The exhibition.

Sticking to my current plan of having the piece of work I aim to create as an installation, reinforced with a bible like book in front of the viewer upon a lectern, giving off physical religious vibes, I'd arranged a carpenter to specially make a lectern for my piece of work, one that was the correct height, had a little design within it, stained wood etc that my bible could rest on open and the audience could then just skim through the book during, before, or after the piece. 

I was very pleased to find that thanks to early planning I finally have part of my exhibition , a finished lectern piece, specially put together and stained for my use. 

Another Choice In Found Footage

Green Street 

[Ref: "Green Street Hooligans", Directed by Lexi Alexander, 2005]

Green Street, released 2005, is a British/American independent drama film about football hooliganism in England. The idea of the film is to show another culture, an american college student, suddenly being chucked into the deep end of the West Ham football firm, who spectates their commitment to each other, to football and what they believe in, and is morally transformed.

I felt the film was a good example of where worship comes into football. The lengths that people will defend their beliefs. People supporting certain teams can take it as a personal insult when they lose, hooligans can become aggressive, and will fight for their team until they die.

The opening scene, in a way, reminded me of a great religious battle. Opposing sides taunting and mocking and finally having a battle with each other, seeing who's worthy enough to come out on top, but creating complete chaos around them.

It also supports the idea that the support of a team is passed down in generations. In the story you have brothers, both sharing the same past of hooliganism, the support of a team taken to the extreme of violence, and death.

Both the footage and the chant of West Ham team that is frequently sang within the film, with fierceness and undying support in it, I feel would benefit my piece. When it comes to editing, if i were to use specific scenes, I'm hoping that the audience won't have to watch the film to understand what the idea is behind having the footage involved in my overall piece.

A Choice In Found Footage

Lady Gaga

[Ref: Lady Gaga, Front cover of single ' Judas', 2011]

With my new idea under way, to use found footage, I began to scope through various types of footage that I think would be suitable for my piece. That’s when the newest ‘Hot’ celebrity popped up onto my TV screen singing one of the many famous songs “Bad Romance”. No other than the “Mother Monster” herself, Lady Gaga.

Over a period of time, she’d been striding her way into the public eye, getting noticed and becoming a stand-alone icon of worship and inspiration. Known for her eccentric music videos, and further eccentric style of fashion. It’s become hard not to notice her existence, and a further struggle to fall into the category of appreciative fan, whether it be for her music, her creativity, or her bravery for half of the clothes, make up, accessories, and hairstyles she wears.

 If there was ever a celebrity to be classed as the closest to a religious idol, Lady Gaga is striding forth to that title in bright colours, and catching the world by storm. With the amount of publicity that is heading her way currently and no doubt will in the future, and seemingly being this generations biggest influence in pop  music ( other generations having ‘The Beatles’ , ‘Prince’ , etc. )                 

Some footage of her, back stage, on stage etc, felt almost compulsory. Luckily for me she was doing one of the biggest shows of her life, one that she herself had been building up to and dreaming about on her way to the top. In her realisation of her dreams, the footage of the show, covered by HBO, involved backstage footage of her speaking to her friends in confidence, as well as her big show in front of thousands of people. It gave the audience, able to watch the HBO cover, an insight into her true feelings, her background and this ability to relate to her before you see her in front of millions showing her talent. 

Large shows like this are a very good example of worship. People pay a lot of money, the bigger the show the more you pay, to spend hours after hours listening to them, staring up at them and pretty much worshipping them. The hysteria of being star struck catches on through the crowd and one can't help but be swept away by it all. 
With its clear relationship to worshipping, and Lady Gaga's rising popularity, it seemed more than apt to have her within my piece of work, simply to reinforce the idea to the audience. 

A Change In Ideas

Previously I’d gained some footage from the TV that I attempted to make into a triptych as an experimentation to understand how the editing works and how the look can be achieved.

Upon reviewing the footage, and having it played side by side, it came to my attention that it held a certain appeal; it seemed more eye-catching than the previous idea of silhouetted figures, inspired by Daniel Askill. For a second opinion I grabbed one of the tutors in order to see if the aesthetically pleasing look was the same for them, seemingly the turn out was the same, and the idea was put across that I use found footage to bring forth variety and larger amounts of footage.  

With the new plan going ahead, I aim to put across the feeling of worship through different aspects of my subjects. Previously mentioned with my editing experimentation, I aimed to get an array of programmes for TV to put across the idea that the public would watch anything, and a lot of the programmes that we do watch and surround us have the purpose of escapism. There are other programmes that act as a guide to how people should live their lives, dress etc. These are the certain types of TV footage that I wanted to get, as I feel it links to the Bible. The Bible acts as a guideline on how to live a full life and to be a good person, the modern form of a bible is more about self-image, a way of living and how to behave, or rather how not to behave (I.e. programmes like Big Brother that seem fond of showing people at their worst and most stupid.) 

