'The duality of FAME' is a concept that I created in
which there is an enigmatic force that needs to exist for fame to
work. There are two extremely definitive sides to fame, the good
(wealth, adoration, etc.), and the bad (Criticism, lack of privacy,
and mental torture). I chose to do this project as I am intrigued
and interested by the psychology of fame in itself; it is also a
current topical issue that has existed for decades and I felt that
this project as a whole has a place in our world today. The
relevance of my concept gives the project a real purpose; to discover
what fame really is. Over the course of my investigation I have come
to the realisation that this question, in my opinion, can never be
answered.
For this project I looked at the editing style of Ruth
Hogben, the concepts in the work of Millie Brown, and Liz Aggis' use
of movement through camera and subject. The influence from Ruth
Hogben's work can be seen in the majority of all of my films through
my use of colour and minimalistic editing. During the early stages
of the project I created my work in a vintage style, by slightly
desaturating and distorting colour, and cropping the footage into
cinematic widescreen. I also experimented with cropping into a 1:1
(square) format. Although I preferred the cinematic widescreen, the square format allowed me to create visually interesting compositions
that could express my ideas in different ways. Hogben's style can
mostly be seen in my work 'Count The Saints', 'Moving Portraits',
'Destroy' and many more throughout the project.
Millie Brown's concepts of "challenging
the idea of true beauty" was something that I touched upon in my
films 'Gone' ,In which I wore a plastic back over my head to take
away my identity, and 'Looks like this' ,In which I touched upon
being told/ forced to look a certain way; I showed this by drawing structural feature onto my body such as bones, muscles, and facial
features. I believe that the influence of these two artists really
shine through in my work.
When I was mentally exploring the themes and concepts
before creating work for the project I looked at multiple famous
people from a range of different industries to try and figure out
what it was about each of them that made them appealing to the public
however, I also considered the fact that some famous people are
strongly disliked by society. It was after this exploration that I
came to the conclusion that fame was not an unwavering definition,
but rather an infinite possibility. It was through this that I
created 11 archetypes to use as vehicles throughout my project
(Archetypes listed below). I chose to use these archetypes as it
gave all of the films consistency.
After creating the archetypes I then sectioned my ideas
into parts. Part One is about the loss of oneself; Part Two is about
image and identity; Part Three Wealth; Part Four is about opulence;
and Part Five is The Duality of FAME. Part five is the conclusion to
the project. The reason behind the ordering of my 5 concepts is down
to how they effect each other. I begin with the personality which
they transitions onto the 'look', this then effects how much money
they get which enables them to live a glamorous life. By splitting
my project up into sections it enabled me to focus and spend time on
one concept for a period of time as opposed to jumping randomly
between multiple ones. It was through doing this that I was able to
learn and fully understand each of my concepts as I had time to
investigate them properly.
'Video: Part One' was the introduction film to my
project and not a part of any of the project's sections. I used this
film to screen test some of the visuals I had intially imagined when
creating the concept. This proved to be a useful tool for me as it
introduced viewers to the type of visuals that they will be presented
with and also aided me in knowing what works and what doesn't.
'Count The Saints' was the first film in the project.
This film was about public perception; how we only ever see one side
to someone who is famous due to the way the media portrays them. When
making this piece I knew that I initially wanted it to appear still
but to also have a sense of movement. To achieve this look I began
shooting in the middle of the night and used a torch that changes
colours pointed at my face to create that sense of movement. I also
used very subtle facial expressions to achieve this. This film,
visually, had a huge impact on the rest of the work throughout the
project.
'Destroy' was the second film that was created for the
project. This explored the effect of drugs on the personality. In
this film I experimented heavily with the use of overlaying clips and
slow motion. Influenced by the 'Count The Saints' film I wanted this
film to have a contrast to the previous films message; to do this I
slowed the footage of my face down by -200% and contrasted it with
the smoke visuals that I left playing in real time. I also
experimented with cropping and filtering, techniques frequently and
effectively used by Liz Aggis. I digitally enhanced the blue to
created a vintage look; and I cropped the film into cinematic
widescreen to enhance the vintage effect. This film featured the
song “Off to the Races” by popular recording artist Lana Del Rey.
I chose to use the track as I believe that it is about drug abuse
and also as Lana Del Rey is seen by a lot of people as fake – I
felt that this was an appropriate decision.
'Corrupt' was heavily influence by 'Destroy'. This
film is about the internal damage that is caused by money. Greed is a
trait held within most human beings, driving them to do anything to
get what they desire. This greed inside burns and smolders until
everything has been destroyed out of an individuals “need”. After
we die, the money lives on. I once again decided to experiment with
smoke, cinematic widescreen, and filtering. In this film I enhanced
the red to created a very subtle hint of purple. I decided to crop
this piece into cinematic widescreen to enhance the horizontal lines
that are seen in the video. I also increased the contrast on the
clouds to make them appear a bit more 3D as opposed to looking quite
flat. From doing this I was also able to make myself look as if I had
been edited into the footage – communicating how nothing that is
seen in the media is real.
