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This project is a further development of my previous works. I have been searching for the expression of power in various ways and forms to express the invisible power inside me, whether it is the loneliness of being alone, the fear of being forgotten, the fear of being sentimental at night, all of them are powerful and I want to visualise them. The head bound by the cling film is the representative image of my project. I don't want fancy clothes and too much makeup. Just as a personal thing eyeliner is the most important part to me.

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Discussed with Frankie I decided to use matte paper, as I don’t want it to reflect any light. It was bit late to order any frames so I will pin them on the wall, which is bit risky because the paint on it is easily to be scratched off. She also warned me that the 2 lights maybe not enough but I need to test out. So I will buy some more lights to try. For my installation I’m thinking to include the cling film element in as a representation. But whether it will distract the audience I will test on site. The video will be projected. I’m in the social media team so we will in charge of posting instagram posts to promote the exhibition and post stories up to date.

Then I went to a meeting with John and he gave me some advice on exhibiting my works. Projector needs to be careful with the bulb and always bring a backup one. If I need to borrow it out better borrow it with the highest lumen. As I might need stripe light for the images, I need to think about where the plugs are and if I used the light, where the wires will be. These all little things are crucial and will be tested out before exhibition.

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I finished the draft of the final video and edited 20 imaged but I was thinking about choosing 6 to present in the exhibition as my drawing shown. Damian helped me to choose 4 and suggest only these 4 because we don’t want the photos to be too much alongside the video. Some of them are too attached to the video and some of them are too away. The 4 have the same core expression but give out a surreal feeling. The reason I kept photos is as my video is bit illogical, I want the audience to stand still and feel the static state of the emotions in my video, to give them time understand. While I was presenting my works my hard drive dropped and I lost my edited video and the photoshopped photos. I printed them out so I can show them this way here. Another lesson learned: always keep some more backups.

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When the shoot done, I started to arrange the video shooting. Some scenes can be done at New Cross, the big park. We will wait til the sky darken and I borrowed a LED continual light so only her will be lighten and back very dark. Some scene I need the water so we will go to Kingscross. Cling flim covers mouth indicating tired of talking. Mostly I will let her to stand still and frame her in the mid to enhance the feeling of loneliness. But mainly it will be editing, for the effects. Some sudden moves and juxtapositions will be used. I will use fast speed editing combined with slow motions to create the dreaming and mind floating effect.

The scene she’s running is about she tries to run away from everything but in the end she back at the original point and she don’t know where to run exactly, lost. Dutch angle will be used and it’s originated from German film ‘Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari’. At that time is the whole scene tilted and left the audience an evil feeling. In the beginning I will shoot more back of her because the unknown is the trigger point and the front of her is not important. It’s the fear and struggle. It’s personal and the girl implies me and I don’t want to face it at first, face the audience. It’s back to the point that do I please audience more or myself? MYSELF. So for my photos I make them surreal and abstract because I’m not seeking for approvement. It’s ok for them not understand. I will be surprised if they resonate and it’s about the feelings. It’s something can’t be expressed through words. When shoot in park I let her cover another plastic bag outside cling film in the beginning indicating that the burdens are heavy. To reach awaken she has to solve them one by one. It’s not easy that’ s why in the video when she tried to break the cling film first time it reversed that she didn’t succeed. Even she tear it into pieces it’s still an open ending depend on viewer self.

At Kingscross I forgot to bring the LED light and the strobes occurred but I think it matches the theme and atmosphere of my video, as well as the grainy frames. I adjusted the 3 cut out scenery shots into gradually darken and faded filter. So at first everything looks sunny but the contrast hits in later. When we were shooting the video we wanted to shoot the water when it’s quite late because we needed to have no one around. But there was a homeless man yelling because we tried to use the flash and we left the river for safety and decided to shoot some portrait instead. Editing includes motion blur and distortion. Subliminal flashing images cut into.

For the soundtrack I was searching 070 shake and fka twigs type beat because they are very experimental, psychedelic and celestial. I want that sense of surrealism in the video. But there are parts I feel like sound effects could be more suitable. John gave me some suggestions about soundtracks of Blade Runner and The Neon Demon etc.

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For this shoot I want to have a play with the lighting. I did the make up and draw them randomly like the veins. I chose the brown shirt and black pants, still not too catchy. I will try lights like shoot from back and one hard light to create much shadow on the face. I don’t want it to be soft I want it to be harsh. I also brought some new props like scratched face tissue and silver ice bag, on her to create the helpless and show the power of her confront them.

