RESEARCH TECHNIQUES PRESENTATION

Here is my MA Arts Practice Research Techniques Presentation. It is good for seeing how my work has been developing to date.

MA Arts Practice Research Methods Presentation from jonsaward

SIBLINGS TEST 2: PRE-PRODUCTION

Following on from feedback, further research and mini tests since my first developmental version of the Sibling piece these are the areas I am going to develop prior to the second shoot. These have been experimented with and mulled over incessantly and this is what I currently feel will be the way forward and the key changes.

• Lose animation and pixelated b/w elements? A bit clunky and could be dealt with in a ore subtle way.
• The viewers are different to the artist especially in relationships to the boys and being able to tell them apart. I like the fact that they look similar and a degree of confusion. It will make the audience have to get to try and know and learn about the boys and work a little harder.
• Plan to create it to be exhibited on 3 screens as an immersive experience rather than the one screen. Sound coming from screen son talking on and making audience turn around to interact with the piece. Possibly not projectors at this stage. iPads, laptops will suffice.
• Look into technical factors and issues of synching the above method of screening.
• The boys have a charm and their personalities do shine through and even though the interactions were staged as it was shot one camera the interplay and humour reinforced their relationships. May try and do some more of this but adds up to a really complicated shoot. Could look to exploit 3 camera Tv studio set up if time and resources allow.
• How much will I guide the boys comments? Try some less scripted responses and pecking orders established before filming. Make sure this naturalness of the boys does not get lost!
• Keep simplistic as would be more powerful. Less is more! 
• Talk to others who have relationships or opinions of the boys. Teachers etc.
• A couple of people had issues with boys appearing to be naked and was it necessary and started raising whole different debates and readings. Most really liked it and seeing the fact that they were physically young and their different physiques. We discussed the fragility of being nude and laid bare too and most liked this idea. Will experiment with photo-shoots to look at options.
• Possibly play around with the order so not always fist, second and third born left to right. Keep the audience guessing and make them work harder. Liked that two boys look the same. Would make the audience have to get to know them their selves and pay attention.
• Explore using additional archive or GV footage BUT most liked the simplicity that the idea could have and thought this was possibly unnecessary.
• Could the boys ask each other questions? This could possibly be about themselves. For instance " what do you like about me"?
• Try more bits with the bits where the boys were not talking and simply existing naturally (well as naturally as you can in front of a camera) were as interesting as the talking bits. posture, body language, relationship with the camera and interviewer etc.

THE ARBOR (2010)

The Arbor” by Clio Barnard is 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.”

EVOLVING MY PRACTICE: SKILLS, TECHNIQUES AND CONTEXTUAL AWARENESS

I have been researching and thinking a lot about the Siblings and Poetic Love pieces especially as the deadline looms for the research project and I have been looking a lot more in-depth at the nature of documentary.

My concerns to date have been trying too hard with the Siblings piece and imposing style for the sake of it. I will also need to be careful of this in the Love documentary with my Grandmother too. The images and style and playful approach to creating avant grade and fictional documentaries and playing with style codes and conventions. The "ecstatic truth" as mentioned by Hertzog and Grierson's documentary being the "creative treatment of reality" are great ideas BUT I must remember one of my original aims and that content, character and narrative are as if not more important than style. These are the thoughts I have been looking into to try and help me see the way forward. I must make sure I do not shoehorn and impose my stylistic ideas too far so they supersede the content. It will be a fine balancing act to make sure that the techniques are interesting, stretching, challenging and hopefully a little pioneering BUT that the empathy with story, character and subject do not get swallowed up in it.

The Subversive & Uncanny
Is possibly best delivered subtly. The twisting the everyday and creating new interpretations, readings and atmospheres. The uncanny is something that interests me especially the playing with the everyday. As well as in art I feel that the uncanny can be used to play with everyday codes and conventions of documentary therefore crossing over to the subversive. Lip synching voices of adults out of my sons mouth's, breaking of the 4th wall a documentary no go are examples of this. It is an avenue I wish  to explore further as I feel it is a great way to highlight points and arguments to an audience. http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/uncanny-startlingly-real/

Documentary Form
Playing with and subverting documentary form. Play with conventions but put a spin on them but not to the detriment of the narrative, character and subject matter. Enhance not steamroller. Look even more at Nichols documentary modes and twist and manipulate them more.

