ashhlysarts-blog

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Blog #10

    Monday, 16 May 2023 | Portraits & Faces Places

Portraits create an identity, they denote your own identity formation in your own meanings. It's a way of expressing something through a medium. Traditionally, portraits are taken vertically and centers the subject in its abstract frames. But it's still not a rule and the portrait techniques have developed in time. It is just another form of storytelling, but instead of the telling of an abstract subject, there is a psychical subject that can give information on the background and the context of the photograph. Generally, the outcome of the photograph/painting is cherished the most, sometimes the storytelling side, the process of a portrait can tell much more about the subject than the outcome ever could.

The film “Faces Places” was a documentary film that outlines the process more than the outcome of the works themselves. It was a collaborative and experimental project shared by director and photographer Agnès Varda which is a prominent figure in French cinema, and a street artist and photographer JR. The film is made of their experiences as they travel through rural France and small villages, and their interactions with the residents. They touch on their lives, and give them something to be remembered by, and they also colourise the abandoned parts of many buildings, giving them life once again. 

The documentary film is a reflective portrait also, containing both parts from Agnès and JR while also reflecting the strangers-made-experiences and their own stories. Agnès and JR find a way to grow with each others’ help while also learning to create new works via the people they stumble upon along the way. It doesn’t only focus on the end product, it actually highlights the process behind a work, the conversations, the hardwork, and the collaboration between vastly different people. JR with his paste-on portraits of strangers, Agnès with her years of experience taking photographs and networks, and the people with stories to tell yet without any means to do so. This give-and-take relationship they form with one another doesn’t always get to be the focus point of a process and yet the outcome is less satisfying than watching the projects come together.

Image: Review: Agnès Varda's 'Faces, Places' ('Visages, Villages') - Another Gaze: A Feminist Film Journal

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Blog #09

     Monday, 09 May 2023 | Mood Boarding & Non-Linear Storytelling

In non-linear storytelling, an interchangeable sense of time allows a person to play with various narratives without boundaries in one interconnected text. A mood board is used to help visualise symbolic ideas, interconnect the tone of the work with said visuals, and help keep the process in an understandable direction for all the parties involved. It generally is made up of images, illustrative texture providers, colour palettes, and small texts to set the desired tone for the work, the understanding of said examples and their interpretations are often up to the observer.

Storytelling is also one of the most effective ways to communicate within a set narrative. Mood boards aid the storytelling aspect of a work, giving the messages wanting to be pushed across more of an emotionally stimulating and a deeper meaning. There are a few types of storytelling, but the one I will be focusing on today will be the non-linear storytelling narrative. In this narrative, the chronological order of event or events isn’t followed, and the pattern of the story segments can jump around in time using flashbacks, flashforwards, or foreshadowing and dreams sequences. Non-chronological narratives help set the tone to be more suspenseful, give a broader perspective on the worldbuilding using different point of views, and keep the audience hooked by keeping the story a tad more interesting.

In this week’s project, we were to choose between interactive storytelling and experimental films, and after a discussion, we chose to do an experimental short film using the keyword “boredom”. The process began by discussing the various keywords that were presented to us, then continued on to finding different shot types/objects/expressions to use in the short film. We weren’t very sure how to make a non-linear storyboard, but we did come up with the moodboard and took the footage for the first draft. After consulting our instructor, we will either re-shoot the footage or use the ones we have on our hands and make the final cut for the submission.

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Blog #08

      Monday, 01 May 2023 | The Ancient Roman Art & Verism

Verism (comes from the Latin word "verus" for true) is the exaggerated, stylised art movement during the late Roman Republic. Some sources argue that the art style is hyper-realistic, while some say that the feature depictions are way too exaggerated to be considered realistic. The portrait busts are often sculpted to deepen the furrows and wrinkles on the depicted face, with obvious sings of old age, and sometimes scars scattered across the bust to showcase the great power and authority of the one depicted in the busts. 