After shoot

I prefer the portraits more though I like the mussel line of her showing the energy. It’s important with the face expression to release the tension. I like in some photos the two shadows are created alongside her like supporting behind. The light blue and yellow worked well I think.

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Few more inspiration drawings from Van Gogh Museum.

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As last time the cling film being used up I haven’t got chance to shoot the set of head being wrapped. Head being covered also implies to audience that this could happen to anyone, they may resonate with me. I just need hard light for this one and I will let the model wear white clothes again just this time with black backdrop. She needs to open mouth wide and huge breath the air in to create a vacuum feeling. The process can’t be long as it will be hard for her to breath. I will mainly take close up portrait as I want to show the details of the cling films and the contact with skin leaves no air make it more suffocating.

After shooting

I found a serious issue after this shoot. I shot on both raw and jpeg mode but when the photos are imported straight into Mac Photo, maybe because of incompatible issue, only jpeg was saved and I had this bad habit to delete photos at the same time as they were imported. So for these two shoots I only got jpeg which is not ideal for printing. It didn’t happen before but luckily I realised and I will have another shoot. Raw can only be kept when I import photos through files. I wanted to shoot my model without anything covered on head, just pure face expressions anyway. I really like this set as it did give me the sense of helpless but still try to break out the edges. I’m also grateful for classmates’ help and some great ideas came up among our discussions. My friend came to help me and suggested that maybe whole body to be wrapped can have a lift up feeling and we tried it was stronger.

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This shoot will have 2 sets, one in studio and one outside. The studio shoot I want to have one male and female model each because I want to see how they express the emotions differently, thinking about some breaking down moments of their own, with body languages. I want to show the vibe of loneliness and ignorance etc. For the clothes I bought 2 white t-shirt cause the point is not clothes. I want the audience to feel the flow and emotions conveyed in there instead of being distracted by clothing. I also brought fake blood, cling film and plastic bags. Fake blood is used to show the fear and imply ‘hurt’. I want part of the image to be blurred and I searched online that cling film is an interesting prop for shooting. Some plastic bag is for fake blood in case it sinks to the backdrops. Two big plastic bags I cleaned are for models to put on head indicating ‘suffocating’. In the outside scene I will put the model in a small-scale proportion to leave a lot space behind. I like this composition to make human seem small and the space can talk more. I want to wait til the sky gone darker. For the make up I will do it on my own. Personally I’m eyeliner lover so as my project I saw some eyeliner videos and I will draw for them. I think one eye with eyeliner will be enough for the unbalance style. The scattered lines are like my scattered mind.

After shoot

It turns out that the cling film was used up so this part was limited. I tested the fake blood on skin first and we found that it’s very hard to be cleaned off. My original thinking was to pour it on head, which was impossible on site. So I covered cling film on the model first then pour fake blood on but the result is not good enough. First few photos I took gave out a fashion elegant vibe, which is completely opposite to my topic. A lot photos are blurred because I used cling film to cover my lens. I picked a hole in the middle of cling film when it covered on my lens to make model clear but still all blurred though I like the feel. Light was bit soft and gentle. We used colour filters. I felt this shoot didn’t have anything sharp to touch me. I decided to have another shoot soon. Some outside scene got that vibe but I think they are too normal street photos, not for final. What can be improved is next time I will try hard light instead of soft light. I want it to be sharp. The eyeliner needs some adjustment as well. I found music played while shooting is actually important cause it can help models to relax and vibe with it to smooth body languages.

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Later I drew a storyboard for the next film shooting. As I am the only one look at this storyboard while filming I made it simple but understandable for me.

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The main characteristics include: the pursuit of a sober and irrational state, the rejection of conventional artistic standards, the sense of disillusionment, the sense of chance, etc. The interpretation of Dadaist works depends entirely on the taste of the viewer. It is an interplay of constraints, contradictions, absurdities and illogicalities, which is life.

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At the beginning I want to shoot something about fear, about facing fear. We all have fear but I want to find a way to deal with it, maybe not conquer but the courage to face it. Water is the medium I chose. Because water (river) seems calm on the surface but the underneath is unknown and dangerous. I have Thalassophobis (fear of sea) and couldn’t look at the photos of deep sea. As well as the ripple of river in the darkness, the fear of unknown and reminding people of their scale compared to that of the ocean/river. I edited some footage I took while walking, a rough draft. But like Damian suggested that at this moment it looks like a documentary and I need to find a way to make it interesting and meaningful. I decided to use water as an element instead of filming water all the time.