Skills Levels
I need to develop my skills level in a few key areas so i can experiment more. This is especially in the technology involved in creating large screen projected installations. Also to rekindle and polish up and eve love my basic Adobe After Effects skills. Finally my all round knowledge of sound is OK but does need developing in Audition and possibly to start to work in Pro Tools.

Create More! Do More Practical Work!
I have been working to develop the Siblings piece but I need to find more time to be creating and evolving my physical practice. I must be shooting more, cutting more, working in After Effects and with sound to evolve these skills. Possibly set some smaller less all embracing tasks that can be knocked out as tests and experimentation rather than focussing solely on the long term. This skill development will obviously help me out in the long term.

Archive Footage
I really want to evolve my use of archive materials (clips, stills etc)in my work as this is something I have avoided a little due to the fact it is a really traditional documentary technique. However due to this it is ripe to be experimented with and subverted to create meaning. Some of the key works that have inspired me The Kid Stays in the Picture and The Filth and The Fury have used archive materials to great effect. With "fair usage" of clips" now established and the ease of sourcing clips it is an avenue to investigate more.

New Methods of Exhibition and Dissemination
I need to start looking into these more. Installation  work for galleries is a new venture for me but interactive, online and even VR documentary/factual pieces all need more investigation

THE FILTH AND THE FURY (2000)

Julien Temples’ documentary on the Sex Pistols “The Filth and the Fury” (2000) is an inspiring, clever, thoughful but at times bombastic documentary that really has its own sense of style The Filth and the Fury is a wonderful documentary extracting often painful rememberances from the Sex Pistols against a mismatched collage of image and sound with a punk style aesthetic. TV adverts are juxtaposed against 1950’s film footage with TV news riots and interesting graphics to create a portrait of the band. The interviews are simply silhouettes adding a haunting quality, allowing for profound insights, yet keeping the mystique of the band. The ways it eeks interesting interviews out of its protaganists and the full on magpie like collage of every source of footage available to create its meaning are really inspirational and techniques I feel need further investigation.

MY WINNIPEG (2007)

My Winnipeg is a real inspiration to me and I thought best to stay clear of it for a while so as to not be influenced too much but actually sat down and watched it again today for inspiration. It is a crazy free-wheeling and intriguing performative and poetic documentary of the filmmakers formative years growing up in Winnipeg. Re-enactments from actors and his eccentric mother of key life defining moments are recorded in his old family home set dressed to replicate it as it was freely crossing the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction. This is combined with archive footage, photos, a poetic narration from Maddin himself and dreamlike camera-work create a compelling and beguiling docu-fantasia or what Werner Hertzog terms “ecstatic truth”.

From further research in and around the film I found an interview with Madin speaking about the way some documentaries have evolved around the millenium stated “movies haven’t even really concerned themselves with the pains over what packaging the truth comes to them in. If a movie feels honest, ecstatically or literally, people can kind of feel it… The more manipulated things are, the less likely people are to be misled, to take everything said with a grain of salt, and to sort out dynamics of things that are true and untrue in their lives. I always liked that.”

There are lots of ideas that I can take from the film and avenues to pursue for the "Poetic Love" documentary idea I am working on. I love the idea of using re-enactments to create a docu-drama element to some scenes from my participants. The idea of stitching in archive footage to show topics being covered in the documentary is a good idea and through fair usage I may be able to use film clips to demonstrate these too. The poetical nature of the voice over also works really well and adds a romantic, nostalgic and ironic sensibility to the film that I may be able yo use my recorded sound to re-create. the idea of a very personal rememberances and subjectivity are also ideas I will look to put a spin on.

THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE (2002)

Starting to write my research proposal I wanted to-revisit some texts that really inspired me and one of these was The Kid Stays in the Picture a documentary Nanette Burstein & Brett Morgan. (2002). The film is an award winning documentary based on the autobiography of the infamous Paramount studio head Robert Evans.

The obvious “talking head” documentary is side-stepped using only a voice over from the great raconteur Evans’ himself throughout. This is accompanied visually by clever use of a range of archive materials from digitally layered and superimposed moving photos and film clips and news footage as well as stylistic newly shot footage from the locations mentioned. It is also very playful with the idea of objectivity and subjectivity from the very start.

 Reviewing the film Maitland McDonagh sums it up thus “The result is a snazzy kick that's never less than hugely entertaining and should in no way be mistaken for an unbiased account. But then, Evans is the quintessential Hollywood character, and what's more Hollywood than crafting your own legend”. This is summed up by Evans’ quote “There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently”. Morgan himself in interview also defended the subjectivity of the film and it being only Evans’ side of the story by dubbing it “cinema mythologica”.