These subject of these busts are almost always male politicians and are meant to glorify virtue and the seriousness of mind (wiseness of old men). “This stylistic tendency is influenced both by the tradition of ancestral imagines as well as a deep-seated respect for family, tradition, and ancestry. The imagines were essentially death masks of notable ancestors that were kept and displayed by the family. In the case of aristocratic families these wax masks were used at subsequent funerals so that an actor might portray the deceased ancestors in a sort of familial parade (Polybius History 6.53.54). The ancestor cult, in turn, influenced a deep connection to family.”____

In short, these portraits might serve the intention of showcasing the power of ancestors for the upcoming generations since the older you are, the wiser you become is a quite famous saying. The scars from the battles also signify the braveness of the once soldier that had been depicted in the bust, essentially meaning that the more scars and imperfections your ancestor’s bust had, the more powerful of a bloodline you came from. It was a way of showing off the power your ancestors, and by extension, you, possess.

Image: Head of a Roman Patrician

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Blog #07

       Monday, 24 April 2023 | Editing Fundamentals & The Goldfinch

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. Editing is the post production process of putting out a visual product. Editing is often used to fix continuity errors, add special effects to the outcome, help put together the narrative, and to tell the story that the people working on the project want to get across. Editing process can also be used in polishing the work all together, and to change the whole narrative of the outcome as well, proving to be a powerful tool for people wanting to put out creative works. Montage is essentially the same process as editing, but the word is used mostly in film editing, and mostly refers to visual/audio media. Montage is used to put together different scenes with various montage techniques, some requiring the viewer’s intellect, while others rely on a certain rhythm to follow through. This assembly of various scenes then make the final video outcome, and allows us to follow along the story-line –whether it’s linear or non-linear, it’s up to the editors��. There are a lot of different editing techniques, and this week, we had to use various of these techniques in order to complete our midterm project. We were tasked with choosing a feature-length film of our choice, and using the editing techniques and montage principles we had learned, we had to make a trailer for the film, but we also had to change the genre of the film with changed narratives, tones, and the overall rhythm of the story.

The Goldfinch was the film of my choice to re-cut. I had seen it before a couple years back, and I regretted not finishing the film. The pacing was painful to pull through, and I thought there were a lot of scenes that were quite unnecessary to keep in, yet they were there anyway. Perhaps for something symbolic? I couldn’t figure it out. There were a lot of “J Cuts” throughout the film, and cross fading effects for the scene transitions. It was cool to see and identifying these techniques, being able to distinguish the foley effects made the viewing experience into something much more interesting. There were gorgeous scenes in the film, and the narrative is deeply cinematographic in style, the tones change according to the emotion being conveyed in the scenes, and the constant flashbacks and flashforwards presented a non-linear story-line to follow.

The original genre of the film was drama, and when I watched the film again, I remember thinking this could be an entirely different genre, and I don’t think I was wrong about it. I made a decision on making it into a Crime Thriller instead. We weren’t restricted with following along the film’s actual narrative choice –and the actual narrative of the film is as confusing as it already is–, it made the editing easier to put together. The actual process before the editing was the actual obstacle. Finding the film without subtitles was a mission on its own, trying to use an application that no longer worked was another, and the editing program not accepting the file I had downloaded of the film was another as well. Trying to work through all these obstacles, screen recording not working on the laptop, having limited options really did push me a lot harder than it would have normally. I had to use footage that had watermarks on it, and i still am not quite happy about that outcome. I will try again, and I will get help from my instructors, but it is the best that I could come up with my solutions at the moment. Even with everything that has happened, I do think it was worth the all-nighters that I pulled trying to fix every little problem that occurred. And I know that we aren’t supposed to like our outcomes, but I do think I did a decent job this time –only if we disregard the watermark–. 

Image 1-4: Certain scenes from the film

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Blog #06

      Monday, 17 April 2023 | Functions of Film Sound & Sound Design

We all have seen films in our lives, be it short or long, they all plagued a certain part of our minds for a while, especially if they became our favourite film. But, have you ever tried to watch one without any sounds? If you have, did you feel the same emotions as you felt with sounds? What differences did you notice, if any? Sounds are crucial parts of the film that not only help convey the story of the film, but they also help us, the audience, to feel immersed in the story, and for the film to feel even more real, pushing the narrative of the film forwards, and establishing the atmosphere. Without these sounds, the ambiance of the film feels isolated, and even creepy even when that’s not the intention in the first place.

