8 days

Ok. So I there are 8 days left until the final hand in. OH GOOD GOD.

I got it all together, model, props, photographer, studio, van, everything. But I was lacking the glue. I shot my shoot on Monday, it went swiftly, and I was pretty confident. The props looked great, the first shot was perfect, just as I had seen it! The crop of the face, the table, the pencils. But something is missing, I think, that it would have been better if I had recruited a stylist to help me style. It all worked in my head but thats no use in a shoot! I have difficulty getting it out. Maybe because of stress from the looming deadline, I panic! It also would have helped if I had a professional model. My model is stunning, dont get me wrong, but I think I had taken on too much with being in charge of all production that I failed in directing her well. I have a big selection job ahead. and post production too.

My film and book on the other hand are going very well! I re-re-shot the film and it looks great, the crops and angles are sweet. AND im learning how to use final cut pro! I am by no means a pro yet but its a start. The book is forcing me to use in-design too which makes my life so easy now that I know how to use it. So far its 57 pages long, just need to add images and finalise the formatting. WOOP.

By the end of the week, i.e sunday, I must have finished my film, book, and images. Sent the images off to print, and written my reflective discourse essay. AND have written more of the commentary. YES. I will do it! Monday I will print and take the book/books for binding and burn the dvd. oh yes.

losing the will

so i'm losing it. i tested my final ideas that i have been agonising over for weeks now, and the results are. SHIT. well, i think they are very poor, im not sure. quite possibly the poorest work i have attempted. i am not a film student, so imposing a film loop project on myself was somewhat ambitious. i keep denying that i am a make-up artist and its gone on for about a year and half now. i need to get a grip and embrace it!

so my film idea is to shoot repetitive actions. i filmed myself putting on lipstick about 13 times, as this is the number i usually get to when i count in my head before i tell my self to STOP itt. then i start again...I then filmed myself putting on mascara and tried liner but the camera had given up by then and i was ready to jump out the window! However, i refrained and packed up, emailled my tutors to rant about how im going to fail! then went for a walk and bought popcorn. I have since eaten most of the popcorn and I plan to go see my tutor on monday. phew.


here is a test i did of the filming where i repeatedly applied lipstick in different colours.

this may be closer to the money than my idea to do it 13 times with the same colour as

"the only thing that can be repeated ultimatley is difference between repetitions. thats what repeated, the difference."

Tom McCarthy, The Same Roturns.
Talk at projectspace 176
November 2009

the shoot idea was to show repetition. ha! obviously! but im trying to show that its the action of repetition that brings the calm, order, control etc...but i cant quite do it...in my head i see a girl sitting in a chaotic place, ordering objects, be it building blocks, cups, shoes or food and doing it the same way in every shot, the objects are spraypainted so that there is a blanket of colour to void any communication of the object itself.

Idea..one with the model at a desk, school desk? lining up coloured pencils. the pencils sprayed too. the model in a place, a large space, cluttered, but not overly. where??! with large objects, a chair, a table, lamp, cushion (?) kettle, trunk. painted. in the same colour order as before but not neccesarily in a particular formation.

I shot with a friend in her wonderfully messy room, and with my beautifully spraypainted cups:






The idea is there....but where does make-up and hair and styling fit in?? i need to have an epiphany. FAST.

its not the data its the process

so i have been getting off topic. i keep trying to move forward with my project and i'm getting confused. i set out to explore repetition, starting with my compulsion to repeat, and now i seem to be focusing on these texts i write of my 'scenes'. this concerns me as i never set out to do a wholy personal project. i have had too many opinions, each trying to help, to push me to where they see is the strongest but i need to do it myself. i rely on positive reinforcement. it needs to stop. go with what i think. what i want. it will be good enough, i am good and i forget that as im not surrounded by my positive reinforcement "officers" anymore.

HOW DO I FIX IT???

i have gone back to my original proposal, i wrote down what it is about repetition.

what is repeated?

words
numbers
counting
actions/behaviours
scenes

why is it neccessary?

calming technique
order
control
reiterate
confirm reality
make it become familiar

where does it come from?

personal
inside
internal

its about the action of repetition, not the memories/scenes themselves. yes, i do repeatedly see these scenes but uts not just about that. its about control. calming. organising. working through. its annoying. irritating. REPETITION!! mum on the hill, mum on the hill, mum on the hill, mum on the hill, mum on the hill, mum on the hill.

does it become harder to understand?
like a rhythm, music?? could i compose a tune based on the rhythmic sound of repeating a phrase like Diana Deutsch

the pieces of text i write are short. they are somewhat detached, from what was a very harrowing experience. my brother read them the other day and he cried. he remembered them just as i had written them. that was surprising to discover. i keep thinking i need to repeat to remember, reiterate, re-live almost. but really, rik is my proof. my proof that i am not alone in this, i am not in need of clinical help, i just miss my dad and this is the only way to deal. i didnt have time to process it when it happened. i was in the middle of my exams! because, now, returning to repetition, this i can control. it seems an odd thing to control! the past happened and it was out of my hands. people left, some returned and made amends, some left forever. some even stuck around to taunt. out of my hands. so i repeat to control.

