pmurphymajortwo2021

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FINAL DRAFT - ‘Watching’

Naming my film ‘Watching’ seems very relevant since this whole subject is to with us watching. Whether it’s watching people, watching cinema, screen or audience. They are all linked. I think this name is simple but effective. It already introduces information about the film before watching and tells the audience a bit about it. I’m really happy with this outcome and excited to hear feedback from my audience. 

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500 words Critical Self-Evaluation

Critical Self-Evaluation

In reflection of my final piece ‘Watching’, I have concluded that creating this film has been a most enjoyable and unique experience. Working with found footage and creating abstract shapes with the female body has ignited a new personal passion in film.  

Aesthetically, each edit is unique: they possess different qualities and explain different stories. The narrative moves away from voyeurism and the Hollywood films that we have grown accustomed to. I ended up manipulating the sound that accompanied the which influenced my future edits for the better. Through playing with both the levels and speed, I created creepy, grotesque sounds that I find compliment the image. By experimenting with all sorts of effects and manipulating the image, I was able to really enjoy the experience. I wanted to create an enchanting and emotional edit so that it would not only be a joy to watch, but also one that tells a story. I wanted to clarify the objectification of women in cinema. I experimented extensively with the female form in my edits – this was my most successful and rewarding part of the project.

Technically, this piece was demanding. To achieve this project I had to put a lot of time into editing footage as well as finding footage online. The sound was edited by slowing down the speed and changing the sound levels, this was sometimes synced with the image too. It was important to use well known and recognisable film footage in this project so the audience are more likely to immediately understand the important message. Since I struggled to ensure the clarity of my message, I incorporated speech in my final edit to ensure the idea was clearly received and understood. For example, in one edit Al Pacino says “great big pussy miss waiting to get fu**ed on”.

This was my first time editing with found footage, I went beyond my comfort zone in this project and really enjoyed the process. As a future filmmaker, I would love to take this concept further and explore this idea as this subject is a never-ending issue.  Overall, I am satisfied with my piece/installation.  As I have progressed through university, my practice has gradually become more meaningful throughout and I now feel that I am deliberately achieving my artistic aims and intentions. On the other hand, a sense of humour has persisted throughout my projects.

To conclude, I want the spectator to feel an understanding of what Hollywood cinema is really about, the way women are constantly objectified. The spectator should feel awareness of the issue as well as disappointment, in the same way I feel it. The audience will also feel enjoyment in my film because I have created a mesmerising and magical experience. This will show a different type of enjoyment when looking at the female body, as we are primarily used to watching from a males point of view. As a woman, I know this representation affects our social life and I believe this can only change if more filmmakers come together and produce more films like this. Moving Image is a great platform to influence this and I can’t wait to continue on with this issue.

534 words

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Summary of Project and Installation information

In this project, I started to explore women and the ‘grotesque '.Firstly, I explored cinematic footage that emotionally or sexually objectifies women through their body image or speech. I planned to manipulate the selected footage to shock the audience with this haunting subject. I hoped my film would be an unexpected, horrific revelation that demonstrates female anger and frustration; I wanted to shock my audience. However, I quickly altered this idea to the less horrifying, but more distorting style by manipulating the image. The film is a response to a lifetime of female social inferiority. It is an innate attack on this phenomenon; a reaction against the male domination of female appearance, importance and purpose.

Dara Birnbaum’s fragmentation and repetition movements on Wonder Woman was the principal influence of this project. Her work encouraged me to consider all films possessing a negative portrayal of women. I started looking at other female-leading superhero films. Interestingly, they all portrayed the fragmentations of the male fantasy. For example, Lara Croft, Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman. I also researched other leading female films: both fiction and non-fiction, rom-coms, romance, action and drama. I studied Erin Brockovich, Pretty Woman and many more.

Out of my twenty film-edits I have selected my best six to be in my final draft. I started editing footage from Pretty Woman, which was my most successful edit. Following in order from Pretty Woman I made edits from: Revenge, Blow, Lost in Translation, Blade Runner, Spring Breakers, Coyote Ugly and St Trinian’s. Each edit is unique: they possess different qualities and explain different stories. The narrative drives away from voyeurism, away from the Hollywood films that we have grown accustomed to. In these edits I used a range of sounds from Joan Jonus - Vertical role and Martin Arnolds - Pièce Touchée. Although their sounds were powerful, they didn’t create a personal feeling or effect. I ended up manipulating the sound that the footage came with. This awareness changed and improved my future edits. I played around with both levels and speed and created creepy grotesque sounds that complimented the image. By experimenting with all sorts of effects and manipulating the image, I was able to really enjoy the experience. I wanted to create an enchanting and emotional edit so that it would be not only a joy to watch, but to tell a story. I wanted to clarify the objectification of women in cinema. I experimented extensively with the female form in my edits – this was my most successful and rewarding part of the project.

