 
Pop Art, Post Modernism, Appropriation (Michalis Pilcher’s “Statements on Appropriation” (2009): 

Artists 
Claude Manet, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Marcel Duchamp, Jeff Koons, Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, Barbara Kruger, Roland Barthes & Elaine Sturtevant.

Installation Artists 
Nate Harrison, Cory Archangel, Jane and Louise Wilson, Christian Marclay, Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, Chantal Ackerman and Anagram, Lol Sargent/Philip Jeck and Janet Cardiff. Also. John J H Phillips, Yayoi Kusama, Hannah Black, Ryan Trechartin, Andrew Thomas Huang, Gillian Wearing, Shana Moulten, Sue de Beer, Douglas Gordon, Yang Fudong and Tony Oursler

Resources To Aid My Work 
Alongside my own video shooting and sound recording kit I am likely to need the following to undertake my work and to extend my practice and skill base and to enable a more cinematic approach to my work.
• Use of 3D VR software and headsets for developing immersive content.
• Access to “full frame” DSLR cameras.
• Lens’s of various focal lengths to enable more cinematic qualities to my cinematography.
• Access to “grip” equipment. Track and dolly, jib arms, steadycame etc.
• Training and assistance with motion graphics software eg Adobe After effects.
• Possible refresher training on AVID although I may cut in Adobe Premiere Pro.
• Assistance with sound manipulation software such as Logic Pro.
• Guidance and technology for installations and using projectors for video mapping.
• Plenty of reference points from tutors on texts to look at and publications, reports on the areas I intend to investigate.

More support in art theorists, theories, movements that link into my areas of interest. 
• Audience & participation.
• Site specific artworks.
• Ideas of seeing.
• Representation.
• Sampling art, re-versioning, repurposing, recycling movements and art.
• Post-modernism.

OVERVIEW OF CONCEPTS & CONTEXTS

Here is a link to a PREZI which charts the evolution of my work during the concepts and contexts module.

http://prezi.com/xoo5skuzcqmy/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

SIBLINGS: LINKS TO FINAL SIBLINGS EDIT & WORK IN-SITU

Here are two videos to the final completed Siblings 11-10-8 piece. The footage is hosted on Vimeo as this allows for HD and a more professional way of viewing video content on-line compared to youtube.

Firstly here is a 5:34 clip of the installation in-situ in the room I used to house it. It is hard to judge the scale with no-one in the shot to give an impression of the size. However the screens were all 160cm by 90cm and as mentioned earlier were set at above the audiences eye-line 135cm off the ground therefore about 210cm to the boys eyes which is about 7 feet off the ground. The light under the middle screen is the reflection of light on a white projector.


SIBLINGS IN-SITU VIMEO from Jon Saward on Vimeo.

Here is a 10:12 video of the finished edited clips from each of the screens. I chose to put them into one movie so that you can see how they all work together but obviously they were three separate entities left, middle and right that all come together in the installation when running together. I have put them on a white background so you can clearly see all three screens. In reality when running as an installation they were on a black background as you can see from the clip above but I put them on white so that they can be appreciated as the three separate frame elements.



SIBLINGS FINAL VIMEO WHITE BG from Jon Saward on Vimeo.

SIBLINGS: INSTALLING THE INSTALLATION

The final installation of the piece had to be left until the evening of the day before I had to exhibit the piece due to availability of the room. Whilst testing had taken place to make sure the hardware, software and construction in theory the piece would work the all of the elements had not been built and fully tested.

Constructing the Screens
The first thing that needed building was the screens. I had done a very basic mock up of these but due to the delicate nature of their construction I had nowhere to safely store them if made prior to the evening before so they had be made at the last minute. They were constructed from two cut 160cm lengths of 1.5 X 2.5 wood with thick white paper used for photographic backdrops. This was to use materials I had available to me as well as to keep costs down. The size of the screens was to be 160cm by 90cm and not only keeping to the 16:9 screen ration of the video footage but also as this was the optimum size to fit inside the studio. I would have liked a little better so the boys were even bigger and more impressive to the audience BUT space in the TV studio would not accommodate this. The paper is curly by nature as it is stored on rolls and was a pain to work with and I dragged in some extra help and hands to do this. With some careful measuring, scoring, cutting, wrapping, stapling and trimming and a lot of blood sweat and tears three screens were constructed. There was still a little curl to the paper itself which was a bit of a pain but some double sided sticky tape helped to solve this it was also hoped that once hanging in the gallery space (Blacked out TV studio) overnight then the curl would fall out.

