MEDIA ROUNDABOUT: CONFESSION VIDEO

This was a collaborative task. Each person on the foundation course was involved in some way or another, whether it was providing the content, by speaking on the film, or working the camera or set directing.

There were four roles in this task, which everyone rotated around in the group to try each one. There was the director, camera operator, speaker and personal who covered the speaker's eyes. The director managed the set, and called for the camera operator to start and stop filming. The person controlling the camera had to frame the picture, and direct the person covering the speaker's eyes, to make sure the face could still be seen but the eyes couldn't. The speaker had to provide appropriate and honest content for the piece.

This piece was a homage to Gillian Wearing's 'Confess All On Video. Don’t Worry You Will Be in Disguise. Intrigued? Call Gillian' (1994). This idea behind the piece was to create a safe space where people could make a confession, the twist was to establish a sort of anonymity so although the confession was made, individuals were still protected from what they had done. Rather than physically disguise the speakers like Wearing's original piece, we simply hid the eyes of the speaker.

Because of the personal nature of the work, our tutor made three rules; first, that all confessions made must in fact be true. Second that we would all be given time to think of an appropriate confession to use, and lastly that no one would be mocked or ridiculed in anyway for what they had to say whilst being filmed, that it was a safe space.

The studio had a stool for the speaker to sit on in front of a blackout curtain, this worked to create the illusion of an infinite space behind the speaker, and also kept your focus on what they were saying. Before each speaker began, the studio lights and sound levels had to be checked. To do this the speaker had to attach a microphone to their clothing and speak for a while, sound levels had to be adjusted so people were speaking at the same volume on the final video. Getting the speaker to talk before hand, also worked to make them more comfortable when they were making their confession.

UPCYCLING PROJECT

We continued the collaborative style of work, by splitting into groups and working with an eclectic mix of materials available to us. The task was to upcycle and transform scrap materials into a completely new piece, changing the purpose of the medium.

My group decided to create a garment from the available materials. The first piece we made developed from a foam skirt frame which we made by attaching long pieces of foam with tape and pins to a waist loop.

We tried to minimise the amount of different materials and colours in the second piece, to create a more harmonious outcome. We chose to make the dress out of different textured wall papers. The curled paper worked well to make a full skirt, however, overall it was a difficult material to use for garment making, as it didn't yield well to the curves of the mannequin. The two parts of the garment were brought together with a piece of coloured ribbon.

CORPORATION PARK

We all walked over to a local park, and got into groups. Each group was given a roll of blank, textured wallpaper and told to find an interesting perspective of the park. Our group decided to draw from a raised pathway, which had a view of the playground and the surrounding hills. The scene was split between the 6 people in our group:



We used felt tip pens to depict the view. Because we all had slightly different perspectives of the scene, and it wasn't well organised where each person would be drawing up to, some things were repeated in different parts of the piece. It was interesting to see how 6 different people interpreted the scene, and how, with the limited resources, they depicted the same things - For example, each person had a very different approach to portraying trees, (first row from my group, second row from the rest of the course).

SCRATCH FILM

The whole foundation course was positioned around tables in a long line, with a strip of film rolled out following the line.

Each person was assigned the 1 metre strip of film in front of them (which would equate to about 2.5 seconds of film). We were instructed to work directly onto the film, with permanent markers. We couldn't damage the film or stick anything onto it, otherwise it wouldn't be able to go through the projector.

As it was a collaborative project, we were told to note what the people working next to you were doing, so we could decide whether or not to make our strip of film link in with theirs or not. Different people worked in different ways; some attempted text, specific drawings / images and others created abstract patterns. I decided to limit my section to one colour (blue), because the people working on either side of me had opted for multiple colours, and I hoped this would make the three sections more distinct within the piece as a whole. However I tried to imitate a circle shape in my section as this linked to the person on my left.

The collaborative work amounted to around 6.5 minutes of film (full film here). I like how different people's contributions stand out within the film, but that it is still effective as a complete piece. We experimented with how music effected the tone and meaning of the piece when we watched it together. In the first viewing, it was silent, other than the sound of the projector, this tied the piece to the intended purpose of the medium. However on second viewing, music was added, it was decided that the music made the transitions between people's sections more fluid and gave the piece rhythm.