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Genre Twist on Vimeo

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Latest version of ‘Genre Twist’ with improvements!

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                               My final edit of ‘Fine on the Outside’

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Critical Self-Evaluation

In hindsight, I wish that I had taken the time to learn more about using Premiere, since it would have made making the film’s ideas more concrete. During editing, the film became somewhat jerky and slow due to the amount of footage I had imported and the demands this placed on my computer - most of which I ended up not using. In future film projects, I will plan my films’ content more thoroughly.

One technical innovation I had in the making of the film is the beginning where I used the office program PowerPoint, (a presentation slide style that was animated and imported into Premiere as video) to make something seemingly complex but is simple in actuality. I learned to use Cubase, PowerPoint, Photoshop (for some of the photos before being imported into Premiere) and Premiere. All footage and audio used in the production required subtle edits so that all the imported video and sound does not lean too much into one extreme, such as the transition duration and the scale of the photos. Part of film creation is balancing and experimenting with subtle changes while keeping the spirit of original intentions.

I kept the conceptional coherence of water (the rain and sea footage and soundscape) as life-giving and therefore, representing the flow of life itself rather than the dry categories in the business presentation-style of the opening. In the opening montage, I also showed the creation of an “aesthetic mood board” as a description of identity rather then the main subject of identity: in other words, instead of portraying an ambiguous concept as complex as identity in the simplistic form of a mood board, I later portrayed the essence of what most people might think ‘identity’ is. The last two thirds, which is slower and more sombre show the complexities beneath the ‘identity’ in the beginning that is genuine but is barely scratching the surface of the whole of the person.

The “narration” is told in three different “genres” in the following order: the meeting-style presentation portrayed by simple icons, the neutral middle with a “poem” read being to the sound of rain and a final summary of what “identity” means to me communicated by a voice-over, along with emotional music and biographical images of myself.

               ‘Narnia’ lamp transitioning into another image from my film

I feel that my final film has avant-garde influences through the unconventional filming style, lack of story-based narrative and no mainstream connection (it was not created for consumerist, commercial culture).  An aspect of most avant-garde films can be how they can be interpreted in different ways by both the audience and the filmmakers themselves: while I see my film as my exploration of the concept of identity, someone who watches it might draw their own conclusions.

Concluding this project and its production, I feel that creating the film was an rewarding experience where I found out a lot through my research on identity, experimental film and computer editing and my attempts to bring them together.

My final film is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lSjKkCmdeI

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Progressing with my film

8/11/19

Today, I set about improving the film based on the critiques I had received.

I had made many changes such as changing the song in the middle as a poem/haiku style reading over just the sound of rain since I feel that it would clutter the film slightly if I had three different ‘songs’ playing all thirds of the film, and the poem would be more impactful with just the words spoken calmly and clearly.

I also tried to make my motif with water (running) more blatant by changing the end of the first section script (“I am a pretentious photographer who loves running water”) to add another layer of me that is implied and to cement the continuity between sections one and two.

Despite set ideas I had for the film’s production and outcome, I am satisfied with its current state. In the beginning, I originally wanted the film to revolve around aesthetic mood boards/presentations but that concept became only one aspect of it in the almost-finished project. This is because now, I am using the film to discuss identity in a broader sense.

I also tried to emphasize a ‘circular’ structure so that the final image of my face transitioned back into an icon of a woman (below) - a call back to the opening. The final portrait of me fading into the icon, for me, talks about identity and non-identity: I am these things and more, and I am not defined by these things. It is about the fluidity of identity at any given time and the potential damage we do through categorization - which is at the root of all ‘isms’ in our society.

5/11/19

On that day, it was my final feedback from the teachers and students before my last edits to the film. When I showed the film, they had some criticisms such as the three parts of my film having more work to fit together, otherwise they will not work completely. There were also some inconsistencies in the slideshow such as pictures not dissolving at the right time and the water mark in the corner of the stock video of the sea. I have to confess that I left them in so that I can get criticism of how exactly to improve my film and do it at the end. Another reason is that I am still learning how to use Premiere correctly and I can only do so much in a short space of time.