I'd spoken to one of the tutors about footage that could be gained and took the suggestion of what kind of footage I could get, specifically for football. Within the discussion I had to consider what message I was trying to put across about football and how I was going to show it. Taking all possibilities into consideration, I had to make a decision on whether I show crowds being happy, chanting, whether I show hooligans and violence or whether I were to just show the highlights of football (mainly scoring goals.)
I had to stick to my original idea of showing worship, and with that in mind I was shown various pieces of footage available online and on TV, that would allow me to show football crowds at their best and worst, how far they go in their 'religious' beliefs ( painting their bodys, tattooing themselves, to the further extremes of all out gang fights with other teams nationally and internationally.) 

And finally Celebrity footage will orientate around such things as red carpet scenarios, premieres and even golden globes, showing celebrities when they're celebrated for their roles in the media, and also delving into the idea that these celebrities are idolized, stalked, copied, set as heroes in peoples eyes etc. Putting across the idea that people set celebrities as their gods. 

As far as my piece is concerned, I felt that using TV as a source would also reinforce the theme of TV as one of the styles of triptych. With the ideas that are going to go into the type of footage that I want to get , and why, I feel that footage gained will convey a better and more stronger meaning behind my piece than my original plans.

The Book

Todays activity has been in aid of the exhibition. In an attempt to spread it all out evenly so I'm not rushing any of the aspects of my work, I'm spending time doing my sketchbook and the "Worship" book for my exhibition, and spending week days in college doing production stuff.

We had a talk with the main art tutor about the exhibition space that is available to us, and had some suggestions on the way we could set it out. Whilst this talk was going ahead, I began to draw out a plan of my exhibition. There was a choice of having it separated via an installation or having the piece on a show reel with other film pieces. 

As shown in the above image, my idea for the set up of the triptych is in an installation, as I feel it strays from the conventional documentaries, films etc that are going to be put together on show reels, and also isolates the audience, giving a clear sign that this shouldn't be treated as another film on the show reel, but rather an experience. 

As explained within the image above, the installation allows a border to be around the screen. With a screen to host the film piece, the audience will stand in front of a lectern, with the worship book placed in front of them, allowing their attention to switch between book and screen, that will hopefully fill in any questions that may be asked about the piece, including a synopsis etc.

A lot of my focus today has fallen upon little details that will make the book seem like the  bible. Many bibles and books from medieval periods in time begin their sentences or pages with Illuminated Lettering. A style of lettering commonly using gold and black, with designs either in the shape of a letter, within the letter, or around the letter.

The next little details come with the style of writing. Hand written as they often were, those who wrote a bible or created them, wrote in calligraphy style. Through various tutorials either online or in a specially bought calligraphy style book, with the correct apparatus, I'm aiming to mimic the style as shown below from an example of a bible page from the Marazin Bible, however the style that I will end up writing in  the book may have a more modern feel, to keep up the feel that this piece is a modern take on an ancient custom (worshipping).

And finally, the main detail is the book front cover. Getting a leather style front cover was the main detail that I wanted for the book, basing the front cover of many leather bound books i.e. the old style English Dictionary, and even Adam Douglas Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy black leather bound book with embossed golden writing. I feel as much detail as possible needs to be put into the book, giving it an air of credibility and enhancing the realism that the book is genuine, though it won't have the clear wear and tear like it's a book that has been read frequently. 

This is the current state of the front cover, a leather bound effect is wrapped around the original book with a seem across the spine to make it look more authentic. " Worship" is to go across the front cover of the book in embossed gold lettering, keeping the cover simple and minimal. 

Experimental Editing

In an attempt to understand how to edit a triptych, and have more of an understanding of why its crucial to measure when filming so I'm aware of how to edit, I've began to practice on editing the triptych on my own.

The above image shows an example of the effect you can gain from cropping video footage. I'd recorded off the HDD DVD Recorder that records directly from TV. I had a small problem with getting the recordings from the TV onto DVD, I asked the technician what the best dvd disk would be to use, and he suggested the DVD-RAM would work better than the current DVD -R that I had bought specifically for the job.

I used Adobe Premier for the purposes of editing.

The pieces of footage that I got off the TV at the time were various little clips. I felt I had to make it clear which topic was which, I did however struggle to find something specifically about TV, so as a general thing, I recorded programmes that are often popular on TV (I.e. News, Game shows, Sitcoms, Chat shows, and Make-over programmes.) As for celebrity programmes, I found a documentary on Michael Jackson, A brief outline of celebrity " goings on " through a quick 5 minute news flick. And a message made from singer Lady Gaga, to the public about Japan. And finally football is covered through a short documentary presented by Sir Alan Sugar, and a brief small league football match.