And this crucial part is mostly recorded and edited in a professional studio by people mimicking the required sound using various objects. To explain further, these people are called “foley artists” and in film-making they are responsible for the production of ambient sounds for the scenes. The importance of these sound effects can be seen as certain films lack something that we miss, yet we cannot exactly place what it is. And although old films generally does not have sounds or music, we can add them later on to improve them a little. 

That was exactly what we were supposed to do for this week’s project, and to be honest, I was actually excited about this project –and that enthusiasm lasted until the end of the project–. I think the hardest part of this project was choosing an old, soundless film since there was so many choices to choose from, and to be honest, I wanted a safe option that I could tackle easier. And as I added more and more sound effects and voice-overs to the film, I watched it come to life and become something I could enjoy without feeling like I was watching a cult’s ritual rather than an old film. When I was finished, it still had more work to do, and even after I added certain missing parts to the film, I still felt like I could do so much more, but isn’t that the biggest problem with design? There’s always so much to do, so much to change.

Still, I do think that this project was the most uneventful and least stressful project I have done this whole semester. I wouldn’t mind doing this again –and I am planning on making another one without the requirement from the university–.

Video: Sound for the Soundless

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Blog #05

     Monday, 10 April 2023 | Tableau Vivant & Mise-en-scène

When I first heard about Tableau Vivant – living painting –, I thought it was about the saying “life imitating art”, and I wasn’t exactly wrong about that assumption, yet not completely right either. Tableau Vivant is the performance made by a group or a person representing a scene with proper props and costumes. Representation in this case means to act in the scene replicated, and to stand in for the chosen figures in the scene. But we cannot speak about Tableau Vivant without touching on what mise-en-scène is. It is ultimately a theatrical setting and the arrangement of the background, the required props, etc. to make a film’s scene work as intended.

Understanding these definitions were needed for me this week, as our project required the understanding of them, and knowing how to use them to my advantage. We were tasked to first find a variety of paintings to choose one from, and Paul Cézanne’s “The Card Players” came on top. At first, I was quite enthusiastic about the project – as I’m told I am in the beginning of the projects – but keeping that enthusiasm throughout the project proved to be incredibly hard.

During the first two days of the project, we did a lot of walking around looking for the appropriate props to set the scene such as; the curtain in the background, the pipes, the picture frame, and the costumes… After that excruciating period of trying to gather everything needed, we also talked to a few friends to help us out as the figures in the painting. After everything was set, we tried to match the actual lighting with the painting’s light tones – although we couldn’t really match in the end – but it was quite hard to have a result close to the tones of the painting. To be honest, the whole process day was really overwhelming for me, and it quickly became a nightmare in seconds even though we had the help of kind individuals. Hearing my name coming from all directions and trying to attend to people’s needs, and on top of that, the arguments with our friends took a toll on me, and I did lash out without meaning to. Still, the exhaustion I felt through the last day felt worth it as we submitted our second draft, which, fortunately took a lot less time from our day, and we were able to quickly wrap up.

All in all, the whole week felt a little hectic and more than a lot stressful in my opinion. Trying to handle the work with only two people and a group that doesn’t like to cooperate was a lesson learnt from my side. If we do this one more time, I’ll definitely get the help of different people, and won’t waste a lot of time trying to get all the details right – as it was impossible –. Still, even with the painful project, I did manage to have fun as we tried putting things together and create something we can be truly proud of. 

Image 1: The Card Players

Image 2-4: Behind the scenes

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Blog #04

     Monday, 03 April 2023 | Keywords & Photography

Being restricted by four words consisting of shadow, light, depth, and focus while trying something new can be weirdly freeing. But sometimes, they only add to the challenge of trying to do that said thing. This was the dilemma I was in as I went out over the weekend in order to complete a project my instructor had given to me. Seeing the world through a lens wasn’t something new to me, although, looking through that lens with the intentions of capturing a photograph of a certain keyword in mind was.