There were positives, however: the first part was the most well-received, because of the clipart and business style and the ending was very intense with the low voice. It was so popular that it was suggested that I extend that part. While I can see the benefits of following through, I have ultimately decided to instead improve on the other thirds because I feel that the film still has a place for them. There was also a suggestion to build up the first part until it becomes incomprehensible at the end, even more than it already was. However, I felt that if I extended the first part too much it would lose its charm and become repetitive.

The other parts were well-received such as the singing in the second part and some quotes such as “we might”.

My goal to improve the film in ways such as playing with the pitches of the voice a bit more and straightening out the montages and improve their fluidity.

4/11/19

I decided on the film title: I felt the title should not be too long because it would distract from the content.

I added more rain and light snippets to the middle. I considered making the video black and white, but then decided that splashes of colour would look effective and provide some relief.

Through the middle and ending, I involve water as the artistic connection (rain in the middle and sea in the ending) because I have always had a connection with water: I was born into water and ever since I was little, I loved everything about it, feeling it and playing in it. The inclusion of water is also symbolic of purity and self-acceptance, which is an influence. I deliberately had no mention of water in the opening as it was an “objective” form of my identity.

Other influences from film include:

About A Girl (female narration and monologue - a definite case of not fine on the inside)

Photographer Daniel Regan (exclusion and stigma)

Sauté ma Ville (inner life and subjectivity)

Pachanne (experimental filming).

La Jetée (sequencing and ’animation’ of still images to create the illusion of movement)

Blade Runner (emotional monologue at climax featuring water and deep reflection on experience)

                                         Still from ‘About a Girl’

3/11/19

To add to the middle section where my version of “Fine on the outside”, I chose snippets of footage and photos of my own to find ones that fit the subjects of loneliness and doubt that “Fine on the Outside” carries. I began to experiment with them by, for one example, adding my own photoshopped eyes to one photo that looked like a “ghoul” and, as another example, adding the photoshop eyes to other photos, to give the sense that my presence is an ubiquitous motif. I may change my mind about the effects, but it feels positive to experiment until I find something that clicks (I later rejected these visual ideas as too literal and not sufficiently abstract).

Speaking of Photoshop, I learned a useful technique - ‘inverse select’, where it can be used to delete surroundings around selected areas such as the “eyes”. Learning about PhotoShop and Adobe Premiere is essential because not only will it help me create other projects in the future but might help me improve this artist’s moving image

2/11/19

I re-did some parts of my narration after listening to it on Adobe Premiere, the program I am using to make my film (I imported the animation from PowerPoint into Premiere as a .mov file). To re-size some of the pictures, I brought them into Photoshop since I recently learned that it helps to re-shape and resize images before bringing them into Premiere. This gave me more control over the size and position on the screen when the images were imported into Premiere.

To accompany the ending monologue, I chose a sea scene to be visible through my biographic/chronological photos (the order of the photos is to give the sense of progression through my life). I also learned how to use the opacity on Premiere, and the reason I am doing it for the sea instead of the photos is that I feel that the photos should be the focus. To fit with the mood climbing down from the “insanity” of the beginning, I used the effects from Premiere to wash out the colour and create black and white imagery. In addition to photo-related effects, I also used some video effects such as blur to produce a more impressionistic/dreamlike effect.

After listening to the singing to go in the middle, I decided to re-do it as my uncertain pitch took away from the soundtrack. To make sure my singing was on point, I got an already sung version of the backing on Cubase and sang along with it: because Cubase has the option to mute tracks or parts of a track, I am able to do this.

1/11/19

Today, I added more to the Cubase soundtrack: that includes the farcical music behind the first part, re-done singing to the backing track of the second half. and edits to the sound already added. The musical piece I chose for the comedic beginning is the “Can Can” by Offenbach (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Diu2N8TGKA). Using the Cubase scissor tool, I “cut up” the opening narration and inserted the separated audio segments during certain points of the song to better fit the narration to the music’s rhythm.