 The film was an influence for all of the above. I love the shameless subjectiveness as the whole story is purely from Evans viewpoint and perspective and is shameless about this. It is almost as though you have pulled up a chair next to him in a bar and he is telling you the story. Who cares if the facts are not all objective and Evans I am sure bends and stretches these. The other technique I like that apart from a couple of archive interview clips you never see Evans. Clever use of the images mentioned earlier and especially animation of old photographs are a real triumph. Lots of food for thought and possible ideas and techniques to develop in my own work.

WERNER HERZOG'S "ECSTATIC TRUTH"

Exploring the notion of "truth" in documentary and the thoughts of other practitioners I came across the text from a lecture given by a filmmaker I greatly admire Werner Herzog. Herzog works in both fiction and documentary films following a screening of his film “Lessons in darkness” in Milan in 1992 addressed the issues of reality in factual films well.

“Our entire sense of reality has been called into question. But I do not want to dwell on this fact any longer, since what moves me has never been reality, but a question that lies behind it [beyond; dahinter]: the question of truth. Sometimes facts so exceed our expectations—have such an unusual, bizarre power—that they seem unbelievable. But in the fine arts, in music, literature, and cinema, it is possible to reach a deeper stratum of truth—a poetic, ecstatic truth, which is mysterious and can only be grasped with effort; one attains it through vision, style, and craft.”

This "ecstatic truth" is an area I want to explore in my own work and it draws lots of my aims and aspirations. I agree with his thoughts of a deeper intuitive version of the truth existing and the filmmaker intrinsically knowing the content well and creating his or her version of the reality and aim to follow this path.

POETIC LOVE AUDIO

This project has been put a little on the back-burner as my main focus has been with the Siblings piece but I have been carrying out primary interviews with my grandmother to see what directions the piece could take me.

SIBLINGS: LIP-SYNCH AUDIO TECHNICAL ISSUES

Working on the first practice run of the project one of the key areas that was tricky to get right was the lip synch audio. It was a process of trial and error to get it to work correctly and I have outlined the stages of development it went through to try and get it to work. The boys audio of them saying things was not an issue as it was recorded live but some of the other elements and the lip synch were trickier to get right..


The evolution of process for recording the audio for the contributors voices who were also commenting on the boys psychologists, parents etc is outlined below.


Attempt 1:
The aim of this was to use the boys voices but to simply put an effect on them. This would make the workflow easy as simply exporting the boys voices sound files then dropping and effect on their voices them would change them and the timings and everything else would be the same so they could be dropped straight back into Premiere Pro. As a test I used the psychologists statement and wanted to get the boys audio to sound more overbearing, official and statement like to create a representation of them. In this first instance I tried out a lot of effects to deepen the boys voices and ended up putting a computer sounding effect on it in the final trial version. This worked as it still lip synched with the boys but was too heavy handed. the effects distorted the boys voices too much and sounded far too unnatural. I really wanted to use real voices of those involved or others to voice their words to make it feel more real.


Attempt 2:
I got down the words of the parents about what they wanted to say about the boys and recorded it. Then I tried to get the boys to lip synch to it whilst the audio was being played back to them. This was a bit of a disaster and far too difficult for the boys. Timing, inclination, phrasing and tempo as well as cueing them in bang on was far too tricky and simply did not work.


Attempt 3:
This time I used the words of the parents about what they wanted to say about the boys and recorded the boys saying it. The process that worked was this.

• Recorded the boys in-vision doing saying the parents lines
• Take the clips and put them in a timeline on Adobe Premiere Pro.
• Cueing them up to exact points on the timeline. So the boys audio to start on 1:00 minute.
• Using the play-head in Adobe Premiere Pro and also the waveform as a guide to the start.
• Also the picture of the boys on display and their version of the statement.
• The above: timing, play-head, boys in vision and waveform it all act as a guide for parents.
• Play the clip through so the parents can get the boys timing, inclination, phrasing and tempo.
• Then keep recording on a TASCAM digital recorder the audio until they got it bang on.
• Then the audio files of the parents audio that were recorded are imported into Premiere Pro.
• The audio files are then synched up to replace the boys saying the lines.
• Minor alterations in timing, starting and spacing are added to get the lip-synch to look right.
• The boys are in the clip with their lips moving and the sound from the parents coming out.

This is a complicated and time consuming process BUT it does work and it was the easiest way to do it