Rob West - 21007328

Major Project Evaluation

Throughout the course of this module I have attempted to create an experimental film. The
final outcome of this work, which I have titled 'Figments of a Fractured Soul', focuses on the concept
of fragmented memory recollection and the ability to remember our perceptions according to time.
The film takes an abstract approach within the cinematic form, making use of various techniques
such as the cutting up of negatives and coloured acetate; stuck onto 16mm film leader as well as the
digital manipulation of layers and fractals in order to create the effect of broken pieces of memory
flashing before the viewer's eyes. This forces them to question the authenticity of their own
memories as well as playing on the idea that time is a repeating circle, much like life and death,
which obscures our own recollection of events in the temporal flow of existence.
My initial intentions for this project have changed dramatically as this year has progressed.
At first I sought to create a narrative within my film, which focused on a man's passage through a
purgatory-like forest of his own memories, eventually forcing him to confront the manner of his
death and allow his soul to be freed from its earthly prison. I began to move away from this idea
when I first experimented with 16mm film, as I was influenced by the work of Stan Brakhage and
Malcolm Le Grice. This experiment, where I cut up old 35mm film negatives and glued them to the
16mm film in abstract squares, made me realise that my primary interest was not the narrative
storytelling, but the manipulation of light and colour which forms the basis of all of our perceptions. I
became rapidly intrigued by the idea that when we die, we may see a glimpse of our past, although it
will be muddled by the temporal displacement that comes from freeing our souls of this dimension. I
began to consider what it may be like to experience my life in nothing more than a fleeting reel of
events, ordered not chronologically, but by subjective emotional attachment. Much like flicking
through an old photo album, the sense of nostalgia is strongest when viewing images of particularly
important moments in time. I had written many versions of my script by this point and began to feel
a pull away from dialogue and characters toward a more stripped back visual experience. Instead of
tailoring the footage I captured around a story, I began trying to think of images which stand out in
the mind's eye, the smile of a loved one, and the rays of sun shining through a tree's warped
branches, the reflection of strangers passing by in a rippling lake, as well as the strange abstract
colours and shapes which the mind creates when our eyes are closed.
In terms of the footage I created using film leader, Malcolm Le Grice provided me with a
great deal of inspiration, particularly his film, 'Little Dog for Roger'. In the book 'Abstract Film and
Beyond' he discusses his process as well as that of the film, 'Rohfilm', by the Hein brothers. He states
that "Not only are the films concerned to include cinematic elements basic to it as a mechanism, like the
sprocket holes, the celluloid support, and the emulsion as a material, but also to include elements which
are usually considered an error, fault or in cybernetic terms, noise." [Le Grice, Malcolm (1977).
Abstract Cinema and Beyond. London: Studio Vista. p.118.] This concept greatly informed my
work with film as I made use of the cut up negatives to reflect a fragmented state of mind, the glue
marks, tape lines, rips and tears in the film show the way in which the mind has tried and failed to
recreate the order of events truthfully. Each lapse in frame, dust and scratch holds a resonance with
the way in which we think about the past, the blind spots in our memory, and the damaged
authenticity of events just out of reach in our heads. This experiment can be compared to the
frameless film technique employed by Brakhage in 'Mothlight' and Ian Kerr's film ' Post Office Tower
Retowered', as Hamlyn explains "When projected, however, this sense of continuity is diminished by
the fast speed at which the frames move through the projector, fragmenting the image into fleeting
single-frame moments"[ Hamlyn, Nicky (2003). Film Art Phenomena. United Kingdom: British
Film Institute. p.69-70.] Although he is talking about Kerr's work it is comparable to my film as I
prolonged the sections of negatives and acetate over several frames meaning that when they were
put through the Steenbeck, the frames did not flow into one another like a conventional film but
rather the frames merge together depending on the frame rate to create a remarkably broken up and
disjointed effect. There is more I could have done in this respect as playing around with the frame
rate more would have resulted in completely different collages of footage.
In a documentary titled ' Abstract Cinema', Le Grice is seen talking about the work of
Fernand Lger, summarising that "He used images that came from the real world, and then the abstraction
came from the way he sequenced and organised that. But what I think is important in this is the idea that it
isn't necessarily something thats non-representational in the image which defines it as being abstract in
cinematic terms." [Le Grice, Malcolm (1993). Excerpt from 'Abstract Cinema'. United Kingdom:
Channel Four. ~00:39:23.] Here Le Grice is discussing the use of reality in abstract cinema, noting
that through its sequencing and organisation amongst other frames it can attain a level of
abstraction, possibly one that is more empathetic towards the audience than colours and shapes. I
drew on this idea when I tried to balance my use of abstract light and 16mm work, with digital
footage that I shot on location in the hope that I do not draw my audience into a narrative way of
thinking, but rather show them snippets of real life as a way of forwarding the concept of memories
out of time. Following on from this I wanted to work with framing in order to find abstraction, Nicky
Hamlyn discusses how this can be achieved in his book, 'Film Art Phenomena' where he writes that
"This is subsequently shown to be a door, but the framing of the door makes explicit how framing, in
and of itself, can render ambiguous or abstract even recognisable objects." [Hamlyn, Nicky (2003).