As I walked around an old castle, and the old houses around that particular castle, I felt the pressure of finding a good enough spot, or finding a good enough angle, just right lighting etc., making the project more stressful than it was supposed to be. I didn’t like how I couldn’t just capture a good enough photograph in my eyes, and submit that as my result, no. But I also liked the challenge, I was looking around me in a way I had done only once or twice before, I liked the way that I could see the small nooks and crannies that I could fit my phone into, and see if the photographs came out okay. 

I realised that I didn’t know how to take a photograph before. The same archways I had passed so many times before, same streets, same shops I had walked past without a second look seemed different to me. I saw them as potential models for me, the cracks on the walls, the engravings, the metal details done beautifully on a wooden door... Seeing it all made it feel like a therapeutic experience rather than working on a project; even the small interactions I had with bypassers and shop owners was refreshing. Who knew trying to take a photograph for four keywords could lead to wholesome albeit short conversations with strangers?

Image 1-4: Some of the non-selected images I had taken for the project

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Blog #03

     Monday, 27 March 2023 | The LEGO Movie & Convergent Culture of Film Adaptations

When I first started watching the film, I was quite biased against it as I had watched it before and did not enjoy it to say the least. To me, The Lego Movie was nothing but a silly child's movie – it didn't exactly help that I first watched this film with children –. It was filled with stereotypical and surface-level-thought-out-characters, colourful and cheery atmosphere – obviously –, the unbearable attitude of the main character, and it seemed like an overall cash grab for the referenced franchises. When I watched it a second time, I saw that the story ran a little deeper, which, was a plus on their side. But it still was not enough to be forgiven for their character writing.

Starting by the protagonist of the film, Emmet Brickowski, he is the epitome of the “everyman syndrome” children’s films have had going on for themselves. He has never had an original thought in his life – except for his bunker couch –, he has the personality of a cardboard cut-out of anyone you could think of, and yet he still believes the world revolves around him. The fact that by some miracle he becomes “the special one” does not exactly help that fact at all. Moving onto Wyldstyle, aka, Lucy, who seems to have a Mary Sue-esque characterisation going on for herself. She sees herself worth of the non-existent “special one” and gets jealous of Emmet when she doesn’t end up getting the worthless title. Still, unlike a Mary Sue character, she has clear flaws throughout the film which gives her a sliver of potential of being a decent character. Except for these two, I believe the other characters are made out of shallow stereotypes consisting of Vitruvius the old wise man, literally, the police character seeming to have DID (dissociative identity disorder) consisting of his “bad cop” and “good cop” sides, President/Lord Business which symbolises capitalistic rich businessmen that want to end the world, and the other cameo characters from different media.

In short, I saw the film as any other children’s movie with the most popular tropes in their characters with the male character saving the day and “getting the girl”. I still do think it doesn’t go deeper than that, but it does have a good message beneath the surface which tells the tale of the relationship between a son and a father, as well as being a good example of breaking the assumptions about how certain media are expected to be approached which is explained well in the essay analysis of this film.

The essay Bric[k]olage: Adaptation as Play in The Lego Movie (2014) written by Madeline Hunter is described as an approach to meta-adaptation, theories of play, and convergence culture but I will be focusing on certain topics of the article such as: play, convergence culture, and LEGO as a medium. Hunter describes play as a method which players manipulate the objects around them to both bring order and disrupt the already-existing one. It is a creative way for someone to test the boundaries of their minds and the resources they have which usually consists of colourful blocks and minifigures. This play’s agility turns into the many ways a work can be adapted to different mediums which can be both digital or in psychical format. This media convergence is explained by Hunter as: “Convergence culture is a culture in which media is ‘mobilized and manipulable, spreadable and sharable’ (Voigts-Virchow ‘Memes, GIFs, and Remix Culture’: 395). Users are increasingly empowered to appropriate the work of others, producing fanvids, remixes, gifs, memes, and host of other digital productions that mash together video, sound, and text in an endless chain of textual variation. Such appropriation finds an affinity in play in that it is the product of ‘non-functional’ (394) acts of creative and communicative exchange in which users test their creative and technical capabilities against the constraints of the media with which they work (…)”.