'Looks Like This' is about being told to look a certain
way to gain “success”. It was originally an idea for an hour
long performance art piece however I decided that in order to keep
the consistency it needed to be a film. This film links conceptually
(and also through performance) to Millie Brown. To adapt this idea I
still filmed in a public place performing the piece (Faster than
originally planned) but just performing to the camera rather than and
audience.
'Lush' was the film in which I experimented with
distorting footage. This effect matched the film's themes of fantasy.
To achieve this effect, I shot all of the footage through a wine
glass to bend and manipulate the image. In post production I
purposely over saturated the footage to give this film a more
glamourous aesthetic. The accompaniment that I chose to include
(Jazz classic 'Lush Life' – written by Billy Strayhorn, Performed
by Lady Gaga) was used to aid the overall atmosphere of the film.
In the film ''The Face', I explore the concepts of the
hiding behind characters. I experimented with the use of a backdrop,
rotation and cropping. This film links to Liz Aggis' use of movement.
Using the electronic accompaniment (Style of Eye – Girls), I timed
up the jump cuts to the beat to aid the aesthetic look of the film.
This is probably one of the more heavenly edited films out of the
entire series and I believe it is just as effective in getting my
point across as the unedited ones. It was this discovery that gave
me a lot more choice in my final piece as I can see that both edited
and unedited film works in my filming style.
Before deciding on imagery and concepts for my final
piece I first went back through my project and re-watched all of my
films and re-read my artist research pages. I took note of all of the
things that I felt were successful, to later consider as ideas
towards my final piece. I then went through the list and singled out
two possibilities to use for my final piece.
One idea was to have four or five sections (correlating
with the project's parts); exploring all of the concepts through the
use of sectioning to take inspiration of Liz Aggis' filming style.
This idea, however, I felt wasn't really necessary as all of the
films in this project have explored these ideas already.
The idea I decided to use was an extension on my film
'Moving Portraits'. I felt that a more appropriate way to close out
the project would be to use the archetypes that I had created.
Visually, I wanted to create an aesthetic that challenged the viewers
imagination and opinion on the subject matter by letting them view
all of the aspects of fame (that I personally explored). I decided
that I would keep the film as unedited as possible but to make the
footage appear more professional. This film is designed to be played
in a gallery as moving “paintings”. I knew for this film that I
would want to use a backdrop as this brought focus to the characters
on screen (taking note from my film 'The Face').
The Archetypes: The
Self-imprisoned, The Captured, The Greedy, The Fading, The
Shadow, The Conformer, The Defeated, The Adored, The Corrupt, and
The FAME.
The self-imprisoned: This
archetype is about how some will change and manipulate themselves but
then call for help on a situation they are causing themselves.
The captured: This archetype is
about the ones who are baited in with the promise of wealth, success
and adoration, but are instead trapped by by the horrendous nature
that fame brings along.
The greedy: This archetype is
based on the ones who are driven by money.
The fading: This archetype is
about the ones who didn't work out the balance and are slowly fading
out of the fame.
The shadow: This archetype is
about the ones who don't have “it”.
The conformer: This archetype is
about the people who just want to be accepted and respected.
The defeated: This archetype is
about the ones who couldn't handle it all.
The adored: This archetype is
about the ones who played the game well.
The corrupt: This archetype is
about the destructive inner state of a person.
The FAME: This is the archetype
of my concept. This can be seen fading in and out over the course
of the final film. I chose to fade it and overlay this archetype as
it encompassed all of the other archetypes in the project and bridged
them together.
The final film is amalgamating all
of the points that I have made throughout the project taking into
account the imagery of identity, success, and hatred.
When choosing a backdrop colour, I
decided to use a white one and also a black one; to symbolically
represent the theme through tone. However, the two tone's symbolism
does not directly correlate to the archetype. Although this was the
original plan instead I picked the tone based off of the archetype
costume design/ colour. I feel that this chose was a necessary one
to aid the film visually.
I decided to use lighting in this
film to make the footage appear more professional and to aid in the
'painting' aesthetic. I found by directing the lights to the side
softened the footage being shot, so I decided to continue this with
each archetype. For the final couple of shots that appear, I use the
light from my film 'Count the Saints' to link the end of the project
back to the start and also to reinforce the idea that we will still
always only ever see one side of the famous.
When initially choosing this
theme/concept I had no idea how much I would learn and gain from
investigating this project. I feel that this project has enabled me
to understand fame, the famous and understand what makes it work. I
have learnt that even though there are good sides and bad sides, both
are imperative. This is the FAME.