Film Art Phenomena. United Kingdom: British Film Institute. p.23.] As I have already stated, I
aimed to place real footage within an abstract context, especially linked with the subjective
recollection of a scene, therefore this approach seemed to work as both a way of retaining the
experimental form as well as presenting reality from an unusual or deeply personal perspective. I
have attempted this effect in many of my real world shots from the reflections in a pond to out of
focus people walking through a faire. Camera focus has also played a major role in the creation of
my film, it has enabled me to obscure and redefine my footage in order to create a nostalgic tone as
well as provide me with a great deal of abstract light and colour which looks great when blended
with my other footage. Jennifer Nightingale's 'Film No.1' inspired this idea, and although her film is
mostly negative footage, it provided me with an idea of a memory which is just out of reach and hard
to pin down to a particular time or place. However, her footage is "not so out of focus that it is ever so
divorced from its subject that an illusory deep space can be read." [Hamlyn, Nicky (2003). Film Art
Phenomena. United Kingdom: British Film Institute. p.37.] Hamlyn is stating that whilst
Nightingale's film is out of focus, it remains of a subject, to me that is much like a half forgotten
memory of childhood. If I think back to my first house, a picture emerges but if asked to describe the
location it becomes difficult as there a many elements missing from my recollection, much like an
out of focus photograph, the form is there but it lacks the fullness of a sharp image.
Returning to Brakhage as a major influence on this work, his anthology and supporting book
provided me with a detailed insight into his work process. Primarily I was intrigued by his work
regarding thought process, his second wife states that "Brakhage's formal, thematic, and
philosophical imperatives of including representations of optical feedback and the fleeting images of
thought in responding to sights seen can be traced back at least to the making of the childbirth film
'Thigh Line Lyre Triangular' (1961), in which layers of superimposition are added to the gestural
techniques of the handheld camera to create a filmic equivalent of inner vision" [Brakhage, Marilyn
(2010). By Brakhage: An Anthology: Volume Two. United Kingdom: The Criterion Collection.
p.11.] This inspired me to create a kind of inner vision within my own film, primarily this came in
the form of a pulsing light, I wanted to show that perhaps some entity was calling the soul towards it,
and that light and colour is invented by the brain when forced into a deep sensory deprivation. In
'Figments of a Fractured Soul', I recorded a projector which gave me the effect of a pulsing ball of
light that emits rays of colour around the edges. I feel this has a symphonic meaning as the rhythm
seems to be a guiding force, drawing the soul towards it like a beacon.
I was not only focused on experimenting with analogue footage, I have also created lots of
fractals on Photoshop using some of my photographs. I then created three layers of this image in
Premiere Pro, and using a turbulent displacement effect, with different parameters on each layer,
blended them together to create the moving, breathing colours you see in my final film. This idea
stems once again from Brakhage's work, particularly his 'Persian Series' and 'Night Music'. Marilyn
Brakhage discusses these works by saying that "in a dance of colour and form, in a weave of memory
and metaphor, a viewer might be stirred to a sudden recognition or insight." [Brakhage, Marilyn
(2010). By Brakhage: An Anthology: Volume Two. United Kingdom: The Criterion Collection.
p.12.] I feel that she is talking about the way in which these films create a sense of emotional chaos
which can be interpreted in many different ways due to the subjective nature of Brakhage's films I
also wanted to imprint something personal to me within my film. The experiences and dreams I have
had in the past helped me to envisage the fractal and the way it moves and melts, it is possibly
something purely out of my own head or maybe it hints towards a deeper aspect of human
consciousness which we are not yet able to fully comprehend. In terms of the flow of my film, I have,
made use of many cross-fades in order to give the impression of fluidity ad motion in my film, but
also give it a dream-like quality that shows the stasis and inertia compared to the perpetual
movement of time. Nicky Hamlyn discusses Brakhage's use of camera movement when he states that
"These twitchings, furthermore, when combined with focus pulls and shooting into light sources,
endlessly transform their subject, turning it into an aesthetic object which becomes more and more
divorced from its source." [Hamlyn, Nicky (2003). Film Art Phenomena. United Kingdom: British
Film Institute. p.90.] I have tried to resonate this idea in my film through my use of focus pulls and
camera movement, however, many of these experiments did not make the final cut of my movie as I
began to feel that they were confusing the flow the of film in a negative way.