With this perspective in mind, we can all agree to Hunter in LEGO being not only a toy brand but a multi-functional medium that individuals use as a means of expressing themselves and their worldview using the many themed sets they have produced. This means of expression can be easily used as a method of adaptation of a script to a LEGO set which encourages the players into making up variety of stories to be acted out via the playsets. Their mobility and compatibility to different forms of media gives them the opportunity to be used to mix and match with a variety of additional pieces to tell something, anything, which is exactly what The LEGO Movie achieved – and the many that followed their predecessor –.

To summarise what I’ve written so far, I was wrong in the regard that I viewed the film as just a cash-grab by including a variety of characters and environments achieved by using different playsets to keep the children watching engaged, and also beg their parents to get their own many franchise-themed sets. But the film-inside-the-film twist towards the end added a layer of integrity of the seemingly shallow story. An ordinary man gets chosen to be “the special one” in their order-following society – which also criticises how capitalistic worldview has affected the minds of individuals living in said societies – and at the very end, we learn that we don’t need to be special to achieve something of importance. Seeing the real-life twist of the film, which essentially symbolised the good guy as the human protagonist Finn and the villain of the story as his father, the message deepens to reflect the relationship between the father and the son. The means they used to establish the symbolism was quite clever, and will be shown in the pictures attached below, and at the end we see that “playing with (not) toys” don’t need order and perfection. Playing only needs a little creativity and a means to provide the needed media to perform that creativity.

Bric[k]olage: Adaptation as Play in The Lego Movie (2014) – Madeleine Hunter The Lego Movie (2014)

Video: Clip of Emmet and President Business as their real-life adaptation characters

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Blog #02

     Monday, 20 March 2023 | Art Galleries & Pretentious Interactions

Art galleries in extensive buildings was something I avoided a lot in my time for I saw them as money-grabs or some sort of show-your-art-society-connections-off type of events. I still do think that way, though if the opportunity presents itself to me, I do take my chances with going to them instead of densely pushing them away with the back of my hand.

The building I went to this particular art gallery was a place that hosted  art-related projects yearly, as well as concerts, fundraisers, etc. to spread a taste of "culture" and for people of different backgrounds to have an alibi to get together, and mine was a connection my aunt had to her friend which had a booth of her own, talk about irony. Through this indirect connection, I was granted entry without having to pay the fee.

The multi-functioning establishment had three floors which all of them was reserved for the gallery, though the higher you went, the "fancier" the environment seemed to be. A truly fascinating example of art imitating life, really. Sadly, I couldn't see all the pieces and the performances prepared as it was quite a long task of navigating through the booths placed like the walls of a maze, making it quite impossible to finish exploring in a few hours. Although, I did manage to see works from people coming from different countries consisting of: Small statues made by two Ukrainian sculptors, various paintings from Korean artists, a singing staging by Russian performers, and various works in different branches from Turkish artists.

As I walked around the many booths, it was a refreshing sight seeing people from different backgrounds/countries interacting, and hearing their thoughts about the many paintings. Letting go of my prejudice of seeing these events as social gatherings for people with too much money to count, I had a few hours to myself to enjoy, and even had a pleasant conversation with the husband of an artist that couldn't make it to the gallery. It was truly an experience that left me satisfied, though, it being free did add to that satisfaction I felt along with some of the works I had captured to remember this escapade by.

Image 1-4: Some of the captured works from the gallery

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Blog #01

     Monday, 13 March 2023 | Art Happenings & Fatboy Slim

According to Wikipedia, a happening is a performance, event, or situation art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow during the 1950s to describe a range of art-related events. Fatboy Slim’s Praise You music video reminded me of art happenings I had learned about in my lectures (though I have no idea if it counts as one).

The shock factor of the performance can be seen by the way the people react to the dance; laughing, trying to make sense of the situation, recording, and one even going as far as to stop the music they’re playing. Unbothered by the commotion around them, the performancers carry on with their dancing. And, in a sense, the public viewing them are performancers as well. 

Where they’ve gathered and the suddenness of the performance pushes (almost forces) the audience to participate in the performance with their expressions and gestures. The interactions of both sides creates an alluring contrast between both performances; one doing the controlling, the other being controlled (perhaps even without realising it) and pushed into performing alongside them with their natural reactions.

Image 1: “The” performancers

Image 2-3: “Unsuspecting” performancers