its not the DATA its the PROCESS

overwriting

Pavel Buchler

day after day after day

I think I need to find somewhere to work. Somewhere I can make a mess and talk to myself. My bedroom is getting smaller and smaller and I'm losing focus. No, correction, I cant find focus! My tutorial with Melissa are like a booster shot. I leave completely inspired and focused then I forget it all. I need to find a system that helps me get out all that information and follow the paths we discuss!!

exquisite pain

I am Sophie Calle, just 24 years too late. She is a french artist who completed my project the year I was born. Crap. Not exactly but close. She is still wonderful though.

She was waiting for her lover to meet her in New Dehli on January 24th 1985 but he never showed. He was in hospital with a gamy finger. She was dumped the next day unceremoniously over the phone, a red phone.

Sophie returned to France and decided to start the healing process by using her experience and asked friends, family and others when they had suffered most. She then used their accounts to put her own suffering into perspective. The result was a book, split into "before unhappiness" and "after unhappiness"





the images in "before unhappiness" were of her scholarship to Japan, I wonder what she would have done with the images if there hadn't been an "after".













Sophie's passage is on the left, it changes on every page with varying details about the moment of unhappiness, each accompanied by the image of the red phone in the room where it happened. The text fades and becomes shorter over the passing of time, the time it takes for her to get over it and accept it. The image remains the same.

With repetition as necessity I am not repeating the images to get over it or accept it, I dont want them to fade or change either, they are there to remind me that it happened.

So I intend to respond...by writing my account over the course of a few weeks to see the result, I respond to text. It is my way toward images.

repetition as necessity

My final major project is based on repetition. Or more, my necessity to repeat.
I have been thinking about the ways in which I repeat: counting steps, repeating words or phrases, dates, times, hours, my systems of behaviour, and most prominently the way I replay scenes and conversations from times of trauma in my mind. Over and over and over and over. The scenes come in flashes, sharply changing to the next image and occasionally lingering.

My dad lying in the bed at Margie's house.
My 7 year old brother sitting in the pew beside me picking at a tissue.
My 25 year old brother on the alter looking up to the sky.
My mum and her friend standing on the hill.
The rope to lower him.

In my tutorials with Melissa I've been trying to figure out why I do this, and where I should take it. Freud comes up alot, his theory that we repeat as a method of coping with trauma, and by doing so we accept and get over it. I dont believe that is what I am doing by repeating. I truly believe that I repeat to remember that it happened. If I dont replay these scenes then I will forget, I have forgotten! Its a way to make sure that I remain in reality and not in a dream world where he is still there and I've just not gone to visit. Therefore, Repetion as Necessity.

It is neccesary to preserve the memory.
It is neccesary to keep the facts correct.
It is neccesary to make sure I dont forget.
It is neccesary so I can remember to tell Ross.
It is neccesary so I realise that it happened.

miss van

I've been working on my final major project but for now.....

M.V.A "RED CHEEKS" COLLECTION 2009 from mydogispolite on Vimeo.

results are in...

Desire/Despair = 78% = 2:1
Mutual Identity = 85% = 1st

78+85/2= 82% = 2:1*

Research Proposal = 80% = 2:1

Overall = 2:1

Not too bad :)

*i know the math doesn't add up!

desire/despair

Alongside the Goldwell project was the Desire project. It was the individal part of the unit. I struggled with my time management, and found it hard to focus on Desire while doing the group work too, as it took alot of time and energy trying to organise with 7 people. So I thought what desire is to me, it seems to bring pain in a way. I looked at the buddhist belief that desire causes suffering, but to me it feels a little different. It doesn't cause suffering but aids it.

This was my response:

‘Desire/Despair'

Desire and Despair are twins (Gaiman, 1992). They are not identical twins but twins indeed. They are not quite opposites and they are not the same but they are twins. They have a likeness that is at times uncanny, where one often displaces the other. Both have the power to blind and blur reality. Both encourage repetitive actions, that make us, as Freud would say, repeat disaster in love and in life. (Edmundson. 2003 p.vii)

