Artist Statement

My recent self-directed project deals with the relationship between myself and my late grandfather.

"Pie", so called after my nickname for him, is my first film, and features places and objects that hold resonance. Through atmospheric audio recordings, a narrative voiceover, and moving image, I have captured an essence of who my grandfather was as a person, and as a grandparent.

The project has allowed me to creatively deal with my feelings of grief as I try to find peace with his absence in my life.

A Portrait of Ga by Margaret Tait

"A Portrait of Ga" by Margaret Tait is a visual capture of a a personality.

The film is about Tait's mother, who her grandchildren (Tait's children) affectionately nicknamed "Ga". The film shows Ga going about her everyday business - smoking, walking in the countryside, hopping through her garden, having a cup of tea, people-watching from her window, eating sweets, reading, and gardening. She is shown to have a good sense of humour, as she is often laughing and smiling, and being silly (hopping through the garden, spinning around with her arms held out).

The audio comprises of a tune played on some type of woodwind instrument, atmospheric audio of wildlife, and Tait's voiceover. Tait states that Ga is a nickname given to her by her grandchildren, but that Tait herself can barely remember her own grandmother. There is an expert of birdsong as Ga sits outside in the countryside. There is some dialogue about riddles that the Norse ancestors told, which may be something that contributes to Ga's playfulness. At the end, Tait says that Ga lives in the Orkney Islands "which is a lovely place to be brought up in".

The film creates a sense of who Ga is, and displays through the footage and voiceover her personality, what she enjoys, and her playful nature. It is a refreshing look at an elderly person, as her playfulness shines through. I think that Tait has created a "portrait" of Ga - has depicted her likeness by using film, and this film is even more impressive to me considering it was made in the early 1950s, as I thought that it was made a decade or so later than that. 

Final Cut

Here is the final cut of my film. The only changes made from the second cut was to add royalty-free audio of a clock ticking, which I found easily and just inserted into the timeline in audio 1.

I am very pleased with my final cut and feel that I have done everything I can to make it the best it can be. I am also very proud, as it is my first film and I feel that it is successful in achieving what I had set out to do.

Re-Emergence - Sarah Rhys

Re-Emergence by Sarah Rhys deals with the notion of revisiting a place where you have memories.

The project features a property that used to be her home when she was younger and has since become a National Trust property. When visiting the house, Sarah noticed that a glass-ceilinged room in the cellar of the building had become a semi-derelict courtyard. The room used to feature bright paintings of women on the walls, which were believed to have been painted by US or Canadian members of the armed forces when the property was a military hospital during WWII. The roof fell in during a fire in the 80s, and the paintings were eroded by exposure to the elements.

Sarah says that "When I realised that the semi derelict room was the one that had housed the murals, it was a stark confrontation with my inner sense of the place as well as my memory...  As a child I used to go down the stairs into this semi abandoned room, surrounded by these large female images, down into a place away from the everyday". 

Sarah photographed the walls and "read their archaeological layers and examining the traces of time, erasure and the elements" before moving on to the next part of her project. Using memory and archival images, she created two moving images to be projected onto the walls of the courtyard at night. The projections ran from floor to ceiling at would play at the same time. 

"The projection moves between the past and the present, with these figures slowly emerging from and then disappearing back into the walls only to re-emerge again in a cycle of eternal recurrence of being and non being."

I think this is a very creative project that echos the former glory of the house before it became derelict, therefore restoring memories and nostalgia for Sarah. The idea of revisiting locations where I hold memories has featured in my film, specifically with the day out to Clevedon. That is different to what Sarah has done, as she made an attempt to show that area of the house the way she remembered it, while the current state of the house shone through, whereas my revisiting of Clevedon served to get footage and audio for my film and to help develop the narrative of my film. 

In Memoriam - Davina Kirkpatrick

In Memoriam by Davina Kirkpatrick is a fine art installation piece that shows visual representations of loss.

Using presence as a theme in this piece, Davina made casts of hands and filled them with objects she collected on the German border with Holland. The total weight of the objects in the casts was 21 grams, which is the supposed weight of the soul. The absence was represented by the objects within the casts.

The work was later developed by creating white marks on white silk and making the vessels from feathers that had handprints screenprinted onto them. The original notion was reworked in order to create a more sensitive and subtle response to materials.

Last Minutes With Oden by Eliot Rausch

"Last Minutes With Oden" by Eliot Rausch explores a man's love of his dog and his struggle to say goodbye.

Jason Wood is someone who Rausch has described as "a forgotten person, a convicted felon and former drug addict who spent 10 years in jail and, despite his struggle to help those in need, can’t find a job to get by". His dog, Oden, has cancer and is in a lot of pain, and the difficult decision is made to put Oden to sleep. 