After this, I continued to edit my PowerPoint document accompanying the audio. I was inspired using PowerPoint from the presentation slides I had seen from some of my teachers previously, including some from Varndean College: it was to  parody of the business world presentation and the business-like way society automatically labels people. I loved using the strange animations that had become so commonplace in these presentations. As well as presentations, PowerPoint can be used to make films! The use of the symbols was for how the accumulation of simple icons can crudely attempt represent a much more complex person.

                       An icon image for the opening section of the film

It is surprisingly complex giving all the icons different animations and making them appear based on the timing of the background audio. It involves a lot of restarting PowerPoint animation and adjusting the animation times to synchronize the icons arrival with the voice-over. Hard work!

The Starting Point of making my film (01/11/19) 31/10/19

On this date, I made significant progress on my film by recording me reading from the first draft from the transcript. I used Cubase for the recording of various sounds including my voice and the backing to the song “Fine On The Outside”, the song for the second section of the moving image.

Cubase is a very advanced sound program where not only you can record sounds, but you can also cut apart existing sounds and insert snippets from more successful takes of a song to give the illusion that they were one piece all along.

My song recordings are only first drafts and may well change during the week from the 5th of November to the final deadline of the 12th.

When I was voice-acting, I was attempting to channel a nonsensical, almost manic, energy to match the first part’s comedic tone: the inspiration came from the opening monologue from the film ‘Trainspotting’, as I (like Renton) also start with a repetitive starting pattern (“I Am…”) and short simple sentence structures. The way I wrote the attributes going from objective to subjective is how going from how society sees me to how I see myself.

Between the first and second part, I created the sound of heavy breathing as if “calming down” from the “insanity” of the monologue. It would also allow me to make a believable tonal shift from comedic to solemn (this later evolved into a single, deep sign since the heavy breathing sounded inappropriate).

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Tutorial on the 29th October

In my tutorial with my tutor JK on Tuesday 29th of October, I received the following suggestions from her.

One of her  main criticisms from her to me is that I did not have any example of the work to show her, since I had not made the artist’s moving image yet or even a draft: I could have, at least, shown her how my moving image would look in my planned style.

I feel that I spent much of the artist’s moving image module planning when I should have been experimenting. This is shown by how my project is only in its first draft and my teacher has already reset some of the set ideas for it such as the film being fifteen minutes – it should be five minutes or less. The ideas I had for my project seemed sound to me at the time, so it was good to learn from her that I had to think more deeply about my ideas before presenting them as what is clear in my mind, can be difficult to communicate to another person.

She also told me to think about the significance of the pictures since audiences might not understand the meaning behind them as I do, or know how they represent me or the concept of Identity (e.g. the soft reflective images of the sea that show my solemn side and the comedic pictures representing my bright comedic side): that includes the images I uploaded on my blog to represent my identity. At some points, she struggled to understand as I explained what they meant, and she pointed out (rightly, I think) that people in the audience also might not understand. Perhaps I could have done a better job of explaining to it - I could have planned out my explanations.

I also should reference where the pictures on my blog, that serve as inspiration, come from and only if they are genuine artists instead of normal people putting up their projects.

However, my teacher praised the fact that I watched most of the films and drew inspiration from them. She also found the overall concept and layout interesting, such as me singing the cover of the song that represented the second part (‘Fine On The Outside’ by Priscilla Ahn) with my father providing the guitar backing.

In the end, I have a clearer and more concrete idea on how my artist’s moving image is going to be. The tutorial was good for me to test out earlier ideas and have them shot down to get rid of them. My goal (by the 5th of November) is to complete the film, audio and all.

[aconboyidentity2019]

The Plan Before Creation

A sketch of my film’s structure. I am thinking of limiting it to 10 minutes.

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Identity Photo

                Ghoul - a night image taken on the estate where I live.

                       The above image features heavily in the film.

