In this conceptual statement, I will go through the ideas, software, and linking devices behind my concept for this Trickster stream of BCT Studio. Going through each aspect of the short film, from beginning to end, can help understand the true nature of the Trickster themes at play.
The theory I pose to the listeners is quite simple yet challenging, not to making it totally obvious in this portal/mirror you look into to watch the short film.
The underlying theory is that of modern day Tricksters governing and decision making the norm of our lives, leading us to unintentional destroy the very world that keeps us alive. The trickster story I’m particularly looking at is The Sons of Earthmaker, Heresgunina. The Trickster who burnt his own anus and became hungry, a story of self-consumption by the trickster himself.
As he was going along there, unexpectedly, something went by. He trailed him. As he was going along, to his surprise, there he found a piece of fat. (147) "Hohó, someone has gone by here packing something. He must be packing something he had killed," he said. As he said this, he picked up that piece of fat and ate it. It was very delicious. (148) "Hohó, this fat is such a delicious thing," he said. Again as he was going along, he again found another piece. Again he ate it. "Hohó, these fat things are such a delicious thing," he said. (149) As he was going along, unexpectedly, it was he whom he had discovered. He was finding the fat parts of his own guts. The anus and the fat part of his guts had fallen out of him. Because he had burned it, the burning had contracted it. (150) "Hohó," he said. "Very truly have they spoken when they have called me wakjąka. The others, by such talking, have turned me into such." And he fixed it. A large part of the skin was lost. (151) Therefore, he had fixed it, but the skin pulled together in wrinkles.
The Sons of Earthmaker, Herešgúnina.
Trickster's Anus Guards the Ducks. 2016. Trickster's Anus Guards the Ducks. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.hotcakencyclopedia.com/ho.TrickstersAnusGuardsDucks.html.
Tricksters are hybrid beings that specialize in illuminating, disrupting or translating across boundaries of truth and fiction, I wanted to show that Tricksters today can distract, frustrate, cause fear and even make you to look up into the sky, without considering the destruction you might be causing right under your feet. Earth being at part of us.
In the beginning of the film, I have chosen a familiar sound of a VCR winding as it begins to play. This is to set the scene for the viewer; starting the film tens years, or so, in the past and gradually bring the time period to where we are today in references to the Trickster theme multi realities. With the use of the mirror, I manipulate the footage so it is flipped and confusing when viewed on a standard screen but when watched through the portal or mirror, the footage becomes easier to understand as it is flipped back.
As media arrives on the screen with a fast buzzing sound and some chatter echoed, the viewer begins to paint the picture of what’s about to happen. Switching cameras to a man announcing the take off in 30 seconds and a swift transition and the viewer can piece together the space shuttle in take-off position and where they are about to adventure. Taking the literal sense of taking a step back to look at the situation.
As tricksters, thinking outside the box is required to trick people; so flying to space would push an experience on the viewers that they may never have considered before, outside of the box they live in.
Using Logic Pro to EQ and alter the sounds of take-off, I could also produce horns for the countdown. Utilising After Effects, to create a countdown animation together with the NASA footage of the take-off, I could merge the sound to create this feeling of leaving Earth. The bouncing of the numbers in random order and fractal art in the background was all combined to emphasize the countdown sequence.
The randomness of the numbers in the countdown was to put off the audience. Instead of expecting or assuming, I wanted the audience not to know where the journey was going to take them, to keep the guessing and speculating to help understand.
As the viewer is then taken to space it is made clear this is an environment that would be foreign to any human being.
Looking back at the Earth, in conjunction with the deep hums of space and muffled horns, the viewer can now begin to ask what they are hearing and why they are in this position of the film,
“What does this all mean?”
Using Unity to build a defined model of Earth, I made it look as if it was being eating away by it’s own shadow, similar to our situation self-consumption. At this stage of the short film, I now introduce some more intensive 3-dimensional soundscapes. A real sensation of the sound piece is the opening of the glass ‘ting’ you hear when you tab you wine glass with a spoon. Using Logic Pro and some plug-ins such as Serum, I could successfully use this glass sound and place effects such as compression, reverb, echo, chorus to construct a dramatically changed sound of a kind of deep tapping resonances you hear surrounding you’re head from different angles.
Using a new feature called ‘distance spread’ I could chose the location of where the tap could be heard on a 3D plane from the headphones. On top of this sound comes more spacey clicks and hums to take over the scene, as does the fractal I designed to look as you can see the atmosphere of the Earth on top of the footage.
Some direction comes about in the film when the main topics on this project of ‘consumption’ and ‘our norm’ are made clearer with the narrative of Vice journalist, Adam Curtis commenting of our state of norm.
