Studio practice

 Video piece  

When first planning this I thought about doing it at home and filming it myself but after further conversations decided it would be better done at college with others around to help. I was more nervous about this but knew it would ultimately make the video look better. 

We had to set up the area in  the actual studio opposed to any of the photography studios as they had paper back drops so we wouldn't be able to hang the heart. We did bring up the proper lights, cleaned out a space and Julian shot it on his better camera so it could look as good and clean as possible. I was quite nervous about how the idea could pan out, I was quite sure it would look visually good but was apprehensive of what could happen with the bottle smashing. There wasn't really any option for a trail run as the wine would ruin the piece and its something unpredictable that cant really be controlled. We ran through the motions a few times without hitting it until we just decided to do it. The smashing went well, no issues with the glass cutting anything or anyone and looked and sounded very visually pleasing, with the wine spilling out dramatically. The actions are set out and performed in a methodical way that give it a ritualistic feel. Also wearing all black was a choice to help aid in looking uniformed and not distract to much from the rest of the actions and video.

I've briefly described this performative video as a piece challenging the ideas of the traditional female archetype and certain stereotypes around that, but I have spoken more about the ideas behind this in the heart making blog post. I do believe I  have reoccurring icons or symbolism, the bat, the bows and the wine. The bat, something pulled from the photos and used for this,  being a thing of sport and fun but also something that holds ideas of violence and self defence. The bows, seen on the heart and on my shoes are a personal style choice but an icon that holds ideas of pretty girly decoratives and then the wine. The soft material heart acts as a prop but its also more than just that. Its a thing made, decorated carefully with time spent on it then to be hit with a destructive intent. A thing made to be treated badly. Of course the fact that the piece is sewn is significant and it holds the same ideas of female craft that it has though out. The red wine could definitely hold symbolism but I believe it was chosen more out of aesthetic and personal preference. Realistically I could have chosen red ink to get the same effect or used anything else but I just found the red wine to be the best fit. There were factors that played into this choice, the broken wine glass inspired by the fragile sign, the idea of the bleeding heart but also a personal element with no greater meaning than red wine being my own favourite alcoholic drink. All of this just made it feel a fitting choice. I do believe viewers could pull more meaning from the choice of the wine, perhaps the idea of the desperate housewife or alcohol abuse and this idea of emotions drowned out by alcohol. I don't really have any issue with it perhaps holding these ideas but it wasn't my intention. I think that if you were to know the other pieces in this project like the photographs and soft sculptures it would be easy to understand and recognize the ideas and meanings behind this piece but if you were to view the video alone with no other knowledge it could perhaps be slightly more difficult to decipher.  

When editing the video I just used premiere rush, I'm semi familiar with it and it worked well enough. It was suggested to me that I perhaps cut the sound and make it a silent film to focus on the dramatic visuals but I decided to keep the sound as that was one of the first main aims for it and just focus on editing the volume and cutting out any unintentional studio noise. There was a sound of a door squeaking closed at the end that was tricky to get rid of without leaving a gap but I figured that if I just duplicated another part of the dripping noise and put it on a loop it wasn't noticeable that it had been altered. There were other parts I edited out and changed but it just made it look cleaner. Then just adding the front title and end page both very basic black screens with a white title, just uniformed and simple. 

I'm very pleased with how this turned out it was definitely a more nerve racking piece just due to being in it and the process but I'm glad because I believe it made a good result. There were definitely shaky bits in the video but it didn't affect it and anything to off could be edited out but I believe repetition and practice would just help with that. It was an enjoyable and fun process despite being slightly scary.