Evaluation

My Video Evaluation

My video went as well as I planned to make it a good representation of life and to have the style and almost the feel of Koyanisquatsi. My production week was also successful as I got every shot I needed for it and it was easier than I thought as I predicted to film around the mall and in the memorial gardens to be difficult because they are public areas and could be interrupted by them if they walked into my shot but it turned out to be good timing as I didn’t. As I headed into college after all my shots were achieved from my storyboard, I did slightly regret that I didn’t have enough shots and camera angles of people and traffic but as I looked back at my tape it was enough. As I looked back I did first think to myself that maybe they weren’t as good as I thought because Koyanisquatsi’s angles were better because they had a wider range of close ups, long shots and high angles but as I put my clips in order I was happy with what I achieved that day.

A few years ago I visited the Tate and I saw a video, in which I saw a man singing to himself on a chair and moving his legs and they rewound the tape and it was like he was getting electrocuted. Which I thought at the time was quite scary and in my experimental video I wanted to do this as part of an example of death. But my first time of shooting this it didn’t go to plan because I did it in T46 and there were chairs in the shot and I didn’t like the lighting as I thought that it was too plain. In my last day of production week I set up the lights and had a blue filter in front of the key light ( I had only one light) which was made to look mysterious, I was thinking of having red as it is a colour of death but this an electrocution scene and electric reminds me of a blue colour. I got someone to switch the light off and on at the beginning to emphasise when it plays back that he is dying. I was pleased at the production stage of this but not in the post-production as I tried to reverse this and it worked and it was harder than I thought but after many attempts I made it good enough by speeding it up and adding an effect in to it. I also reversed other clips such as the traffic and the traffic lights; this was no hassle and looked good for my ending of the video.

I decided to extract the audio of all my clips except my traffic scene at the beginning. I thought that to have no audio would be strangely better for my exhibition because I think that the concept of my video is more visual and to have any audio would be taking the concept away. Although I feel that I should of added audio over my electric chair scene, I should have downloaded a man singing as in my production I couldn’t get the actor to sing and also if he did then that would mess up my clip because I speeded it up. And I possibly should have had a man screaming as my audio when he looks like his getting electrocuted but I decided not to which I feel was a mistake.
Overall I was very pleased with my video as it exceeded in my Koyanisquatsi style and life cycles and I had no real problems with my production or the post-production.

My Exhibition Evaluation

I planned to show my video in a college classroom on the fourth floor which I planned since day one because I couldn’t think of anywhere else to suit my concept my video and because it was an easy access to gain college members, I decided that this was the easiest way and also the best. But even though I originally thought that this was a good location, other people had shown their own videos in the same classroom but I feel that they had a better choice to exhibit their video. My exhibition went well although I didn’t have much of an audience- I only had six people attend. But I was relieved that people did come and watch it and most of them took part in my questionnaire. When I looked at the audience it seemed that they enjoyed it and they didn’t get distracted by anything or lose interest, which I didn’t want to happen. I think I was laid back on my exhibition plan because I did write in my synopsis that the audience can sit down if they want and I feel that I didn’t need to be strict with my plan because my video can be anything and everything in people’s mind so I thought that it’s up to them. And they chose to sit but I wanted to make them slightly uneasy by the video in which some people were. What I thought in people’s expressions when they were watching the video was right because they said these things in my questionnaire.

My exhibition plan went well although most people had the same ideas as me by choosing a classroom but as far as my video and exhibition plan went, it suited my video and I had a good enough audience.

Post Production Diary

I started editing on Monday in which successfully uploaded my film then started to put my clips
in order. That was all I did that day as we only had a couple of hours that day.

The next time I was on the Mac, I wanted the clips to be tinkered with, such as my “busy
people” clip. I wanted to emphasise at the time of my video the mid-life crisis and how it gets
busy by multiplying the number of squares as the clip goes on and I did it without any difficulty.
My electric chair scene was okay at the start, it was not how I planned it but I have put some
audio over the top with the person singing then the person screaming when his electrocuted,
this means an example of a death scene and wanted this particular clip in my video to show a bit
of craft in my video.

And on my last day of editing, I just added some finishing touches such as ordering my traffic clip
in the right place and then I simply put blackouts on to emphasise the concept of my video.

Production Diary

My production went really well for me because I helped John and Ben with their filming because I was acting in John's experimental and Ben wanted us to go to London Victoria to film there. Also I wanted to only film in Crawley so I targeted to film later in the week.

