Month: April 2019

The first thing that needs to be mentioned about AMNESIA/DENIAL | THE SEATTLE TIMES by Lauren Frohne is that objects filmed in shallow depth of field can be considered a specific feature of this work. Especially, even several hours after the first watch it was vivid images of canvas, brushes and painting what came across when I think about this video. Moreover, the director draws the viewers’ attention to paints and the narrator’s working process with them to demonstrate how art can push out all other things, sometimes bothering ones, from the mind of a person. Thus, the director makes sure to put drawing in the center of the frame as if to narrow all the surrounding world to colors and moves of the artist’s hands. (02:57)(03:41)

Another point worth mentioning is the director’s decision to implement both the voiceover track and natural sound. The purpose of such choice is to reflect the duality of a person’s self-expression. To be more specific, there are some things people usually do not talk about only silently consider in their thoughts. The kind of speech the narrator gives about her experience in the US army (rape and only nominal equality between the male and female staff) is exactly that type of things which people try to keep to themselves. Therefore, here the viewers hear voiceover as if it reflects the thoughts of the narrator. It creates a feeling of a private conversation and is more likely to win the trust of the audience. However, when she talks about art, the socially accepted topic, the video switches to natural sound, both for the sake of audio diversity and to show how deeply art has permeated in the narrator’s life that it now constitutes a natural part of her life. (00:27)

As it has been mentioned above, the director makes profound use of cutaways and inserts them massively in the footage. From the perspective of the efficient arrangement of frames, they help to avoid jump cuts and add artistic value and specification of what the director wants the viewers to see and feel. In this specific case, these are cutaways of the narrator working with canvas, paints, and brushes. They allow the viewer the insight into the world as it is seen through the narrator’s eyes. Especially, when three small paint cans fill the frame, it means that the narrator is concentrated on them in this particular point of time. (01:08)

Video reference:

Frohne, L. FILMS & PROJECTS BLOG ABOUT AMNESIA / DENIAL | THE SEATTLE TIMES [Video]. Retrieved from http://laurenfrohne.com/portfolio/amnesia-denial-the-seattle-times/

In regards to You Are Not Alone | The Experience of Depression by Megan Clark, the video starts with a powerful tool called J-cut. While the subject in the frame remains motionless, the voice-over narration begins. Mainly, this tool allows the viewers to focus on the meaning of what is being said, as the image plays an integral function at the beginning of the work. The visuals are essential for depicting emotions and providing the audience with eye-catching imagery, while the audio takes the primary accent. Also, it effectively creates a sense of foreshadowing making the viewer wonder what will happen next. (00:13)

Another feature of the video that creates the mood of the work is its black and white image. By convention, black and white footage is considered serious and intense. The absence of other colors speaks that the topic under consideration is rather often than not connected to hard times which slow down people from experiencing their lives deep in sound. This particular work sticks to the tradition as it renders the feelings of a person with depression.  Thus, the absence of other colors serves the story in terms of setting the emotional element to the foreground.(00:35)

The shadow is necessary for this video as they depict the inability of a person to fight against depression when left one on one with it. Similarly to the viewer who cannot accelerate the speed of playback, the person subject to depression can do nothing about their feeling enveloped in weakness. They can neither hide from it nor move forward. This person can do nothing and therefore whatever attempts to escape they make they are still trapped with the depression. Eventually, it starts to feel like standing still. It is what these rock shots transmit to the viewer and how they contribute to the story on the emotional level. (01:08)

The use of fade out and fade in most frequently signals some time passing by. In the context of this particular work, this edit option speaks volumes about the internal state of the depressed person. To be more precise, the tool suggests the viewers assume that depression usually does not develop overnight and, moreover, cannot be easily overcome. The implicit message here is that the person suffers from it for a long time, and the long exposure to depressive moods affects the quality of life in general. Besides, time may pass by without the person noticing it. (02:05)

Video Reference:

Clark, M. You Are Not Alone [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.meganeleanorclark.co/youre-not-alone

 

 

When it comes to THE BOWL – A film by Peter McKinnon, it strikes with the outstanding quality of editing of the work. The director uses conceptual match cut plus graphic match cut, parallel editing, witness point, and wide angle to put as many aspects of life in Kenya as possible within the frame of his camera.

Conceptual match cut + graphic match cut are editing techniques where the editor successfully matches two frames, preserving the integrity of the action. Although two shots are apparently taken with a difference of several years, when watching the work, this type of cut creates the impression of integrity in time. When the grassland in the first frame begins to fade out, the next one shows this very place with the result of evidence from the first sight. In this video, the editor creates a visual bridge that does not allow the viewer to notice a cut or some kind of continuity error between frames.

Parallel editing is also used to solve problems when joining frames. With this method, the overall duration of scenes and episodes is significantly reduced, and the video as a whole becomes more dynamic, as the editor eliminates the routine and uninteresting actions of the characters without causing jumps in the development of the action. In each separate fragment, something exciting or significant occurs. To emphasize the relationship of events, the author uses a guide figure, voice-over audio, and continuity of action. Also, fragments of alternating scenes are made approximately equal in duration and matching close-ups to indicate the equivalence of actions.

The director has chosen to use a wide angle because it allows shooting more objects simultaneously. This factor is critical for the purpose of the video in general as it should communicate to the world the state of affairs in Kenya, that is what these people do to survive, what tools they use, what surrounds them, and what their living conditions look like. Wide angle is also the closest to the human eye in terms of the broad visual coverage. The primary objective is to represent life as it is without exclusion of details and selective approach to what should be removed from frames. 

The Reveal is another high-efficiency tool implemented in this work. However, it is critical to mention that the director worked with it on the plot level primarily. Mainly, in the beginning, the video seems like a story about inequality of wealth distribution in the world and the African nations struggling due to such an unbalanced allocation. However, closer to the end of the video, the story reveals its actual message that the living conditions were caused by the actions of more developed nations who contaminated water and heated up the planet. Thus, it was possible to avoid the draught which killed animals, cattle and drove the population of the country to unemployment and starvation. The sequence of frames serves as pieces of evidence for this thesis.  

Video reference:

McKinnon, P. (2017). THE BOWL – A film by Peter McKinnon [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HetzwxXCO4E&t=76s