It was important to use well known and recognisable film footage in this projects so the audience were more likely to immediately understand the important message. I struggled to ensure the clarity of my message. In my final edit I included speech to ensure the idea was clearly received and understood. For example, in one edit Al Pacino says “great

big pussy miss waiting to get fu**ed on”.

My final draft shows a series of six films. I am really happy with the outcome and have chosen to exhibit my work on six different devices. All devices will all be stetted on a loop for the audience. Firstly, there will be a large cinematic projection in the middle of the gallery which will project a loop of the Pretty Woman edit. Next to this massive projection, I will have two televisions which will play separate edits of Revenge and Scarface. I will also display two Laptops which will play Spring Breakers and Coyote Ugly, while one iPad plays the remaining edit of St, Trinian’s. I want all the devices to be displayed in order from left to right starting with Pretty Woman and ending with St,Trinian’s as it gives a humorous directional ending of the finishing clip: a man

being pushed out of a window and plunged into a pond after peaking through a group of school girls in a dressing room.

Viewing these edits on a range of devices is very important because tv’s, laptops and iPads are the new means for watching film. Cinema is slowly becoming less popular and I want to make sure I reach out to all audiences on all available platforms. By viewed them on a range of devices, I hope to catch the attention of the audience with my enchanting and magical edits. I hope to help and teach them to understand the objectification of women in cinema.

Here is a photo example of how my film will be installed = (Pretty Woman edit) - Large Scale:

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Research - Dara Birnbaum's 'Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79) - “ridiculous spinning”

Dara Birnbaum's 'Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79) - “ridiculous spinning”

Looking back at Dara Birnbaum's ridiculous spinning techniques shows a similar method to Martin Arnold. They both repeat certain snippets of found footage to tell a different story to the audience. Birnbaum uses a spinning dizzy technique as it shows her looking like a ridiculous spinning doll. Birnbaum depicts on how woman are really presented in cinema.

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Research - Laura Mulvey - Visual Pleasure and Narrative cinema

Laura Mulvey - Visual Pleasure and Narrative cinema

https://www.asu.edu/courses/fms504/total-readings/mulvey-visualpleasure.pdf

“The male gaze”

I’m constantly referring back to Laura Mulvey’s critique on “the male gaze” to remind myself the difference of a woman and a woman as an object. Sometimes i’m confused when i’m watching films i’ve already seen. I’m so used to only seeing women in this way. It’s easy to recognise the obvious objectification in cheesy comedies of girls half naked washing cars. But to analyse classic films like, Scarface and Lost in Translation really opens up the endless possibilities of hollywood cinema. I’m constantly questioning myself, will women always being objectified in some way on the screen. Its hard to notice the difference of a woman naked on the screen to a women nude on the screen. This subject has endless prospects to cinema and as a woman i’m really happy to explore this subject further as I feel included in all these representations because the female representations in film will always affect women socially.

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Research

Mirror effect - theory

Social Mirror Theory states that people are not capable of self-reflection without taking into consideration a peer's interpretation of the experience. In other words, people define and resolve their internal musings through other's viewpoint.

‘The mirror effect is a reflection of one's self through the gaze of others. It is used in education as a metacognition tool and as a vector of knowledge. The mirror effect can be obtained directly from another person through observation, listening to his comments or by watching a video.’

I find this theory really interesting and think it works well in my edits. The mirror effect in my edit will relate to this theory that a reflection of a women's face is see through the male gaze of others in other words, the way the audience views these women. theres an interesting link between this theory and women being objectified which shows an interesting metaphorical link.

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Research - Candice Breitz - Mother and Father

‘Mother + Father’ are two elaborate video montages that deploy footage pilfered 
from mainstream cinema to reflect on archetypal familial roles as these 
are portrayed within popular culture. The works are each installed across
 a support of six plasma displays.

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Research - Martin Arnold

Referring back to Martin Arnold, I feel his work is most satisfying to my work. I find his edits the most fun and interesting to watch as you can see how much he’s changed from 30 seconds to roughly 8 minutes. His tempo and sounds compliment each other, creating a new narrative.

https://film-makerscoop.com/catalogue/martin-arnold-alone-life-wastes-andy-hardy

Here is another piece by Martin Arnold:

Martin Arnold - Passage À L'Acte 1993

Hollywood sixties - a family breakfast with husband, wife, son and daughter. Deconstruction of the family relationship.

Martin Arnold "Alone life wastes, Andy Hardy" and "Passage a l´acte" by Matapuces

There hidden message of sex and violence is turned inside out to the point where it simply crackles.

Martin Arnold uses a lot of repetition in his work, showing a complete deconstruction of Hollywood film codes finally turns to film codes.  