Via the narrative audio, Wood gives an insight to his life with Oden and to who Oden was - a kind face, a good listener, a shoulder to cry on, not just for Wood, but for his friends. It's clear that Oden was there for Wood in some dark times, showing the unwavering loyalty that dogs are so well known for. He says that Oden taught him how to love, something that must've been very important to him after coming out of prison after a long time inside - "I needed to go through what I needed to go through, and he was there the whole way through, from beginning to end, completely unjudgemental. He'd just lie next to me as if it were another day". Oden was a dog who changed not only Wood's life, but his friends too. Wood states that when his friends were having hard times and would come over to his house, he'd get right next to them and wouldn't leave, he says it seems that God had given him a job to look after everyone - "he was all about helping, he was like 'Hey, you're sick on my couch, we're friends!'". Wood said he knew Oden was very ill but kept him alive as it was "my own childish fears of 'I'm gonna miss you, don't go'". He wanted to be tough and just get it over with, but Oden made him soft. Also Wood speaks about spirituality in relation to Oden.

As well as the narrative by Wood, there is also a folk-style background track, similar to the style of Bon Iver, which suits the visuals well. 

The visuals are a mix of Wood riding his bike in the rain, and the events that took place on the day Oden was put to sleep. The narrative audio breaks to allow dialogue recorded on-site and on camera, so to speak, to be included and to build the sadness in the film - for example, Wood is on the phone talking about Oden having been in pain, and keeping him alive because he's too scared to say goodbye, Wood's friends saying goodbye to Oden and telling him to "say hi to Jesus for us, he's gonna get you a new leg", and Wood saying goodbye to him as he was being put to sleep. The footage of Wood and his friend Cynthia being emotional at the prospect of him being put to sleep later on that day is particularly upsetting, as it reminds me of when we had to have our Monty put to sleep only three weeks after Pie had died. There is footage taken from inside the vets featuring Wood saying goodbye and the moment when Oden is injected with the medication that will end his life. Wood cycling appears to me to be something that he does more now that Oden is gone as a form of stress relief or something similar. 

The camera techniques are mainly handheld and use focus pulling, which is used effectively throughout. The colours of the film are almost of a muted-neutral colour, which is fitting with the overall aesthetic of the film. 

I feel that Rausch and his small team showed the relationship between Wood and Oden with honesty - the mix of narrative audio, "location" audio, background music, and the footage of the day Oden was put to sleep create a very intimate look into one man's life which was forever changed by a loving, three-legged dog, and the important bond that people have with their dogs. 

A Life Alone by Maisie Crow

"A Life Alone" by Maisie Crow is a multimedia piece about Tom Rose, a man who was widdowed after 63 years of marriage. The piece features a mix of still photos and moving image, with atmospheric audio and a voiceover from Tom. The moving image pieces comprise of location shots (e.g., Tom on the porch of his home on the porch swing, the flag blowing in the wind) and an almost interview-style against a black background where he talks about his wife and their life together.

The whole project is in black and white, which adds to the melancholy of the film, although it is also part of Crow's personal style. Crow's personal style seems to be multimedia based, with the mix of audio, stills, and moving image coming together to make each project (I have also seen her project "Hungry: Living With Prader-Willi Syndrome"). 

The film opens with a ticking clock, and some of Tom's personal pictures of his life with his wife in a quick, flashing slideshow in time to the sound of the clock. The narrative from Tom tells how they met, their wedding, and their lives. They remodelled a farm and lived there for the majority of their married life. Tom calls Mary "a petit, loving little woman, very forgiving, moreso than I", and describes her as someone who "loved to cuddle, she loved to be held, and that's to be loved". The talk then shifts to how Tom copes with being without her, he speaks of how he sleeps downstairs as he can't bear to be in their bedroom without her. He says that everything in the house reminds him of her, that "you try to live your life as you used to, and the used to isn't there... I don't want to live in the past, but there's not much in the future". He speaks about how he found solace in his friends and the church. Tom says he doesn't intend to remarry, that he burried Mary with some of her personal belongings and her wedding ring. He speaks about how there's a time for everything, a "harvest season", and how he needs to keep moving on. Tom often becomes very emotional during the length of his voiceover, at it definitely tugs at the heartstrings.

The visuals that match the audio are some observational portraits of Tom - sometimes appearing overcome by his loss - of the interior of the house (sometimes in detail - kitch ornaments on a shelving unit, objects on the mantlepiece, the kitchen tap dripping), their old love letters (one dated 1943), the exterior of the house, etc. Each image is fitting with the dialogue spoken by Tom (for example, the shot above is shown when Tom speaks about how Mary loved to cuddle, and that he cannot sleep in their bedroom anymore), and adds to the narrative of the overall piece. Although most of the visuals are stills, there is some moving image - the dripping kitchen tap, the flag outside their house, Tom turning the pages of the book of hymns at church. The atmospheric audio includes ticking clocks, part of a speech by the vicar of Tom's church, and Tom singing along in church to a hymn. 

The overall piece shows a real insight to Tom's life in the present, and his life with Mary. It also gives a sense of who Mary was as a person. The loneliness and heartbreak in Tom is palpable - especially during the voiceovers, and the film made me cry on more than one occasion. Crow's unique style to presenting and telling a story truly absorbs the viewer - the layering of audio along with still and moving visuals creates a strong narrative and this creates an atmosphere that stays with the viewer long after the film has ended.