He speaks of how we live look up to those with expensive apartments and comments on our want to have and buy them, but can’t. Referring to these expensive homes as “blocks of money”. This is a powerful message simply pointing out what is already true. We want what we can’t have and in many ways that drives our consumption on the very planet we live on (and or off).
Adam from Vice continues,
“Hypernormilization, you are so much apart of the system, you can’t see beyond it. The fakeness was hypernormal.”
This statement with some shots of a morphed city of Shanghai mirrored around the Earth, creates an opportunity for the audience to chose between understanding this statement and missing the meaning and not understanding the theory behind my short film explained in my conceptual statement.
In the next chapter of the film, the soundscape takes over with only darkness on the screen; the viewers are required to listen up, as there is nothing else.
The sounds of eating, drinking and time are the main focus throughout the darkness, linked to consumption and it’s limitations.
The meaning behind the dialogue that follows, is the hate we get with one another. No hatred at birth but can kill millions once in a position of power.
Using dialogue from Hitler, Al Baghdadi and Donald Trump it becomes clear that comments such as their own drive countries into war and death almost to the point of total destruction of planet Earth.
The sound of a nuclear alarm is sounding in the background as the Earth is torn apart (as a fractal) in sync with the bombs going off in the soundscape.
To conclude the film, the Earth is still in pieces as the echoes of gunfire ring off into the distance. The Earth is formed back together to then be picked by me, blindfolded, to eat it. I wipe my mouth with a $20 note, the town clock ticks over to its alarm and the film is over. This final symbolization reinforces my concept of consumption related back to the Trickster who ate his own intestines without realizing it, without being aware of the tricks of today and the way we are lead, time and resources will run out.
Throughout the semester I have been quite unsure about the direction to go with this project with my initial concepts to be interactive with my audio and visual aspects.
The more thought I put into the Trickster idea and how I wanted to convey my message, the more the idea got clearer.
With problems coming from all directions such as, software crashing, hard drives taken and quality of footage not so good. I was looking to simplify this project over adding on too many more ideas.
Software issues I encountered majority came from cinema 4D corrupting my files after I saved them, which would destroy my work each time I tried opening it. On top of that, my iMovie project had to scrap after I found I needed to actually build all of the footage in Premier Pro.
When learning new software, sometimes it doesn’t always work in your favour. This was the case with Premier Pro. I have used iMovie for so long that this software took me along to time to figure out how to use it as easy as I was using my iMovie set up.
I had a huge issue about half way through the semester with my laptop and hard drive both been taken after my bag was stolen. This was a big speed bump, as I would have to recreate most of the work already made. Luckily I posted the work I had done as evidence but not the files I’d created them on.
I am very proud of the 3D sound piece I ended up with, as it took about 3 attempts to produce something I was happy with. Problems I was facing was creating a story from only sounds proved a lot more difficult that anticipated but gave the effect of being in space after applying the effects I trailed.
When looking back through my blog and vlog posts, it’s clear to see the gradual changes done as my brainstorming gets more and more in depth. From creating four characters standing around Earth with each of their points of view represented by sound pieces to an Earth model with fractal art crawling over it to the sound of my 3D soundscape. Changes to this project have been constant, all the way to the exhibition.
The exhibition was something that had the less amount of work as I was unsure how I wanted to present, but I knew I didn’t want to a screen up that people had to sit down and watch. I felt there were too many projects in this same direction.
To conclude my reflection, after building from my flaws I am very proud of the product, especially the concept of relating some leaders of today to Trickster traits. Looking at the Trickster brief, I believe I have fulfilled the task required after not knowing how to tackle this project in July. The Trickster theme was a tricky one to grasp onto but over time, the research and patience have helped me to understand the way Tricksters are and have been for years.
YouTube. 2016. Dashcam on a Space Shuttle - FRONT WINDOW launch - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhuGwQq7qZk. [Accessed 01 November 2016].
NASA Visible Earth: Browse by Collection: Blue Marble. 2016. NASA Visible Earth: Browse by Collection: Blue Marble. [ONLINE] Available at: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_cat.php?categoryID=1484&p=3. [Accessed 01 November 2016].
. 2016. Monstercat Visualizer. [ONLINE] Available at: http://vis.incept.gq/dashboard.php. [Accessed 01 November 2016].
YouTube. 2016. Warfare sound effect 2 - distant firefight - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbXQ0JNDvLM. [Accessed 01 November 2016].
Freesound.org - Sounds browse. 2016. Freesound.org - Sounds browse. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.freesound.org/people/ljudman/sounds/33244/similar/. [Accessed 01 November 2016].
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