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This is an image from my website which shows a different aspect of my identity - an image of me, warped with Photoshop and placed on a background in the style of ‘Night of the Demon’ - ‘It’s in the trees! It’s coming!’. The site is at: http://avabellamore.com/index.html

This type of composite image may figure in the final part of my film (in the end I felt images such as these were a distraction from the film, so they were left out).

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Nobody has had the life you have had, stood in your shoes, seen through your eyes, came from your background or lived through your life. Nobody else has had the same precise constellations or sequences of experiences as you have. You have a story to tell, which may be in some places similar to you, but nobody else has the same story to tell. You are unique and you have your own board to showcase… your own story to tell.

My dad told me about this (paraphrased) quote from a psychologist called David Smail (below), which I think sums up the experiential nature of identity.

          David Smail

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This song ‘Fine on the Outside’ (by Priscilla Ahn), relates to how I had to make do with my own company when I felt excluded and lonely. This was in part due to my deafness as a very young child which set me apart and people made assumptions about my inability to communicate.

I am thinking of using it as a backdrop song to the second part of my film to express the subjective aspects of identity.

If I have time I will create my own version of this song for the short film. Below are the lyrics:

Fine On The Outside

I never had that many friends growing up So I learned to be okay with just me Just me, just me, just me

And I'll be fine on the outside

I like to eat in school by myself anyway So I'll just stay right here Right here, right here, right here

And I'll be fine on the outside

So I just sit in my room After hours with the moon And think of who knows my name Would you cry if I died? Would you remember my face?

So I left home I packed up and I moved far away From my past one day And I laughed I laughed, I laughed, I laughed

I sound fine on the outside

Oh oh oh [4x] Oh oh oh

Sometimes I feel lost sometimes I'm confused Sometimes I find that I'm not alright And I cry, and I cry, and I cry

Oh oh oh [4x] Oh oh oh

So I just sit in my room After hours with the moon And think of who knows my name Would you cry if I died? Would you remember my face?

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This is the one minute video I made earlier this month to give an impression of the techniques I will use in PowerPoint.

The first part of my current film will use icons rather than still photos, but it will use PowerPoint’s clunky transitions as a deliberate device!

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Initial Film Concepts

How it would be made?

Would be made with Adobe Premiere with a part made by PowerPoint

Content

Mood boards: first objective than subjective

Life and identity concepts being represented through aesthetic boards: both changing throughout the animation

Poetic narration

Theme of exclusion and loneliness

Items on Mood Board

Home education being very prominent at first on the board but then slowly fading away until faint traces are left

Sudden interest in photography: camera and pictures being tentatively added and suddenly appearing rapidly all over the board

Blank board be represented at the start alongside baby being born and going through life: example, blue eyes at the top (my eyes) looking down and corresponding to life (being excluded, look sad)

·         

Lines

How would you decorate your Aesthetic board? How would you decorate your life? (final line)

Despite my blue eyes, I see the world through rose-coloured glasses

If my board changed this much during the twenty years that have just been swiftly introduced, what might it look like throughout years to come?

There’s nothing tragic about being 20, unless you want to be 10 again

·         

[aconboyidentity2019]

Identity Film Ideas: A Post To Bounce Ideas Off Of

Animation of attributes being added to a blank aesthetic board while narration of me says stuff (ex.” I’m British, but I don’t agree with nationalism or Brexit”). Without music.

Animation could be done with the iPad Stop Motion App

Aesthetic boards are normally neat with a quote in the centre surrounded by eight pictures that sum up who they are: you can say a lot with simple images and people (including owners of their aesthetic boards) can interpret their traits

Some aesthetic boards and mood boards are chaotic with more than 8 pictures and several quotes for big “personalities” and regular sized mood boards could be for those who describe themselves as “small” and “simple”

Stop motion montage of different pictures that represent me with text

The “aesthetic board” could be under attack from other people (represented by little “spaceships” dropping on assumptions

Animation of a diagram, mood board or aesthetic board of a person trying to copy but the original diagram keeps getting new aspects and eventually, the other diagram is the same since nothing else is being added to the first diagram, but the copy blows up, showing that we can’t live being the same