Preparing the Gallery Space
As mentioned earlier the gallery space was the TV studio at Suffolk New College. This was due to the space it offered, the availability to me to use it and the fact that you can black it out which was necessary to the success of the installation. I wanted the boys suspended in mid air and as the background of the TV studio and the background of the footage was back the boys talking heads would loom and float mid-air. The space needed a huge tidy and then the black drapes pulled around to black out the room. I did play with a couple of lights from the lighting grid on once the installation was in but there was JUST enough light from the projections to slightly light the room and it looked much better without them.

Hanging the Screens
The three screens were designed to be hand from the lighting grid in the TV studio and to be anchored on the floor. This was to prevent and swaying and movement on them once installed. The plan was to suspend them invisibly at above eye level so that the screens would loom a little over the audience making the audience feel in awe of and intimidated by the installation and the boys heads. This look was achieved by using very dark green coated garden wire for strength and stability and this was threaded through pre-drilled holes at the tops of the screens then through pre-drilled holes at the bottom then anchored to the floor. A crimp was used to hold the top edge of the screen up and in place. Installing these was a nightmare as making sure they were all the right height, level and the side screens at the right angles was hugely time consuming. They also had to be tested for the projections and lots or tiny alterations was needed.

Projectors and Installation
The projectors were the trickiest element of all as I wanted the images to completely fill the 160cm by 90cm screens with no overspill. For this they needed to be exactly 90 degrees to the screens. I had planned to put all of the screens on plinths that were about 80cm tall but this created two issues. Firstly being this tall they were a little too high and just entered the gaze of the viewers and were a tiny bit distracting from the three screens. Secondly it created real issues of getting the projectors at 90 degrees from the screens for proper projection.

My maths and planning was not quite spot on and in order to get the projectors in the right place they would have had to have been stacked one on top of another. In order to get around this I tried them lower down on a table and this eliminated the height problem but not the angle problem. The solution was to leave one projector on the table but to put the other two on stands which allowed the 90 degree angle to their respective screens. They were higher BUT not too high.

With use of the keystone feature on the projectors which allows the video frames perspective to be altered to make them square when projected from a lower angle to get rid of the distortion this called. Another issue was having to use three different projectors and all of them were not calibrated to be exactly the same. I adjusted the colour and white balance to try and get them as close as I could but still there were minor differences.

Computers to run the Clips
Three Macbook Pro computers were used to play the clips as these had the necessary processing power and I had use of three for the installation, one for each screen. As mentioned before I did play around with and consider DVD's and media players but these proved to be the most cost effective and stable ways of playing the clips. From the Macs i used 3 Mac monitor out to VGA convertors and then VGA leads from these into the projectors.

The clips were encoded using the H.264 codec which is an MPEG4 mov file which is very happy being played in Quicktime. These could be played out by getting the projectors to mirror the computer screens and then setting them to full screen mode getting rid of everything but the videos to be projected. These did all need to be triggered at the same time but could then be set to loop and provide a continuous screening. As all of the computers did not run at exactly the same time they were not the perfect solution and did need to be synched again from time to time but were adequate and compensations were made for this in the edited clips.

Sound and Speakers
The sound from each video on the screens I wanted to come from behind the screen itself. The aim was to attract the attention of the audience to the screens by having the voice project from them or the boys. This was achieved by creating plinths behind each of the screens to lift the speaker out of view and behind the screens. These were white and too short, but with a paint can on top and some black cloth wrapped around them they were hidden invisibly in the set. The speakers were dynamic and needed sound to power them so cables were run and hidden to do this. 5 metre cables which were 3.5mm mini jack from the computers to phono connections on the speakers were then connected. The speakers had adjustable volume and these all needed balancing with the computers to get them all to the same level.

The finished result worked pretty well and was exceptionally close to how I had envisaged it with only a few minor issues but it did fulfil most of my aims and objectives as outlined below.

• The blacked out studio/gallery environment I created was the right atmosphere. It drew full attention to the projections with no distractions.
• Screens could be bigger but were on a scale that dominated the audience slightly.
• Positioning good as at a higher angle to the audience therefore again slightly dominating them.
• The projectors were all positioned OK but this would need more thought this time. Keystoning the images helped this though. Back-projection would have been better if the space would allow for this.
• The screens were OK for home-made but the paper did not straighten 100%. A better solution such as purchasing screens or making canvas screens would be looked at next time.
• Projector noise was a little bit of an issue but not major and did not really detract from the 
• The colour on the projectors was not all exactly yhr same
• Synching of the three videos pretty good. Room for improvement there for absolutely spot on synching. Will need to investigate other technologies.
• The sound from the speakers coming from directly behind the screens as the boys spoke worked really well.

Here is a 5:30 clip of the installation working in its gallery environment I created.



SIBLINGS IN-SITU VIMEO from Jon Saward on Vimeo.