Phemia Demosthenous MSc Filmmaking & Media Arts

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.

I came across an interview with artist filmmaker Kat Anderson from the Metal magazine website. In it, she speaks about her approach to her experimental work and the headspace she enters in order to work through her ideas and materialise them. I found it very helpful and inspiring for my own process.  Particularly this quote:  "I'm not thinking of an audience when I'm working, I am trying to listen very intently to a space, an event, an ancestor, a material, a dream or to myself, for what needs to come out and how. I suppose how could be the place where I meddle or intervene or edit, but I am still trying to work from a place of a received message and mission and let that guide me and recentre me." (Kat Anderson, 2024) Kat Anderson Interview

Throughout this course, I've found that writing my thoughts and ideas in a semi-poetical form has helped me elaborate my artistic ideas in more experimental ways. Whilst watching back the footage and listening to the conversation had with the artist a few days ago, I began writing about the main theme that kept coming up from watching her mark and cut pieces of fabric: the boundaries that construct and re-negotiate identity, and the 'inbetweenness' that pervades both Cyprus, in its political and geographic position, and its "post-colonial" (or better, neo-colonial) identity. Below is a series of writings and a mindmap I did, which helped me create the visual piece that was reflective of these ideas. 

 Experimenting with Footage from Recent Shoot The artist I spoke to during my recent shoot is currently working with textiles inspired from Ancient Cypriot heritage. After studying Cypriot archives and artefacts, she came up with the idea of bringing ancient elements of Cypriot heritage and integrating them within modern Cypriot society by taking ancient designs and putting them on women's two-piece swimsuits.  During the shoot, the artist talked me through the process of making one of her pieces, which I recorded on both cameras (one static wideshot and another handheld close-up). She first talked about the fabrics she uses, then marked them with removeable white pencil, before cutting and shaping them in order to sew the separate pieces together. The process of watching the artist construct a new piece was very self-reflexive, as throughout explaining her process she reflected on decisions she made and what could have been done differently in hindsight. Whilst watching the f...

 Stills The shoot with the Cypriot artist went extremely well and tied in with the themes of my project in a very interesting way, as the work of this artist also looks at comparing past and present as well as coalescing the two. I asked all the questions I had prepared and also came up with new questions during our conversation, mostly involving her work: how she comes up with her designs and why she makes certain creative decisions. What can be improved in future shoots: I should check and double-check the sound from both cameras in order to ensure it is being recorded in stereo and not just one ear. This is a mistake that happened with one of the two cameras that led to the audio only being heard from the left ear when wearing headphones. Although this was easily fixed in post-production, it should be prevented next time. The same issue also resulted in some footage not having any recorded sound at all. Although this footage was not crucial, and sound was recorded separately as...