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Draft 2

DRAFT 2 LINK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khWUAj5hy4I

Tutorial film notes:

Check mistakes, alternate flashes in pretty woman. 

- Check for every detail when refining this edit. 

Scarface: make context. Al Pacino seems more connected to the women rather than the men. Make this more clear. Include the girls more, make it more obvious. 

Spring Breakers: Make the girls more slow motion it sounds less distorted to everyone else. 

How to break down narrative - not need to understand the narrative. remove the imagery which really show objectification. Car scene doesn’t work. 

note about men in their convo. I could have that moment what men are saying to make it clear that they are being vulgar towards women. 

Pretty Woman is still best edit?

Don’t let narrative of film dictate the way I edit. The more i follow the narrative the more im inbedded in the narrative. Constract even more 

SOUND: one form of distorted sound. someone speaks u cant hear them. 

Next step: Do so many edits, really explore and make sense. make it beautiful and interesting. 

coyote ugly dancing : girl grabbing other girl - 

If their are moments, people walking down corridor  

referring to Martin Arnold - I don’t have to follow narrative. could repeat?

select edit at the end. pretty women in 2 other veins. 

installation, what important. what does it feel? whole room, screen in middle of room. in ur face. practical 

tele, phone, make it relevant, pretty women when i’m sad 

they don’t have to all be on the same screen. 

artist for editing. !!! research why is this work installed the way it is. Martin Arnold, more research. mention again!!! talk through 

500 word statement.

contrast, not have swirls in all the footage. 

give the audience a visual feel. Tweaking!!! so each works. 

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Draft 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xiPNNMWc54&ab_channel=PearlMurphy

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Selecting my edits (so far)

1. Pretty woman (4 edits)

2. Revenge (2 edits)

3. Scarface (1 edit)

4. Spring Breakers (3 edits)

5. Coyote Ugly (1 edits)

6. St Trinian’s (1 edit)

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Installing footage

I want this film to be installed on a large scale projecting the picture from behind, with open speakers to catch the eye of the audience. I imagine it will be displayed in an open space to wheel in the audience and grab their attention. Sound my be an issue with this, so depending on the space I have, I may need around 4-6 headphones for the audience to listen. 

The footage could also be played on a television to remind people that these are scenes taken from cinema. 

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Audience

What do I want to say to my audience:

My next step is to decide and experiment wether my footage should be shown on a single screen or multiple screens. My film could be installed on a large scale in a gallery which could include lots of edits on one screen. My audience can then select which footage they want to look at giving them the option of what to look at. They may choose to look at a scene they recognise or are appealed to. This method would be affective with this film and drives away from the classical Hollywood narrative or codes and conventions; as Hollywood only lets you see cinema from a voyeuristic perspective.

My initial film idea was to shock the audience. Manipulating found footage and retelling the story of well known scenes will hopefully shock the audience and elevate the issue of women in cinema. As we already know, the scenes I have selected are aimed at the male gaze and to take these scenes and manipulate them on my own terms was a very rewarding experience. The more I edited the more information I found and started to see more negative codes and conventions of women being objectified.

Using the mirror affect was a very pleasing experience as it made them look mesmerising, instead of making them look mesmerising for the male gaze. These edits give a chance to questions peoples thoughts on these films and future films. In my edits I try and direct the audiences eyes to see what is really going on. People are so unaware of this objectification because we are so used to it, in some ways we are brainwashed by this representation. Cinema was dominated by men from the beginning which is why we have this platform of Moving Image to communicate and explain to people what is really going on. 

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Pretty Woman edit 4

All my Pretty Women edits are my strongest film edits. I need to decide wether I will just have a Pretty Women edit or combine it with other film edits. 

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St. Trinian’s - changing room edit

This clip from St Trinian’s doesn’t have the best quality picture but I think works well. This would make a great ending to my sequence of my film. The way the women catch the man peaking on them in their lingerie, and then throw him out the window is a great metaphor to my film topic/subject. It also gives a humorous approach on it too, as you can tell this was a light hearted film. 

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Coyote Ugly edit 1

This is one of my favourite edits, The swirl effect really works well, the way the girls intertwined together really conveys well. I want to make my edits as beautiful as possible as well as re telling the narrative. Making the camera escape from women being objectified is very rewarding. The sound and the image works well together. 

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Spring Breakers edit 3 (eyes)

Here I have introduced the eye technique. I have spoken so much about voyeurism and how cinema is viewed from the voyeuristic eye I wanted to create the scene as if the audience were seeing from their eyes and perspective. A sort of metaphorical and obvious approach. I understand this editing method is simple but it is also hugely effective and makes perfect sense. This edit may be too much because its being viewed from 2 eye circles, however I think this should definitely be used as apart of this edit or another.