Music matching what I like in the animation. Could be played in brief snitches

Single cut out figure representing me (could be photo of me) going through different experiences shown through other cut outs in different styles. Made with iPad stop motion app

Depiction of a cruise ship, representing everything I like, named The Ava Aubrey Conboy. The sports section could show activities such as swimming, the music deck could show favourite types of music, restaurant could serve favourite food, and owner could list my objective status such as British, young, white and student

Scene in school room, teaching what I believe

Speech on my interpterion of the concept of “Identity” represented through a normal prop who gets dressed in different things representing different things. Ending is a summary of what the prop is now subjectively, then a random objective description (ex. Black, trans female, young, student)

Using song fitting with “Identity”

“Mockvert” of musical representing me with different snippets of songs representing quirks, similar to Horrible History parody music adverts

How animals go with what they feel (ex the same sex penguin couple) and yet don’t have as complex identities. We do but we undermine them

Sign with missing letters due to age: sign may seem to be losing its identity but inside, the shop is unaffected. The same way happily married couple still look upon each other with love even when age withers their youth away. Quote from Sunset Boulevard: ‘There’s nothing tragic about being fifty. Unless you’re trying to be twenty-five’ (denial about identity)

Have the “aesthetic mood board” made and film its creation stage by stage

Aesthetic boards and mood boards are identical and can even be combined into “aesthetic mood boards”

Layout of aesthetic mood boards similar to collage

Montage of more than one mood board of different aspects such as objective (includes female symbol and British flag)

Use PicMonkey

Focus on how objective attributes (such as sexual orientation, nationality and gender) are only a small part of overall identity, since many people might share the same objective identity but never the exact same subjective identity

Focus on how damaging it can be to identities for other people to force attributes when the people themselves know it’s not them

Objective aspects can decide some subjective qualities such as liking feminine clothes if female and believing in left-wing politics

How would you decorate your Aesthetic board?

How people portray themselves, the difference of who they really are and how they should overlap?

Ideas of repetition

In society, what we own largely determines how we look to society

Using animate programs to animate aesthetic board being made

How different people see the world and themselves, no matter how irrational it may seem

Different factors of identity

Identity may change when forcing to adapt to a non-native tongue

 Comfort zone when acting with things you know

 Language barrier: the English language we know would be gobbled gook to others of a different language

Language can change and translate

Words are powerful

Eyes: windows to the soul and direct links to identity (how they see and perceive things)

[aconboyidentity2019]

How “Identity” is represented in a selection of films I’ve recently watched

In these films set by the module, there are different aspects to them that fuel my interpretation of the concept of identity.

Element (1972, Amy Greenfield): This video is a parody of fan service meant to arouse the audience. The woman who is in the mud may not look graceful or pretty while “swimming” in the mud, she is still enjoying it because it makes her happy (shown in the video where she is clearly enjoying it), and filming shows that she does not care about how other people might think: this can represent how people might display their own personal aesthetic mood boards in the unconventional method of making them different sizes and overlapping slightly rather than in neat grids. It also debunks feminine values and stereotypes of being clean and pretty by her doing what she likes subjectively. The women is also alone, meaning that she does not have to fulfill social obligations when in public: that is an aspect that is sadly prevalent throughout life, where we have to act a certain in public life to make sure people do not take offense to expressing your identity. In this video, however, the woman, for what ever reason, can unwind and be herself.

Doll Clothes (1975, Cindy Sherman): In this short film, the paper doll picks out something to wear herself, only for a hand to pick her up and rip the dress off her, before putting her back. The doll is dismayed and looks wistfully at the clothes as the film ends. In other words, the animated short represents how society often controls identities of others, especially women, no matter how they want to portray themselves: individuals throughout history being denied the opportunity to express their own identities due to strict social standards, even today. However, identity can never really be snuffed out from inside, as shown by the paper doll looking at the clothes, discouraged but still longing. The hand that grabbed the doll was live-action, compared to the stop-motion doll, which shows not only the destruction of the happy world that the doll “crafted” for herself, as the hand forcefully grabs the doll and tears off the dress before putting it back, but it also represents how we often arrange things in life without thinking how it would make other people, such as when we play with toys (also how stereotyping can start very young and be harmful). The dress that the paper doll chose was what the doll liked and wanted it to express herself with, much like how people might choose pictures to put on their aesthetic mood boards to present themselves how they feel like.

