TIME

PORTRAIT

HOUSE OF HANNAH

BACK TO
HOMEPAGE

SUPERNATURAL

My project focuses on the supernatural through time, space, and fantasy. The story features a little girl who goes out to eat with her parents and uses her alien powers to detach her arm for different purposes. At first all seems normal until she reaches over to grab the food to pass to her father and her body does not follow her arm. She then takes the drinks for herself and after consuming them, is transported to space. Once she is in space, we see her head and arm detaching, making the viewer aware of her alien status. Considering my lack of technological background and inability to animate, I decided to attempt a stop-motion video. Using thrift-store magazines I cut out individual scenes and objects to create my story, and moving each element bit by bit, I used over 200 individual photos to create compound clips within Final Cut Pro. I drew inspiration from the collage animation examples which were linked in class, such as The Red Book, Ghost Algebra, False Aging, and Retro Melodrama.

This project was inspired by the teachings of Tehching (Sam) Hsieh. By documenting myself on my way to class every day over a three-month period, I was able to learn about art as a labour, and a commitment to a project over a long period of time. I kept the frame and time of day consistent, with only my appearance changing. It is representative of ‘going through the motions.’

For my video assignment, I chose to focus on the sensation of time internally. I used meditation as a method for speeding up or slowing down time. The video features me listening to a guided meditation through headphones, and how I interact with the process. My internal assessment of time is shown through editing techniques that I learned in class. To start I show an initial shot of myself meditating in my room, to set the scene. The guided meditation is playing, and I use headphones to place the audience in my head. For the next shot, to set a wider scene and peak interest, I taped my phone to a rotating fan and let it move around while I remain sitting in the shot. I thought this added some visual depth and created a transition for my next scene, where I open my eyes as the guided meditation tells me to. As I open my eyes I make contact with a buddha statue sitting across from me. I zoomed in on the buddha and added a changing colour scheme to that frame to add to the perception that I am in my own world. The buddha then increases in contrasting colour and distorts significantly. This shows how I am transported to a new mental state within my head. For the next frame I placed the shot back on me, but from being the buddhas head, to show that the buddha and I are interacting on a higher mental plane. This identifies a symbiotic relationship between the two of us. The clip and meditation are sped up, to show that time is moving at a rapid pace while this mental conversation is going on. Then I take my headphones off and the guided meditation abruptly stops, again identifying that the viewer is in the journey with me. Left with background noise, I flop back on the bed to reflect on this mental escape. As I flop back, the sound of my heartbeat increases and a slowly spinning record is superimposed over my face. The slow spinning record is used to symbolize how time is now slowed, back in reality. This leads to the end of the video.