Reflection - A Finish to Unit X

Unit X has come to an end, and after week's of preparation leading to a final exhibition that displayed the wide variety of talent within our year I almost feel our group hit a missed opportunity. Work from the exhibition explored themes of betrayal quite effectively through various media forms that brought depth to their own individual projects, something I felt our final piece lacked. The exhibition as a whole showed the exceptional talents of our fellow course-mates, however due to this and a lack of depth to our work resulted in our display becoming somewhat lost due to a failed exploration of our own concept. In saying this however I do believe we were able to provide a few interesting factors to our piece that were admirable, but through our projects faults is where I feel I gained the best learning experience for my practice in the future.

Working with students of various different courses proved challenging despite proving useful when tackling different tasks. What originally started as each group member working on aspects that related to our course then resulted in a change in ideas which led to some group members having more creative control over others. Our final product relayed heavily on the photography and animation aspect, leaving myself and other students of filmmaking feel as if we lacked a true purpose. This was due to the narrative of our project being stripped away, resulting in our project to be something that could only be visually admired. Therefore when myself and my fellow filmmakers were left in control we felt it was vital in portraying some form of a narrative through or work in order to correctly convey the themes of both our work and Giselle's.

When it came to talking about our work and explaining it to our peers I felt as if the majority of the group only focused on mentioning the visual aspect of our piece and its construction as opposed to our themes and representations. This then is where I came in, in which I explained the reasoning behind the visuals, as well as the sound design which was created by myself and Ronan. After explaining the purpose of our sound design, how the echoing sounds of a grieving woman through our atmospheric sound represented the trapped souls of the broken-hearted woman of the underworld, relating back to the final act of Giselle. It is worth noting that once the sound design was played it caused a interesting reaction from our peers, each commenting on how it added an extremely creepy and cold atmosphere to our piece. This reaction in itself is proof to us that we perhaps should have taken this project down a much darker path like how myself, Ronan and Chris initially desired, however I hope from this experience that in future the group actually trust our creative decisions and allow us enough creative control to be able to experiment with different tones and themes.

Although anything I worked on within the project I put a lot of effort into, I do feel like my involvement was cut short which I believe stemmed from early stages of development in which due to involvement within a 3 year film led to me not being present when the group finalised their project decision. I feel that if I was present at the time the overall project would have been much different as I feel there were no defining features of our work that is worthy of admiring. Due to a distinct lack of narrative and structure I feel as if I had a lot of strong ideas relating to the underworld and Giselle that I definitely think would have aided our final product and that would have brought more purpose to our visual display. What I did notice towards the end of Unit X was a shift in the groups attitude; what once started as enthusiasm over our idea soon shifted, and the group dynamic changed, realising that compared to the other pieces within the gallery our work was simply not up to their standard. By this time the group were fully aware it was too late to make changes, however, this realisation for the group proved frustrating as these were things myself Ronan and Chris addressed at early stages of the project. Despite not being the best to our abilities, I do feel that the work I was involved in such as sound and the movement of the ghosts were some of the strongest factors of the project in which I wanted to capture an essence of eternal entrapment through the hopelessly wondering souls and the dark atmospheric sound design.

To conclude, I do believe that as a group we did manage to create a strong sense of atmosphere and tone through simplicity, but the simplicity is something I also feel was our downfall. As a group we should have focused more on the narrative and themes that we would have wanted to convey, but the group's approach to the underworld left little room for interpretation. This resulted in a final product that felt empty and bare, and through the reactions of our peers and fellow course mates I am made to believe that unfortunately such a statement can be true.

Until Next time...

Lines of Enquiry

Closer to the Unit X deadline, the group and I were able to gain a better grasp on our idea regardless of the group decision to go with a more simplistic approach to our concept of the Underworld. Being conveyed purely through visual imagery, we want to creative an urban illusion that was a representation of our concept of what the underworld holds. Despite the decision to remove elements linking to the underworld to our imagery, our final idea will be a still and atmospheric depiction in which we want to display themes of endlessness and a sense of entrapment which we want conveyed through the emotions of the ghostly figures which we will have enter in and out of our industrial imagery.