Fuck Steve (2016, Charlie Goodall): The haunting narration, accompanied by the unsettling dirges in the soundtrack, talks of “Steve” as the worst found within us (destructive habits, negative thinking, isolation, etc.) as shown by ending lines “Steve is you” and “Steve is me”: each sentence starts with Steve as in “Steve is the negative thoughts he can’t stop thinking” and “Steve is going to be naked today even if that means Steve can’t leave the house, because Steve needs to see himself to change”. The mask that “Steve” wears is grotesque and uncanny, not only as a manifestation of the worst-case scenario for an identity but also how people might see themselves when at a low point. The pattern is both rhythmic and effective in getting the message across (a message I express in my own project of the worst choices to make concerning identity). The real face of the man, who puts the mask of “Steve” in the oven to symbolically destroy it, is never seen, which is powerful because now he is free to be any identity he chooses, without the identity of “Steve” dragging him down in life. The uplifting ending tune of Fuck Steve symbolizes how it might be a struggle sometimes to change one’s self for the better, but it is worth it at the end.

Dancing in Peckham (1994, Gillian Wearing): Like Element, the dancing man is doing what he loves, although he is surrounded by people who might take offense to what he is doing. In fact, people passing him only glance at him briefly before moving on with their day: a common fear that people have about sharing their identities is people who might oppose them. However, by showing that people do not really care about the dancing since the man is not harming anyone, it shows that people can freely express themselves without consequences. That is how I feel people would express themselves when showing off their mood board to the world, without worrying what others will make of them. The man is also dancing because he does not care about what impressions others will make when first looking, as long as they let him get on with his life, doing what he loves: no matter what stereotypes people may get the impression of when they look at other peoples’ mood boards.

I’m Not The Girl Who Misses Much (1986, Pippilotti Rist): In this parody of a female pop music video, the music and voice is speed-up to a comedic pitch to deconstruct how women are sexualised in music videos, so that viewers are forced to pay attention to anything other than the girl’s appearance (that is obscured).

Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975, Martha Rosler): The director takes on the role of a “housewife” in a kitchen (parodying cooking show demonstrations), where she goes from “A” to “Z” of kitchen tools. Her acting is frustrated and solemn when she uses the tools, particularly the nutcracker, knives and rolling pin, in response to the constricting roles of women at the time (like Doll Clothes). The silence, apart from the use of the tools, emphasize the anger and loneliness the woman currently feels at being forced in her current “role”. The director spelling out the ending letters of the alphabet (from “U”) because there are no tool beginning with those letters is strangely powerful, since it gives the impression if tools with those starting initials existed back then, society would have forced women to use them like with all the others. This short is similar to Sauté Ma Ville (1989, Chantel Akerman), where the “plots” serve as a deconstruction of domestic home life that was only available to women at the time with the protagonists slipping into insanity due to the isolation. Martha herself has said about the film, “I was concerned with something like the notion of 'language speaking the subject,' and with the transformation of the woman herself into a sign in a system of signs that represent a system of food production, a system of harnessed subjectivity.". The woman in the deconstructive parody is “trapped” within a role she does not want (like many women were at the time) because of her objective status as a women, no matter what she might be like subjectively.

Boomerang (1974, Nacy Holt & Richard Serra): Nancy Holt, the woman in the video, is experimenting with being filmed while talking during delayed electricity. Not only that, she is exploring her thought process as she speaks, saying lines such as “I have double take on myself”, “I am once removed from myself” and “I’m throwing things out into the world”: the session forces her to review her thoughts and review her identity and how she approaches things, much like how some people might experiment how they approach the creation of their mood boards. As she talks, the words “bounce” back to her in a different pitch, giving her insight on how she says things.