Following the above experimentation and putting the new learnt skill to use, I created a triptych and had it play when cropped. Without adjusting clips, just cropping them, meant that some of the image would be cut, and that a lot of the programme would be missing. It gave me an idea of how accurate I'm going to have to be with my images and make sure that they're all in the right measurement to make editing a little easier for myself. 

Finally, with a better understanding of what I can achieve, and looking at a tutorial on cropping etc, within adobe premiere, I was able to adjust according to the general layout of a shot. When it came to looking at the footage, I found a lot of the action  happened within the middle of the shot, allowing me to crop down to the middle as much as possible and then move it along with the use of the "motion" option. 

It's all really been beneficial, giving me an insight to how much can be done to get the triptych effect, and that quite a lot is resting on the idea that I measure it up properly. It's also made it clear how I want it to be set out, the neat black border between the three clips gives it a more formal and professional appearance.

It had been made clear, through the practicing on my own computer, that a laptop may be able to handle the programme but would possibly lower the quality of the footage due to lack of system tools/space etc. So I aim to be using this computer as a tool of practice and setting out the footage that I want playing at specific times, so when it comes to editing the process can be made shorter and planned. 

Timetable for this week

It's getting to the point where I can't be wasting any more time on research and building up on stuff , I can do this at home.

 I've started to look into experimentation. I have been going into the photography studio, seeing if I can film there and learned that I can't, but I can borrow the flash head which is almost vital to the celebrity piece. 

As i looked upon the timetable previously made that highlighted how little time I have left on this project, I made this attempt at controlling all the time that I spend on my FMP. Though things may change during the week that could postpone one production or change the outcome of another, it's at least a start on planning everything and pushing this production forward. 

Already there is a bit of a hiccup in my project that I feel I have to note as it affects the outcome of one of the pieces of footage. 

Previously I'd been speaking to a local football team in an attempt to gain someone with the athletic background behind them, giving them an air of credibility, to perform a couple of football tricks that I could film. However this plan fell through, leaving me with little time to find someone else without it affecting the quality of the shoot. 

Now I simply plan on having the football and footballer in view, as he moves the ball about switching from foot to foot and turning like he's dodging other footballers. Though it might not be as impressive as football tricks, it still seems obvious that this is a footballer, and the lack of detail allows the audience to believe that this is someone famous. 

Storyboards

I've finally managed to finish up a storyboard that I'm happy to show after the 2 other attempts made this week. Previously I'd been toying with idea's on what I wanted to portray and what I wanted to use to put it across. However, thanks to Daniel Askills advert for a shower, in the style of a triptych, I've managed to narrow down the style that I want to achieve and thus narrow the research required to build up a good enough storyboard.

As you can see from the storyboard, the figures are in a specific colour on a black background, this is due to the fact I want low key lighting for my film, and the silhouettes of the characters are going to have a coloured glow that will relate to what they represent (i.e green for sport, red for glamour/romance and white for technology/electricity) 

Within the text of the storyboard, its all rather basic explanations of what's happening within this and even relates to some research previously done specifically for the storyboard (i.e. the celebrity poses)

I think that it's a clear basic storyboard, that doesn't hold much detail in it, but due to keeping the context as simple as possible for a rather complex presentation, I wasn't expecting a lot of detail to go into it. 

There isn't a variety of shots either within the storyboard, in fact its all just a full length shot, this is again due to the inspiration created by Daniel Askill's piece, with his simplistic advert that was shot really well. 

Research Celebrity Poses

In order to get a better understanding of the poses that a lot of the audience will associate with celebrities, and also giving the celebrity mimicking footage an air of credibility, I looked into common poses when celebrities are confronted with a red carpet situation. It's often found that they simply stand and pose for the camera for their little bit of publicity and to show off their new designer dress, allowing the designer to gain some publicity as well. 

Looking through various magazines, images etc that showed celebrities posing for the camera, I managed to narrow down the most common poses found. 

 

[Ref: Photos: Lisa Rinna (top right) & Debbie Matenopoulos (bottom left), Feb 10, 2008, Credit - Frazer Harrison.

Camilla Belle - "Push" Premiere (bottom right)] 

The above page is dedicated to a pose that commonly involves one hand resting on the hip, the other hanging down their side and more commonly crossing their legs close to the ankle. Further research told me that this particular pose allowed the celebrity to look slimmer, more lean, have a smaller waist and elongated and slim legs. 

[Ref: Dakota Fanning (Top right) - Movie Premiere "Push" 

Giuliana Ranic (Bottom Left) - Feb 10, 2008. Photo credit- Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Hayden Panettiere (Bottom Right)  - August 2008 - Whaleman Foundation Benefit]

 This is your standard pose, demonstrated by the three named celebrities above. There's a variation in angle, but they all seem to be of a relaxed and composed nature. With a slight bend at the knee, arms by their sides, it seems the most frequent users of this pose seemingly have a strapless dress. The slight bend of the knee would cause weight to shift and their hips to move slightly to one side, giving the effect of a more curved figure. 