My first day of filming went okay, I got "laughter" from Ben and John in the college corridor but I also scheduled Ben for a elctric chair scene but it was poor and I decided to do that as my final scene in my production week.

Later on in the week and I got my filming done around Crawley which was in the memorial gardens and outside the mall to get some shots of traffic and a shot of some buildings. Overall on the day I was happy with all the shots I wanted, it was how I planned it.

The next day and it was my final one in which I planned to get Ben to do my scene with my electric chair and when it was done succesfully, I was very pleased my production week was completed and I was also pleased with how it went.

Exhibition Space Plan

As my video is about representation and life in a style of Koyanisquatsi, it wouldn’t matter how I view my video in my opinion so I would like to show it in a classroom so I can hopefully gain easier access to get an audience around college because it doesn’t matter who the audience is- it can be anyone. I would also like to use the projector because Koyanisquatsi was shown in cinemas to get a big impact, then I would like to show this on a projector.

Treatment- Experimental video

Btec National Diploma In Media (Film and TV)

PROGRAMME TITLE: TBA

DIRECTOR/
CAMERA OPERATOR: Martin Ladd

DURATION: TBA

FORMAT: DV

AUDIO: Diegetic audio

OUTLINE OF AUDIENCE: Any audience! Because anyone can understand the plot after the video has ended. It doesn’t target females, males or age specifically.

OUTLINE OF STORY: Basically, it’s about representation in every day life and as my experimental video goes on, hopefully the audience will have different perceptions in objects, animals and human beings etc. However, the main concept of it is in the Koyaanisquatsi way with life but there will be other concepts in the video such as hate, love and education.

CHARACTERS: None

EXAMPLES OF SHOTS:

· An open space (Long shot)
· A building, possibly the library or another building in construction (A whole range of shots)
· Laughter in people ( ECU on their faces)
· Immaturity such as people acting stupid in town or something weird ( mixed shots shaken
which gives the idea of excitement)
· Windscreen wipers ( maybe shows teenagers getting older and passing there test. It will
speed up and shows as they get older they are getting under pressure)
· Animals ( any sort of animals that shows love)
· Automatic doors opening and closing ( shows busyness and the mid life crisis)
· Also showing all movements around town ( speeded up and show different colours)
· As it ends the life of someone, leaves falling off a tree decaying slowly, no back track at all slowly and surely getting blacker and blacker which shows death)

Critical Analysis On Experimental Video And Exhibition

In this assignment I will review and show critical evaluation of my chosen artists and also analyse them. And I will include examples in my work. I will then be using reviews to create a critical analysis on experimental video and exhibition. (Taken From Blogger, Main Site).

Discussing both past and current artists and works

On this chapter I will discuss:

The Girl Chewing Gum
Koyanisquatsi

They are all different experimental videos. Also they were made in different decades and they made a different impact on the audience. Firstly Girl Chewing Gum was made in 1973 and directed by John Smith. Koyanisquatsi was made ten years later which was directed by Godfrey Reggio and was helped funded by Francis Ford Coppola.

Firstly Girl Chewing Gum was way shorter than Koyanisquatsi because it was a short video experimental which was only nine minutes compared to Koyanisquatsi which was a full feature length movie.

Girl Chewing Gum was a non-diegetic video experimental which was made to believe that it was a diegetic because it sounded that the narrator was actually there. The same goes for Koyanisquatsi which was also a non-diegetic film, although the whole of Koyanisquatsi was all music. Whereas the Girl Chewing Gum’s non-diegetic sounds include an alarm and the narrator.

These two films are nearly the same, they are both non-diegetic, no CGI is used compared to other experimental videos. The only thing that is different is the colour of the video. Girl Chewing Gum was a black and white film and Koyanisquatsi was all colours.

Koyanisquatsi is a well crafted film and also a concept because the film has a meaning of life with the caves at the beginning and the busy traffic that gives the idea that it is a mid- life crisis and finally the conclusion with the rocket falling apart represents death. Girl Chewing Gum is not crafted as it uses a normal camera viewing street life. But it is a concept because we were meant to believe that the person that is talking has a power that is controlling everyone but as we get to the end he was actually narrating what was happening because he would have been narrating at the post-production stage.

