Inspirations and Research

'Doubled Up' by Samantha Moore

I saw this film as part of SMST306 The Documentary Screen this semester and was immediately inspired by its abstraction and use of animation and repition.  I liked that the depth of meaning took a while to be revealed.  Although I would like to incorporate more of this style into my own work, I am aware that others in the class really didn't enjoy watching this and as my assignment should appeal to students I chose not to go to this level of abstraction yet.  The layers of meaning and imagery really appeal to me though.

'Ryan' by Chris Landreth

We were shown this film as part of SMST318 Animation Studies last semester and this was only the second abstract animated documentary I had seen up until then.  Again the layers of meaning in the animation and the metaphors really appealed to me.  I liked the active and busy screen that makes you unsure what, where and when you should be looking at.  Although this film has ethical issues around representation, the idea that someones character can be shown more through animation than reality is really interesting.

'Waking Life' by Richard Linklater

This is the first animated documentary I ever saw.  I saw it several years ago and have always wanted to create something as fluid with as much depth.  The rotoscoping technique fascinates me and eventually I would like to experiment with other forms of animating over the top of reality.  However for this assignment it was made clear through class feedback that this was not an aesthetic or idea that appealed to most as they found the animation distracting and overwhelming.  The ideas within this film - lucid dreaming and existentialism were going to be topics for this film until my relevant subjects pulled out and I had to reshuffle what the theme of my film would be.

'Mum' by Adelheid Roosen 

This clip inspired me because of the theatrical and unconventional style.  The idea that a documentary could be filmed in this way helped me to think outside the box and inspired me to want to take more risks.  Unfortunately due to technological problems and time restraints I was not able to experiment as much as I would have liked so this may be an area I try to push in the next stage of this assignment.

'Invisible Empire' by Jason Bermas

This film was interesting for its use of framing.  This film made me try to think of interesting alternative ways to try to frame.

'Kymatica' by Ben Stewart

I found the imagery of this film really interesting because it is clear that a lot of after effects have been used.  The effects help to bring the material to life somewhat but also create an interesting sense of distance which is made more interesting when reflected in the dialogue - matters of depth presented in a distanced manner.

This video also demonstrated what I should be careful to avoid as it is laden with effects but they all occur on a similar plane of space and in darkness.  I want my images to be more layered to reflect the depth of the topic.

'Life in a Day' directed by Kevin Macdonald and produced by Ridley Scott 

This film inspired me greatly because it takes the perspectives and lives of people from all over the world and meshes them together to form the fabric of humanity.  I also wanted to create some kind of snapshot of life and people - obviously on a much smaller scale.  Originally I was going to include a variety of perspectives that clashed and complimented but in the end I found more interest in the subtlety of difference of beliefs in the people around me in my life.  It fascinated me how people could be so individual with very specific and unique views on the world, yet have a layer of common understanding and respect for how their views differed.  This film has been shot by different people all over the world and as such has a very artistic and ecclectic style which I found charming.  I would like to include more variety of imagery and perspective in the next phase.

 David Hockney
Originally I wanted to interview people and have their faces appear like this as a collage of images rather than one simple talking head.  This might be an idea that I explore in the next phase