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His shots are filled with a strong violent aesthetic sense of the nineties . His work is full of heavy, gloomy, highly saturated colours, and I love his use of lighting. He used some extreme close ups to show the quirky and naughty. Models in his shots seem have no rules and are breaking the limits. This intrigued and inspired me to instruct the model and release the tension. My lighting plan later are based on it as well.

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These 3 horror films have some great editing and filming techniques that can be useful for my video.

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The Neon Demon Official Trailer #1 (2016) - Elle Fanning, Keanu Reeves Horror Movie HD

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This is the mood board I created for my shoot about the colour tones I like for this shooting.

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Flaws make each person unique. Is perfection really beautiful? The erosion we see in his works is as if he has been baptised by time and left in a more peaceful world. He has chromatic weakness and he starts realising that this is a gift. How can self-denial bring about the affirmation of the other? He wanders in the cracks between his works and time to discover how the cultural symbols of modern civilisation will look like in the future, using different materials to turn the abstract time into touchable sculptures. In his works, everything that is stable, solid and eternal will eventually be destroyed, which relates back to my theme ‘Broken’.

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Music video of ‘One night’ from Griff has been an inspiration for me. ‘One Night is about feeling like you’re always carrying this darkness or burden,’ Griff said of the song, ‘I think in the daytime we can feel distracted because we’re around people and we’re busy, but that moment between going to bed and falling asleep, there’s just enough silence for those burdens to get louder.’ This is very real, as I believe most of us always think more during this dark time. In this mv as the image, she dances with another version of her all covered by fabric. The face was covered like sometimes in the dream, you dream of someone but you couldn’t see clear what the face looks like.

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I was drawn by the sound effect, the technology and the visual effect of this exhibition. It contains many new technology installations, all digital artwork. It's an audio-visual feast. 180 studios blur the lines between physical and virtual, presenting a new world of space imagined by pioneering artists at the apex of sound and vision. In this exhibition the work of ‘Topologies’attracted me most. It consists 4 kinetic sculptures that project single-colour planes of light, forming shifting geometries that continuously divide and reconfigure space, creating an intangible realm that alters the viewers’ perception and their relationship with the spaces around them. The sound of it matches the movement and stimulates my mind to keep watching. As the videos shown. Sound is a crucial element. And I’m impressed by this kind of blink editing, which I will add to my video as well. Similarly, I watched rapper 070 shake’s ‘medicine’mv and the editing is very suitable for my video. Reveal the stream of consciousness and floating state of mind.

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Edward Honaker documents his own depression in powerful self-portrait. The series of black and white images illustrates the photographer’s experience with depression and anxiety. In order to raise awareness of mental health issues like depression, Honaker says about the project: ‘Mental health disorders are such a taboo topic. If you ever bring it up in conversation, people awkwardly get silent, or try to tell you why it’s not a real problem. I’m hoping that these images will help open up conversation about mental health issues. Everyone is or will be affected by them one way or another, and ignoring them doesn’t make things better.' His works are quite abstract and display his mental health states in a visible form to the audience. He presents depression this way as an inner state.

He used black and white so there is no colour element to distract audience's attention. The audience will be more focus on the meaning behind the photo. Inspired by him I am also thinking whether to edit my photos into black and white so the audience could be more focused on the movements.

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Top left: Naridar Bandi

His works have the sense of space and sense of breathing. Always mist in the dark give out the mysterious vibe. Small person in the central, back on us, adds on the mysterious. With the neon lights ‘hotel’makes me imagine that when others asleep and only me awake. I always enjoy the dead of night awaking moment, feels good to be one of those few people awake.

Top right/bottom left: Lukasz Wierzbowski

Many of his works are characterised by bizarre behavior and a way of thinking that is out of the rational order. He has a unique perspective on the world, which seems to be documentary but with his own style. He is good at using light and shadows, mostly taken outside and even trivial ordinary things look deliberate and interesting in his shots.

Bottom right: Hossein Goshtasbi

Hossein as a photographer artist, his works are often in cool blue and green tones, with a rich and melancholy atmosphere. His world is like a mist accompanied by vastness, insignificance and clarity. There is this loneliness visual impact on audience when I look at it I feel the emptiness. The direction of wind lead my eyes through the image. I love that in some his works he left a lot space in the frame for viewers to imagine.

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Shun infused this group of experimental images with his own deep thoughts, he evokes a dream-like sense of dampness that sprouts in the dream world. With a hazy atmosphere, he used the warm light to catch audiences’eyes. To me it’s like a waking up point during this dreamy vibe，snapping fingers during hypnosis. Inspired by his photos I’d like to create this dim light far away loneliness feel and I searched online that cling film maybe reach this effect.

