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Timeline for assessment and final thoughts

Yet again more thinking

While I have sort of steered away from looking at the woman, which is what I think I was starting to become preoccupied with in the beginning, I’ve begun to re link with my work before the collaboration module.

I’ve always been very interested in the idea of creating an atmosphere, concentrating on capturing a feeling rather than documenting a physical look of something, which is the opposite of what we did in ‘Ewww!’. While there was a feeling created by the audiences disgust, there wasn’t the atmospheric quality I’ve tried to create previously. I feel with this piece, the end result does tend to focus more upon the idea of feeling and the atmospheric, most notably within the first section, while it does draw upon documenting the grotesque in the last segment too. In the end I’ve stayed away from intentional humour, partly because this project has been rather difficult for me and there were too many elements going on at one time for me to properly consider what it was that I was wanting to create or show. I think there is a small element of humour during expulsion, just because it looks so disgusting it almost becomes laughable as its out of place but I think if I progress with this topic, this would be the next point to think about. How can humour fit into all this?

“..it's just not what I expect to see on prime time TV”

I have thought about this previously while researching TV hijacks and I think I would want it to be screened late afternoon/early evening (possibly between 5 and 7pm) on prime time. I feel this time of day would work well as it coincides with meal times, pushing the idea of repulsion while also disrupting the everyday life. Furthermore as I’ve said before this time of day is usually when most people are watching TV, meaning a larger audience as well.

Thoughts as I’m working

Not exactly happy with this as an outcome but I feel its what I need to make right now. Focusing on the feeling the action creates is becoming more important, abstracting my visuals away from the subject matter as I don’t like presenting things in a literal obvious sense. Which makes me worry about the final section as its a very raw and unfiltered shot meaning I can’t hide behind my editing. The section I’m most please with and actually like is the first, I feel this captures the sensation well and genuinely made me feel ill while making it so I must have got something right, also this section is probably the most closest to some of my previous work. I’m pleased that I have made something for the project that begins to explain my research but still feel that it’s definitely not a final resolve for this topic for me, which is good considering I’m trying to work in an ongoing practice. It’s allowed me to explore different elements i’ve been interested with and so perhaps could be a first draft of another piece I could make and expand further my thoughts without the context of the beyond the black box white cube project. What I feel has been successful with this project was the actual thoughts, considerations and research I’ve done before creating the piece. It’s adapted my way of thinking and allowed me to open up a little more with my analysis, possibly why I’ve struggled so much with making this module as I’ve been thinking too much.

Final Edit

This is my final edit. I’ve tweaked several parts of the audio, especially int the retching section, just to give it a little more depth and to blend in certain aspect better. I’ve also tried to adjust the tones of the expulsion section as it looked really bright, which I have managed to bring down a bit but I think this was partly to do with how it was shot as it was rather light.

I think this is as much adjustments as I can do without completely changing the structure and I’m fairly pleased with it, but I have watched this several times now and so to me it’s lost a lot of its impact as I’ve become desensitised to it now.

Second Edit

(Note: This video is a different edit as I am currently unable to upload it. Will update as soon as possible)

I made another edit as I wanted to see what the film would be like without any titles and I felt like there was something lacking. Considering that the second section has no visuals, without titles, it looked like it wasn’t playing and I think it set up in the mind of the viewer that something is about to happen. Is this a good thing? I’m not entirely sure myself, but I feel it works for now.I still feel that some of the sound elements need tweaking with their timing and some in their volume as they tend to over power at times. I think possibly I need to adjust the gaps between them as well but this could possibly seem longer due to not having titles in this edit.

Titles - do I need them?

Im still in two minds about using titles or not. Some people I’ve shown have said they’re not really that necessary, considering the format I’ll be showing them in while other have said they allow for separation and explanation in relation to the context I’m coming from. I still like them but I do see what other people are saying, you still get the idea from just watching them and in that way why really do they add to the piece? But also I do feel that they bring each one together, allowing for a pause in action between each section, especially in the format I’ll be showing in the assessment of them playing back to back. Perhaps I’ll make another draft later on and see what it’s like without and see if it changes the perspective.

First draft

This is the initial draft of the final edit. I’ve used titles so far but they may possibly get edited out. I think the timing between the clips could be altered slightly, especially the first pause which I feel is a little longer than the other. The final section I still feel needs to be worked on as the image still seems a bit flat to me but overall I think this is a good starting point to work from for another draft.