[Ref: Megan Fox (Top left) - Getty Images

Lisa Rinna (Bottom Left) - Grammy Awards - Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Kellie Pickler (Bottom Right)  - CMA Awards - Photocredit: Ed Rode]

This is a more mysterious and alluring pose that the three are demonstrating above. Hands on hips to make the waist smaller, clingy dresses to show off the hour glass figure, and a " come hither" look over the shoulder that makes the photographer and the public want more.

[Ref: Emmy Rossum - Photo credit: Bill Davila/Startraks

Christina Aguilera - Photo credit: Jason Merrit/Filmmagic

Jessica Simpson - Photo credit: Axelle/Bauer-Griffen]

In the style of the 1920's where the Charleston was popular and flapper dresses were worn ( a style of which is being worn by Emmy Rossum). It brings back a classic period of time, thus a classic pose. This is a more quirky pose, which there a lot of. Each celebrity has their own signiture pose, i.e. Miley Cyrus and her 'peace' sign. Or Lindsey Lohan and blowing kisses. 

[Ref: Fearne Cotton (Top right)  - "Glamour" Magazine - Photographer: Walter Chin (April 2011 issue)

Victoria Beckham (Bottom Left & Right) - "Glamour" Magazine. - Photographers: Pacific Coast News/Getty Image]

Another standard pose with the hand on the hips, to frame the waist, to show curves and so forth. Many females who are doing said pose somewhat lean to one side, giving off a sign of 'attitude'. It's a good standard pose that I've used previously when doing photoshoots, and a pose I think a lot of people tend to just fall into when having their photo taken, possibly, due to being surrounded by it in magazines etc.

A move forward.

In an attempt to move forward with my FMP, I've been building up idea's that I intended to pursue. Coming up with a storyboard, shot list, and how I wanted them to be set for the upcoming exhibition. 


The original idea was to make a visual three screen piece, that could be used as a panoramic view, building on that and looking at other examples, I've seen combinations of the two being used. Based on the variations of religious triptych's that came to my attention, I wanted to make a modern form of worship through the use of TV as opposed to paintings. 


Though humanity is separated through different beliefs, religions, and morals, we all share similar forms of worship, when it comes to celebrities, football, and technology. People often follow these three examples like they're religious icons. Celebrities have various things dedicated to them, people making them their idol, and even stalkers. Footballers have those who follow them in every match, they create their own chants, have their own special 'uniform' dedicated to them and are often followed religiously in matches and in life, they even have buildings dedicated to them. And finally technology,  or rather TV. It's used for all mediums, it's everywhere, and specifically TV is used for socializing, a gathering of people small or big, many if not all people own some form of technology, especially a TV,  and whenever a new item comes out (colour, then HD, now 3D ) everyone wants it.


Through studying red carpet scenarios I'm hoping to develop enough of an insight into the presence of a celebrity when faced with thousands of fans in one, as well as the press. To re-create the scenarios I wish to use Low key lighting and photography flash head to stand as a photographs flash when taking a photo. There will be spurts of light as the celebrity poses for the camera, however when the light isn't flashing the figure will be made out by a silhouette so the screen isn't switching between pitch black and bright flashes that would stun the viewer and make it hard for eyes to adjust. 


As for football I'd like to stick to the low key lighting and the silhouette shape so that little features that wouldn't give off little details that could destroy suspense of disbelief. Like many of the adverts that I've seen, that use footballers to sell their merchandise, I'd want said 'footballer' to be doing ball tricks, i.e. bouncing the ball off their knee etc. If the figure was too dark to see the ball or what they were doing, I'd have them stood sideways so you could make them out better. There is a problem with equipment when it comes to a ball, I'd try to keep the actions as minimal in movement as possible whilst making it obvious this is a footballer.


Finally technology, with the use of a TV and some static, I aim to push across to the audience that no matter what is on, people will sit there and watch it even if it's boring, as its something that they can see visually. The same goes for a various amount of technology. No matter what the media bring out technology wise, and no matter the reviews ( whether it works or not, whether its good at what it suggests it does and so on) people will still buy it, and they buy it for style, and suddenly forget what life was like without said product.


Starting next week, I'll be adjusting the lighting and doing practice shots to make sure that I understand what I can and can't achieve, and also begin adjusting the presentation for the exhibition.

The current plan is to set up a book much like a bible, with the words " worship" embossed on a leather cover, which I've already managed to get. And have it set on a lectern which a carpenter is making for me, this is all to push across the worship ideas that triptychs are often associated with.