Photo which was used as inspiration

As a group we wanted everyone to be able to play on their strengths as creatives, therefore myself and other filmmakers focused on the cinematic element of our piece, photographers on the imagery and the animators on the ghost effects. Proving successful, our group were able to focus on our own individual strengths which we thought was vital in the success of our final piece. Originally, Giselle's involvement was high, but with the focus then on the theme of the underworld the groups decision lead to a lack of involvement with the narrative of Giselle, leaving little to relate to the actual Giselle narrative which I feel should have had a much bigger involvement in the final product. Due to this I felt as if our jobs as filmmakers had been reduced, therefore leaving less creative control as I would have preferred in our hands. However, the creative control we do have is something we are intrigued in making it work, therefore we created the concept that each ghost figure that appears on the screen connotes a different emotion all whilst ultimately creating a bleak and cold atmosphere.

Background image for our Unit X final piece

Preparation for our exhibition so far has involved several days of individual and group work in which we were all able to successfully product work which matched the imagery we wanted to create for our project. The photographers were able to present a folder of images of industrial and urban areas of Manchester, allowing us to practice on the images with the ghost animation in order to find what image would be more preferable. For this myself and the filmmaking group members were in control of filming the ghost imagery which involved every member of the group pacing back and forth past the camera, in whom we each made try and convey a different emotion each time they crossed. Although proving tedious we wanted the advantage of having enough footage to select between in order to create the best visual experience. This process was finished as the animation students were then able to create a white glow with transparency on each figure, creating the illusion of a paranormal figure.

However, the creative control we do have is something we are intrigued in making it work, therefore we created the concept that each ghost figure that appears on the screen connotes a different emotion all whilst ultimately creating a bleak and cold atmosphere. Another process in creating the desired illusion is through our manipulation of sound. Our concept is to have a atmospheric drone layered with an altered static noise. In relation to the idea of trapped souls in the underworld I have suggested that beneath the static white noise there should be the echoes of wailing woman keeping in the theme of broken-hearted woman trapped in the underworld from Giselle. Although it's relation isn't vast I still feel it's important to have Giselle's narrative still come through in our piece.


Luckily our groups progress has been substantial which has created enough space for us pay attention and focus on the perfecting of our exhibition project. Due to a limited space for our exhibition my group so far has been able to adjust our piece to the fitted area with the intention of creating a dark area in which we will be able to project our footage onto, whilst being able to fill the space with the atmospheric sound design. As of now I feel as if our project is proving quite successful, and with effort made to the details of our exhibition I think we will be able to produce something intriguing.

Giselle - A Unit X Project - Creative Ideas

In Unit X, our group want to explore and delve more into the concept of the underworld and all that it represents through the 1841 ballet Giselle. Although there is plan on manipulating and changing the narrative of Giselle, my main focus is on the visual representation of our own interpretation, hopefully to provide a successful and fresh visual expression to our image of the classic Giselle story. Due to the collaboration of our group, consisting of Filmmakers, Photographers and Animators, we want to display a project that expresses the theme of the underworld through our strengths; shifting and changing roles in order to explore other forms of media. Thus adding a contemporary effect to our project. 

Through research, our main goal was to grasp a consistent and creative visual interpretation which we wanted to display all through the theme of the underworld. To create a new expression of what the underworld might represent. To preserve the atmospheric dark turn of Giselle we wanted to explore themes of the underworld mostly through the second act, which would allow to us explore the physical and spiritual effects of death whilst also maintaining the love element as it proves most vital. 

Establishing a strong sense of atmosphere is something I feel is essential in order for the narrative to be heightened and to prove successful. Although this is very much a love story, I think the thought and the process of death should very much still be explored, and for such a concept to be a prominent aspect of the story. Much like The Sixth Sense, I feel as if a blatant visual representation of Giselle's demise is important to the story which I feel would be correctly displayed through the colour red. I want to present the death of a broken heart through a red stain that the women of the underworld will have, that the stained dress they wear symbolises the unfortunately of their death.  

Further research led a myth of the underworld in which before someone reaches the pit of the underworld they first must go through seven stages, featuring drowning and being cut with blades. Although these are quite drastic and probably wouldn't suit the ballet's tone, I think lightly expressing these elements through characters appearance after they have entered the "underworld" in which they could appear almost wet looking with slight and injuries on arms and legs. The possibility of that sort of depiction is yet to be concrete, but that kind of exploration of the underworld is what we plan on trying to depict.

The concept of Giselle's rise from the grave and her return to almost become one with the environment; that she enters and leaves and scene through the silhouettes that are created by the twisted and dark surroundings of the characters. This is all quite evidently unrelated to narrative structure which would be typically required off a filmmaking student, but the concept of portraying themes of death through the ballet's image without forcing a shift in the ballet's original structure is something we as a group is interested in, in which I look forward to exploring.