Additions to the retching audio

The retching audio was starting to get very problematic, just having the sound of retching sounded to cliche and obvious, like I hadn’t tried to create an edit at all. I thought that adding other wet sounds, mainly those that centre around the throat seeing as this is partly where this section occurs, would amplify the feeling so I used some recordings of eating where you can really hear the spit and food moving around in the mouth and also I added some breathing, gasps seemed to work well, to add the context of a person in that situation which I think gave it some depth and obscurity.

Audio for expulsion

I’ve been quite stuck on what to use as the audio for the last segment. I want to keep it a simple as possible, allowing for the visuals to speak for themselves as they’re quite strong in their impact meaning a heavy soundscape isn’t required or it’ll be too overpowering. However my primary concern is being able to hear the splattering well enough in comparison to some other shots I’ve done. I chose this one in particular as it had a better rhythm; some finished too early, others had a weird pace that didn’t seem like someone throwing up. (I’m aware it isn’t as it’s me dropping fake sick into a surface from a saucepan but I still wanted to maintain an element of reality) But I’m wondering, does this have the right amount of impact? Or does it seem less jumpy/shocking to me as i’ve watched it so many times? In an attempt to heighten the sound I’ve used multiple recordings done at the same time when filming to amplify the textural sounds a bit better and it seems to have a good effect.

Swallowing

I’m trying to find other sounds I can use that would hint to the notion of retching without using those actual sounds themselves, or maybe incorporating them but with a little more subtlety. Cat sick sounds seem to work better, their rhythmic quality additionally acts as a good base level to work on too when slowed down and also lowering the pitch.

A thought I had was rather than using retching, maybe I could create it’s same feeling but by using the reverse so swallowing instead? As a sound it is similar to a cat retching but has a more liquid sound, which relates it back to retching.

I think possibly I’m getting mixed up with this sound and the sound actually during the vomiting so I need to make sure that I stick to the section I’ve outlined.

Retching

I’ve nearly finished the either two sections, just finalising the colouring of the third stage, but trying to start the retching stage is harder than I thought it would be. I think perhaps this is because I haven’t really thought through what I want it to sound like in as much detail as the other two. As its just sound and sound alone it is harder to find a starting point and the rough attempts I’ve made so far haven’t been very good and sound a little cliche and rubbish. This may be down to me using stock sounds I got from freesound.org but as this project is beginning to take it’s toll on me, having to stop editing for a while when making the first stage and filming the third as I felt pretty ill, I’ve been trying to avoid having to make the recordings myself as I don’t wish to voluntarily make myself feel sick.

Using a drone

The visuals for the nausea section didn’t really take that long to create so it left me with a bit mortise to concentrate on the sound for this section. Originally I wanted this part to just have a lot of low bass drones, just mimicking the idea of unease. However once I put these to the visuals it seemed like there was something missing, almost like there wasn’t any pacing, and so while looking through the sounds the I had, I chose to see how it would sound if I put a clip of a cat being sick in there but editing it into a drone type sound to give a sense of rhythm but also to bring back the idea of the repulsive.

I also wanted to add in a heartbeat to reflect the idea of being able to feel your heartbeat in your ears when you feel like you’re about to be sick. The problem I had with wanting to include this was trying to avoid it sounding like a cliche or a bit cringe. To try and disguise this I altered the pitch, added reverb and also turned down the volume so it becomes more of the background and I think you still can get the pacing from it in a less obvious sense.

Editing the expulsion

I’ve been trying to edit the splattering as the raw footage looked a bit flat but even after altering the contrast and colour correcting it as to begin with it had a bit of a red tinge, it still appears to look kind of flat? I’m not too sure whats missing from this shot while I’m editing. I’ll carry on playing around with different filters to see if ti has any effect but I think possibly it may just be too light when it was shot?

Nausea editing

While watching the last shot I got during the first lot of filming I thought about possibly overlaying it with another shot, maybe of a different motion or momentum to further idea of motion sickness. I feel this works pretty well as it clouds over the images you can and can’t see, creating even more of a blur while you still get the sense of spinning. It makes it seem less of a flat image as your eyes are drawn to several parts at once, you may get into the rhythm of one movement but this will be disrupted by the other as there is no one fixed point.

This is the second splat test I did. I think I possibly like this one the best as of the big splat int he beginning but annoyingly it appears very short as all the ‘sick’ came out at once so I ran out very quickly. Also there’s a very annoying bird chirping very loudly throughout, something I didn't consider while filming very early int he morning... (I guess probably because I’m rarely awake at this time of day)

I’ve only myself to blame...

I’m still in the beginning of editing but already it’s starting to make me feel quite sick, watching the spinning over and over really does make you start to feel motion sick and in all honesty I only have myself to blame as I chose this topic... Even walking past a soup van earlier nearly make me puke from the smell. This project is already beginning to take it’s toll

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