The use of technology and techniques and styles

On this chapter I will discuss:

Doll Face
Koyanisquatsi

After seeing Andy Huang’s video, Doll Face I already see a difference in this compared to most experimentals. Koyanisquatsi was made in 1983, therefore it wouldn’t have the best technology in today’s world although it does use originality and it used technology that speeds things up and down which looked good in that time and looked good and different because it was in everyday life. But Doll Face was an all CGI video as it is in the current day but is nothing new to us because as an audience in this current time it is the same as we all see it. But with Koyanisquatsi it would probably have a different impact.

Narrative and non-narrative structures

On this chapter I will discuss:

Girl Chewing Gum
Koyanisquatsi

Girl Chewing Gum does not really have a story in them basically. But it does have a meaning that it isn’t about what you hear or what you see, but what the story is trying to get. So in that context, it is a different structure because it is not a simple story.

However, Koyanisquatsi is a simple story but might not get the audience to understand quickly but only after the film. The start of the film is the caves which was a slow pace that represents a person being born. And at the end, it shows a rocket falling with flames that represents death.

Girl Chewing Gum was made in 1973 so it was an original take on the structure of the story. But Koyanisquatsi was made in 83 and is a totally different story. So the gap of when they were made has nothing to do with it.

The use of exhibition space to create meaning

In this chapter I will discuss

Susan Hiller's CPSI Girls
Dan Graham's Two correlated rotations

Visiting the Tate I wanted to have a frame of mind that when I watch the video's in the museum I would imagine them on my t.v at home and see if they compare in anyway, and see if they would have a different feel. But when I saw these two experimental's, I noticed a huge difference betweeen an exhibition space and at home.

Firstly, both video's used more than one screen and would seem hard to exhibit this in your room. CPSI girls had five screens in a large room. It looked like a job to work on to do the video but Susan Hiller easily but cleverley chose other artists work to show girl power through the mind.



Dan Graham's Two correlated rotations had two screens next to each other but joined from corner to corner. His video was also cleverley done, on one corner he showed one person filming another person but on the other corner that person filmed the guy filming her. There was an old projector playing in the room. It was done in black and white but wouldn't get a feel of this in my room and wouldn't work if it was done on one screen because we would only watch one person film another. In the Tate, the room was black and the video was black and white and so it gave a feel of mystery.



CPSI Girls gave an almost cinematic feel to it as it was a big room with five big screens. The screens were all different colour, when the video ends it just fuzzes out and restarts to different screen to the same colour. One of the video's used by Susan Hiller was Matilda. In that film she had to work hard to get her power and when I was watching CPSI Girls, I felt in the room that I had to work hard to get the concept of the video.



So out of these two video's they gave me a different perception of how these might inspire my own work. So when I choose my exhibition I will choose wisely where to locate it and try to get the audience to have one opinion when the video's end because it's in one place it would give you the same feel instead of being seen on the internet.
How these works might inspire your own work

Girl Chewing Gum actually was the video that I was mostly in a way, inspired by because I thought that it was a good twist at the end, even though I didn’t understand the twist straight away. If I decided to use this structure in my experimental I think it would be a very simple thing to do.

But I do think that Doll Face was influential to me because the robot woman was influenced by the media on the television.

In my experimental video I want to use representations of images and objects in everyday life. But show the objects and things in a false representation to show that everything doesn’t have to be right. So in a way I was taken in by the visualisation and narration in Girl Chewing Gum and the wrong representation in Doll Face.

Audience and audience interpretation of the work

I heard people’s reactions and they were slightly a different view to each video we saw. But first it isn’t important that we all have the same interpretation unless the video such as Doll Face because that was targeting one story and that was copying the media. With Girl Chewing Gum I saw the class just waiting to find out if it was worth the watch as it looked as though they were gripped by it because we were all wandering if there was a concept behind it, there was silence when it ended because it was hard to understand the conclusion.

Personally I think that in a way all of the audience understand the concept of all the experimental videos because all of them that have a narrative have only one concept in them.

The Girl Chewing Gum however might have different interpretations in them because the narrator could have been psychic or just seen the people beyond the camera’s lens.

We all appreciated or even were critical towards the crafted pieces, such as Gisele Kerozene Directed by Jan Kouren. As it used stop animation in 1989.

But with all the experimental videos there should be only one interpretation because when I watched all of them, I couldn’t get my head round them until a few minutes after or if I got told what the concept was.

So all of these experimental videos use craft and concept and try to target the audience mostly in one idea but also make them hard to understand during the video.

Critical Analysis On Experimental Video And Exhibition

In this assignment I will review and show critical evaluation of my chosen artists and also analyse them. And I will include examples in my work. I will then be using reviews to create a critical analysis on experimental video and exhibition. (Taken From Blogger, Main Site). I will compare Girl Chewing Gum, Koyanisquatsi and 1001 Nights.