The shooting stage of this project had its ups and downs, I was required to change one of my
actors at the last minute and was also unable to shoot with my actors as much as I'd have liked due
to their other commitments. These issues have actually worked in my favour as it enabled me to get
creative and find other ways of presenting my concept in a non-narrative sense. I have also chosen to
approach the editing stage of this project in a non-conventional way, opting to take on a more trial
and error form of editing wherein I filmed a bit, edited it to see how the footage worked in the piece,
and then went out again in order to capture what I felt was needed to make the film a success. This
has enabled me to really hone in on the structure of my film as well as the pacing and timing of my
shots, and has greatly improved the final outcome of the movie. This was also the approach Aaron
and I have tried to take regarding the sound design of this movie, I set him the task of creating some
music for this piece, primarily drone based reverbs as he is greatly interested in that area. As such,
we had a long back and forth of him showing me music and me providing him with the footage I was
working on for reference. As my video edit has changed and been reimagined with each stage, so has
the music, we worked until we were both happy with it. Much like the film ', Reel Five' by Stan
Brakhage, which is one of only a few of his films that use sound, "rather than syncing up sound and
image directly, Brakhage make them seem to speak to each other from different worlds, in a gentle,
nonaggressive conversation." [Brakhage , Marilyn (2010). By Brakhage: An Anthology: Volume
Two. United Kingdom: The Criterion Collection. p.34.] I felt that it was important we try
something similar to this, as we wanted to steer clear of synced sound and keep the film firmly based
in abstraction. I have also recorded a few lines of dialogue, which act as distant memories and
thoughts, rather than discernable speech.
In terms of working predominantly by myself on this project, I feel it has had its pros and cons. On
one hand, it has enabled me to work with complete authority over the image , style and direction of
my work as well as allowing me the space to try out different methods of experimental film which
may not have been welcomed in group work, such as the laborious task of cutting and sticking things
to film. On the other hand, I have not always had the constant criticism of my peers like I would have
had in a group, and as such I have had to find my own discipline in order to stay on task and
motivated. Another good aspect of working alone is that I have been able to create a scrapbook of
collages to accompany my film. It exists as a pictorial representation of my work process for this
project, and is linked to the concept of fragmented parts of life combining to impose the idea of
memory and reconciliation of the past. I approached this scrapbook idea after falling in love with the
work of Dan Eldon, who was a photo-journalist working mostly in Africa in the early nineties.
Unfortunately, he was killed at a riot in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993, and his work was brought to an
abrupt end. However, what he left behind is a glorious journal of his life and experiences, meshed
together in a way that shows his journey from start to finish. One of the most enjoyable parts of
making this film was creating this physical piece of work and although I feel it is weak in places, I am
really happy with its overall look.
'Figments of a Fractured Soul' has been a sort of rollercoaster of a journey that at times has
seemed like it might derail. I am pleased with the aesthetic quality of my work and feel I have finally
found an area of film-making that really inspires me; it has been a true experimentation as I went in
at the deep end and tried out many different paths before finding my feet. As I have progressed in
this module I have learnt so much, not only in terms of film art and abstract cinema but also on a
personal level, my idea has changed an awful lot since its inception last August, yet I feel, despite the
ups and downs, that I have created something I can actually be proud of. I am truly glad I decided to
steer away from my original idea, and although I am still very much interested in spirituality and
what lies beyond the veil, I feel that creating this film around the idea of broken and disjointed
memories has allowed me to work on a practical level, not often experienced in purely digital film-
making. I plan to continue experimenting with film next year, during my MArt, as I have had many
ideas for different effects and techniques to do with splicing and playing with 16mm film. I will also
continue to work on small ideas over the summer in order to attain the skill and precision I'll need to
work with this medium effectively.
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Bibliography
Brakhage, Marilyn (2010). By Brakhage: An Anthology: Volume Two. United
Kingdom: The Criterion Collection. p.11.
Brakhage, Marilyn (2010). By Brakhage: An Anthology: Volume Two. United
Kingdom: The Criterion Collection. p.12.
Brakhage, Marilyn (2010). By Brakhage: An Anthology: Volume Two. United
Kingdom: The Criterion Collection. p.34.
Hamlyn, Nicky (2003). Film Art Phenomena. United Kingdom: British Film Institute.
p.23.
Hamlyn, Nicky (2003). Film Art Phenomena. United Kingdom: British Film Institute.
p.37.
Hamlyn, Nicky (2003). Film Art Phenomena. United Kingdom: British Film Institute.
p.69-70.
Hamlyn, Nicky (2003). Film Art Phenomena. United Kingdom: British Film Institute.
p.90.
Le Grice, Malcolm (1977). Abstract Cinema and Beyond. London: Studio Vista. p.118.
Le Grice, Malcolm (1993). Excerpt from 'Abstract Cinema'. United Kingdom: Channel
Four. ~00:39:23.