“Repeating in them comes out of them, slowly making clear to any
one that looks closely at them the nature and the natures mixed up
in them. This sometimes comes to be clear in every one.”
Stein, G. (2006)
Twins have a likeness that is more one than the other. The nature of desire is the continuous longing, the incredible heart-wrenching feeling in your chest, the bursting feeling in your head, the tingles in your tummy when you see, hear, feel, touch, taste, that which you desire. So similar is the nature of despair, the continuous ache, the incredible heart-wrenching feeling in your chest, the numb feeling in your head, the endless want for something other than despair.
There is an intensity with which they both induce a self-centred disposition. To be completely wrapped up in desire is to be thinking only of how to achieve, how to get, have, obtain your object of desire. To be engulfed in despair, is to stop trying. To lose hope in the world and always look to the negative, always numb. Freudians would say that once “our idealisations dissolve, the honey-glow disappears, and we’re tolled back, as Keats has it, to our sole selves...disillusioned, void of life, and waiting for the next falsehood.” (Edmundson. 2003 p.viii)
‘Desire/despair’ is the in-between. Beyond desire. Beyond despair. The meeting point, if you will, after desire has built you up so high and despair has pummelled you down to the darkest depths. I aimed for the final image to capture the blank void.
Gaiman says that Desire is androgynous, of “medium height” and briefly flashes a “knife-like smile”. The colour of desire is red, passionate deep red. Despair, on the other hand is grey:

“Her skin is cold and clammy; her eyes are the colour of sky on the
grey wet days that leach the world of colour and meaning; her
voice is little more than a whisper. Despair says little and is patient.”
Gaiman, N (1992)

I had twin models for the shoot, Alice and Iz Lindsay. I intentionally avoided making one twin Desire and the other Despair as the similarity between the two was important. To achieve this, I looked to the styling. They wore almost identically androgynous stylings with a grunge feel: skinny jeans, grey t-shirts, checked flannel shirts (different patterns) and ox-blood red Dr Martens boots and shoes. The make-up was simple, exactly the same, making their eyes slightly squarer which made them look a little masculine. The difference was in the hair, Alice has a blonde short square boy crop and Iz has a half head of bright red hair styled in a victory roll at the front. Blonde = despair, red = desire, perhaps.
The shoot was done in low light and daylight as I wanted to push my comfort zone of using well lit, clean images and achieve a variety of textures to use in post production. I began to experiment with different compositions involving splicing one twin, repeating the section and placing it over or next to the whole twin to achieve a sort of split personality effect. This produced mixed results.







At the presentation I said nothing I had intended, it came out all wrong as per usual. I never mentioned any theorists to back me up, I rambled and didnt make it clear what I was trying to say. But I think some people understood. I handed in one final image along with two concertina booklets of all the variations I tried out in photoshop. I wanted the final image(s) to look fragmented but solid. I must have made some sense as my mark, albeit the worst mark I have received for my work since term 2 in first year, was 78%. I could have done much better had I came up wth the idea earlier in the term, but that could be said for everything in life, "if only i'd started sooner, if only i'd done this, that blah blah." The point is, I know where I went wrong. I let myself get too absorbed by the group work that I exhausted my brain and had to squeeze my shoot into the week before the deadline. Not a good plan.

85% baby!

It was a long long long and tiresome proccess to prepare for the Goldwell shoot. After explaining our 'concept' for the umpteenth time, we were all set to start preparations. We each had our roles.
Helen and Silvana were the photographers
Rachel was the wardrobe stylist
Tomoko made moustaches and helped style hair
Lusia and Nina were the make-up
and I was the hair colourist/stylist/cutter.Once I had the wigs it took a few concoctions of the Goldwell Elumen colours to achive the correct 'yellow orange on the extreme of natural' that we needed for the shoot to be a success. But more than that, I had to do two, getting them exactly right was imperitive or the whole thing would not look right. Needless to say, I am a genius (ha!). And look slightly narcassistic too as it matches my own hair colour.






We managed to get it together for the interview on film. I had scavenged frames and pictures from my brother to use in the background, and we fitted the yet unstyled wigs onto our speakers, Nina and Luisa. Much to the enjoyment of maggie!

Nina, Luisa and myself found vintage wallpapers from E. W. Moore in Upton Park, East London, to use as our backdrop and in the frames. We needed a heavy patterned print that would add to the 'olde worlde' ness of the shoot. We settled on a beautiful brown and orange floral number:





Rachel came through with the styling from vintage shops and we set up for the test shoot in Luisa's grandparents flat. It was perfect! Not touched since the 70s, we had a few problems with the male model but luckily Helen saved the day with a Rob who lived nearby! Emily was our wonderfull female model. On the final day we had Richie from Models 1 who was the sweetest boy ever.




For the final shooting day I took on the role of directing the set, getting the backdrop up, frames up, carpet down with the help from Helen and Silvana too! They both shot, Helen on digital and Silvana on film. We had Mike(?) filming for the video too. PRESSURE! Nina, Luisa, Tomoko and Rachel had the models ready by the time we were putting the finishing touches on set so it couldnt really have gone better. And we had the chance to continue shooting after our time for extra shots.

After the shoot came the endless edits and photoshopping to make the colours just right, although I think I need far more training in that area!! I did however remove an arm! Yes, an arm!




Our final decision:



All the hard work in pre and post production paid off. I am well chuffed at our result! Even if the final images were a little yellow....