Discussing both past and current artists and works

The Girl Chewing Gum, Koyanisquatsi and 1001 Nights are all different experimental videos. Also they were made in different decades and they made a different impact on the audience. Firstly Girl Chewing Gum was made in 1973 and directed by John Smith. Koyanisquatsi was made ten years later which was directed by Godfrey Reggio and was helped funded by Francis Ford Coppola. And finally, six minute video 1001 Nights was directed by Janane- Al- Ani ten years ago in 1998.

Firstly Girl Chewing Gum was a black and white film and it was focusing on people walking past, cars going from side to side from the camera and pigeons flying

1001 Nights and Koyanisquatsi Review

1001 NIGHTS
I didn't really think much about 1001 nights but I know that it exceeds in an experimental video, directed by Janane- Al- Ani.

I think that the six minute video was very plain and cheap which what the director wanted it was all diegetic and the women who were in the video were talking about wars and rhino's which I thought was weird. But then I understood that it represented wars in iraq. And I thought that the video was about dreams and fear.

After the video I felt very empty and intrigued by what the director wanted but now I know.

KOYANISQUATSI

This film was made in 1983 and I thought that it was very clever how Goddrey Reggio did the speed ups and down. Helped by Francis Ford Coppolla, this was very engaging and I tried to put my self in an audience in 1983 and I think I would be really confused. But I understood it straight away because it started slow and in the middle it was energetic, rushed and fast- paced. And at the end I saw a rocket blowing up.

So after the film I knew that this cinematic experiment represented a persons life abd the cycles. I really liked it because I have never seen anything like before.

My Comparison and Review Of Jan Kouren And Girl Chewing Gum

When I first saw Girl Chewing Gum I thought that it was quite inspiring because at first I thought that John Smith, the director was directing people on the street such as "woman walk past from the left and rub your eyes". It was nine minutes long and thought it could drag on but it was actually, surprisingly dragged me in, trying to think of what was going on.



Girl Chewing Gum was non-diegetic but I thought that Jan Kouren by Gisele Kerozene was a diegetic, just like I thought that Girl Chewing Gum was a diegetic but a matter of fact, both were non-diegetic and added on in editing. Girl Chewing Gum was a black and white and very different.

What Does Craft And Conception Mean?

I watched Jan Kouren by Gisele Kerozene and it was done by stop/start animation and I noticed that this was a crafted piece of experimental video because it had no idea, but it was all done using a crafted piece of software. It was used by people jumping up and down on the broomsticks but we don't see them jumping we see them riding on the broomsticks. This video was a non-diegetic sound with people on ther brooms yelling noises. The story in this crafted piece was a race with witches, I call it "Wacky Witch Races". This was a time consuming video which would of lasted for hours trying to get the video together. It almost looked like a cartoon because it was energetic and comical in a strange way. So craft means doing with your "hands". In my opinion crafting is an easier way of doing an experimental video.

Later I watched Girl Chewing Gum Directed by John Smith. This was a more concept idea which used a diegetic and non-diegetic audio. It was nine minutes long and it was a man narrating the whole thing. But at first I thought he was a man directing. Basically, it was a man who wanted to play with the realism on t.v which was simple in the time it was made, the 1970's. So concept means what the reason was behind a persons project and here it was a experimental video, narrating and showing that it was used in a non-diegetic way in the end, because at the end of the video we saw a field of the same sound which was used in a town centre.

So what can I expect to do in experimental media?

I would definetley like to do something that other people wouldn't do, something where I can experiment with colours, scenery and make things look big even if they are really small like a leaf or some rubbish on the floor. And then I can change colours and zoom in into different aspects of the leaf or something and make it abstract.

I would like to get people to think what was that? And also to be influenced on the thing i'm doing or the the thing they were doing so I can be influenced on that aswell.

What Does Experimental Mean?

Experimental means that what ever you do, even outside the media you got to try something new and take risks and see whether you would do it again or see if it works.

In filming it is about trying something unreal or unusual. For me it is not giving it a meaning to an audience but in my own head. But for people watching an experimental video it might mean something else to them or not meaning for them at all.

An experimental video can be really abstract or it can even be really normal but editing it in a really different way. Also in production with camera angles can be unreal and different. For example, tilting can be a weird way of experimenting in videos.

Also you can experiment with the colours in production and post- production and it can be very paranormal.