Phemia Demosthenous MSc Filmmaking & Media Arts

Watching my video on a television was the best decision, since - on a bigger screen, with a better audio system - I spotted a few mistsakes and things that needed adjustments that I wasn't able to see on a laptop screen with headphones. Firstly, the sound design was great, but there were moments where my voice was a lot more prominent over my grandmother's voice and morfo's voice, whereas my intention was to have both voices at equal volumes so they blend into one and are difficult to separate aurally. Secondly, I wasn't the biggest fan of the colour grading for the very last shot, so I want to correct this and make the black parts of the image less dark than they actually are at the moment. And lastly, there was an almost imperceptible jump cut at around 4minutes and 30 seconds of my video, that was so subtle I didn't even notice it even aftering watching the video on my laptop tens of times. Now I just have to make these minor adjustments and export it (hopefully ...

 

I wanted to make a blog post to make a note of the books I've borrowed from the library and have been reading for a few weeks. These have inspired me during the process of beginning and refining my video excerpt; they've helped me both conceptually and in post-production due to how relevant they are to the filmmaking styles I've been exploring throughout the course. The first is a book called Ex-Cinema by Akira Mizuta Lippit. Although this has been a difficult read, it is extremely conceptual and explores philosophical theories of experimental filmmaking and video in depth. I have a few chapters left to read, and I'm particularly interested in reading a chapter called 'Revisionary Cinema', that explores dreams in film and video. The next is Touch: Sensuous Therory and Multisensory Medi a by Laura U. Marks. This is a book that explores haptic visuality in total depth, going from analog to digital filmmaking, even exploring haptic visuality in nature documentaries...

Since my last blog post, I've been working on the last refinements of my video. Firstly, sound design. I listened to the audio both with and without headphones, making sure that it was consistent, and louder or quieter when the scene called for it. For instance, a clip showing my grandmother where the sound of a sewing machine can be heard, should be quieter than a clip showing the actual sewing machine whilst it's being used. Additionally, for clips when my voice is overlapped with others' voices, I wanted the volume levels of my voice and my grandmother's voice to be as equivalent as possible, so that voices are difficult to recognise and/or distinguish. This accentuates my intention of fusing subjectivities, and positioning my own self in other's subjectivities within the same community of people (Cypriot women). I also worked on perfecting the timing of the subtitles to make for a more seamless viewing experience. These are the kinds of details that will elevate...

By this point, I have added almost all of the subtitles. I also recorded all the voiceovers of my voice layered on top of the voices of those featured in the video. After receiving some feedback, I decided to flesh out the dream aspect a bit more, so after the first voiceover in the beginning of the video, I insert a snippet of the "movement" sequqnce that comes later on, as a foreshadowing mechanism. At this point I improved the sound design, though it still needs some refinement, and colour graded the last scene so that it matched more with the tone of the rest of the video. I still feel like it needs to be adjusted, since the white of the image is very prominent. Lastly, I included voiceover of myself at the end in order to conclude the video (since it begins with my voice I wanted it to end with my voice making a statement about language in order to tie the video together but still cause contemplation).  

I refined some details in both sequences: I included some "B-Roll" footage of my grandmother's workspace that felt impactful and included voiceover of just myself speaking at the beginning of the video. I felt that the sequences worked well together, especially with the "movement" sequence in between the two of them. I also thought the voiceover of just myself in the beginning framed the video well, as it made the dream element more explicit.  At this stage, the sound design needed work; I was having trouble with different clips having different volume levels, and had to go and sort this out manually. I also put a maximum peak limit on all the audio clips, as many of them were peaking (going into the red of the audio bar). I had some other qualms about aspects of the video and so decided to send it to my Cypriot friend for a more objective opinion.  

 I decided to give myself a break from the initial sequence, so I could start the next half of the video. I figured this would also be productive, since it would allow me to watch the first half with fresh eyes. I started watching back footage of the artist again and trying to decide which of it would be interesting to juxtaposed with the footage of my grandmother. I did the same with the audio, since I already knew voiceover had become an important aspect of my film. Not just voiceover, but layering my own voice repeating the "subject's" words over theirs.  I experimented with different footage. First, I began with a close-up shot of the artist's hands, marking and cutting the fabrics they worked with. I used this initially since it directly paralleled the footage of my grandmother's hands at the beginning of the video. But, in the end, I decided this wasn't impactful enough: 1) because I didn't like the composition of the shot in general, and 2) I didn...

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, the subway sequence was still at a very rough stage. My intention was to push the visuals further, which I did by experimenting with colour grading and different layering effects on Premiere Pro. I liked the effect of a red-dominant colour grade, with high contrast and sharpness, as it reminded me of the look of burnt or expired film. This also transformed the subwy pattern into something very corporeal, almost cell-like. I continued to experiment and refine the colour grade in later progress excerpts until I was happy with it and felt like it invoked exactly the feeling I was after.

I haven't been updating my blog whilst working on my video, so the next few blog posts will be dedicated to showing the progress I've made since my last blog post. The experimentation with superimposition seen in my previous blog post grew into my five-minute short excerpt. I wanted this sequence to be followed by a transitionary sequence - one that indicates movement and distance across time and space. I chose to layer clips I filmed on the subway, along with sound I recorded on Glasgow's old subways, in order to invoke this. This is the first export I made after working on this idea. My intention was to follow this "movement" sequence with a sequence of the Cypriot artist I had a conversation with, thus showing intergenerational changes and similarities (since my grandmother and the Cypriot artist engage in similar, hand-oriented crafts).  The "movement" sequence of the subway was a very rough draft at this stage, I wanted to push the visuals further i...

Whilst developing my five-minute excerpt, I experimented more with superimposition. I superimposed a scene of my grandmother handling some fabric, against ancient scripture that appears in one of the fabric designs in the artist's studio. The video of the fabric was recorded out of focus, with the ancient scripture slowly coming into view. Against the very tactile video of my grandmother's hands touching and folding a piece of fabric, this makes for a doubly tactile sensation, engaging both the sense of vision and touch simultaneously, as well as contradictingly. This excerpt would go well with some personal voicoever so as to assert my own subjectivity.