[aconboyidentity2019]

What 'Identity' means to me

18.10.2019

Definition of Identity:

 “The fact of being who or what a person or thing is.”

The definition of identity is who you are, the way you think about yourself, the way you are viewed by the world and the characteristics that define you.

An example of identity is belonging to a specific ethnic group.

https://www.yourdictionary.com/identity

who a person is, or the qualities of a person or group that make them different from others:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/identity

How I see the Concept of identity

When I think of “identity” as a concept, I imagine it as an aesthetic board: an initially blank board that people add different “papers” represent significant social and personality traits to portray who they think they are. They may or may not change or lose papers as life goes time. Throughout lives, whether mine, yours or other peoples’, people will try to add their own attributes the way they expect other people of the same “type” to have, due to first impressions or prejudice:

People can choose to accept or reject them. People can also choose to neglect or ignore their identities/aesthetic boards by not doing anything to improve themselves and/or passively accepting what other people think of them, or they could develop their aesthetic boards by learning new things (skills etc), thinking for themselves and changing themselves the way they want to.

The “boards” start developing the day people are born. Some aspects they do not discover about themselves until much later such as discovering that they are transsexual or non-binary, or that an activity that they have taken up does not make them happy.

A person’s identities can also be represented as a series of overlapping circles (a Venn diagram, as pictured above) - identities can overlap regardless of achievements and traits: this includes nationalities, gender and sexualities. They do not have to come with identities that are expected from society in the form of stereotypes. Change plays a major role in the creation of identities: with every new experience felt, person met, and fact learned, people change every day. It is not possible to go through one day without at least one new fact or experience something that makes an impact.

This will occur without necessarily changing the fundamental identities which constitute the person. Fundamental traits can never be entirely gotten rid of, such as someone unkind becoming nice: traits like that are merely repressed and neglected, stored in a part of the subconscious.

Attributes can be either objective (for example, how other people see us: part of the gay community, white, part of a religious group, left-wing etc) or subjective (how we see ourselves: how I identify as female or myself as an artistic photographer, being passionate about music or knowledgeable in technology etc).

Objectively, I may be have come from a British background, but I do not identify with Brexit or British Nationalism, because I do not agree with them. I am rejecting a potential social status because of my choice.

A person’s identities can overlap in a harmonious way, such as me being a Moving Image student, a young person and a resident of Brighton. Yet identities can be in conflict: I may feel that I have a male identity, but my appearance and previous experiences with me may persuade others to think of me as having a female identity.

Even when people try to copy someone else, they never copy that person entirely because they will always have personal experiences and histories that differ from that person.

For example, there are many young white British students (like me) in this country but none of them will be the same as me. Even if a person succeeded in copying another, it would not be positive, because they are not being authentic to themselves and human nature, which is being unique. We may share similarities but never the same identities.

A centre of the concept of identity is individuality: no two people are the same. We all have different objective attributes and preferences in different combinations.

This is also known as Intersectionality, a theoretical framework that suggests that multiple objective social factors (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status) intersect on a micro level of individuality and experience.

In short, identity is how people choose to define themselves, both objectively and subjectively, regardless of other people’s assumptions. The concept of “identity”, for me, can be represented as an aesthetic board everyone has: an “aesthetic board” that may be influenced by factors such as background and upbringing, but still can be enhanced or re-done by people themselves.

My Identity

When it comes to my identity, I would say it was unorthodox. My personality can be described as creative, funny and honest. I have struggled with inclusion in my community when it comes to home education. However, this has given me opportunities to work with a range of people and develop different skills such as computer writing and photography.

I am white, female, a young person and a student: these are my ‘objective’ characteristics.

In future blog posts I will look more at a subjective understanding of identity, exclusion and how this will feed into my film. The struggle I will have is making sure that such a personal treatment of identity has meaning for a wider audience. Will people be able to identify with my experiences?