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Feeling of loneliness

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Pic shown above is the exhibition I've done with teammates before and developed from there, I want a more private room for this project. It opens to the public but at the same time it’s private so the space could be small, with a curtain, all black. Let the audience walk into my heart and resonate with me.

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His exhibition 'Love in Exile' features new paintings that address the feelings of loneliness, suffering, fear and uncertainty.

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His works always have a kind of collapsing and weird beauty. He uses old photos to retake and adds Photoshop technique, combining old photos with personal emotion and historical memory with new media technology.

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People are always pursuing the perfection of beauty and rejecting flaws. Why should everything be so perfect? Balance can only be achieved with flaws. Instead of living in an unreal fantasy of perfection, why not accept the inadequacy, coexist and live authentically. Things that exist must have the meaning of their existence, but will eventually disappear as well. Beauty has many forms and it's powerful.

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As for the final exhibition I want to create the combination of moving image and still photography, this short film caught my eyes. I was so intrigued by the meaning behind and also the soundtrack such a highlight. Similar to Joao, the creator, I hope to find myself deep inside and fully identify myself on the journey of this project, to accomplish self-discovery.

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Credits
Sound Design: Moullinex
All the rest: João Vaz Oliveira

Full project: behance.net/vazoliveira | www.vazoliveira.com

ABSTRACT

Six years ago, I thought of making a video with which I could fully identify myself. Without rules, without prejudice, without fear. Where I could be free regarding the narrative, either conceptual or audio and visual. I have often been committed, motivated, inspired; but I have also felt uninspired, discouraged, stuck. I let time go by. Often the seed falls on the earth and doesn’t bear fruit because our day-to-day routines smother it. 
The Covid-19 pandemic led us to a sudden arrest in our lives. It made me stop and helped me take a step back so that I could better focus on my goals. And that was when I realized that I was a part of a cycle. A creative cycle that hides its beauty in wonderment, but also in blockage and in emptiness. The beauty of error but also the beauty of being a fearless pioneer, of experimenting, feeling, provoking, sketching, and, bottom line, creating. 
This video is also a love letter to all of you who have been inspiring me.

The Cycle

Idea -> Wonderment -> Block -> Emptiness -> Light

Idea
An idea emerges. An idea that erupts, that enlightens, that prompts a new journey, a new challenge. That idea comes from inspiration, from knowledge, or from something that happened. It is a shock, an electrical discharge like thunder, a concentration of energy, of heat, that is born from the transcending world into the physical world, palpable, and carries us into a feeling of levity, of levitation.

Wonderment
It comes through the mind and goes through every pore, artery, feeling, and emotion. It is at that moment that the desire of making something new, different, expansive, is born. It seems like everything flows like a river, every idea makes sense, every system finds its correspondent, every thought is palpable, unique, achievable, and necessary. Like a passion that is fully corresponded, thus creating expectation.

Block
The barrier comes from various events in daily life. As if we were a limited deposit that needs to distribute our matter by several tasks, therefore distracting us from the true need that is the source of sources. The first type of immobilization begins to emerge: Does this make sense? And why does this question appear? Maybe because of our pride or of the thirst we have for wanting to be more and better? I do not know. What I know is that there is always a first block that leads us to question everything. Suddenly, that shock of adrenaline that made us wake up from our sleep, from the quotidian, vanishes as if it were burning paper. How strange it is to go through opposites like this, so quickly, light/shadow, white/dark, thin/thick, high/low. The truth is that it seems that a magnet that slyly attracts some material, and when we realize it we are already surrounded by other materials that we didn’t even know existed. A confusion, a nest that imprisons us, ties us, grips us, and makes us abort, invalidate, that primordial force. The repetition, layers, and layers that smother us, that freeze us, giving way to anxiety, to impatience, to frustration, to worry, to fear.


Emptiness
Lost. Emptiness. Echo. An obscure force that makes us blind and willing to give up. Inertia, as if we were in an aimless journey, in a boat with no direction. At this stage, that shock of energy still leads us to try and fight, but in the position of someone who is defeated.
It seems that we are so close to seeing something but we do not see what is in front of our noses. It seems easy, and at the same time difficult to achieve; it seems palpable but at the same time inexistent, slippery. This feeling leads us to give up, to set aside, to avoid, to lag.

Light/Revelation
The interpretation of obstruction – and even of its admiration and fascination – is the vital key of the process. To admire the work in its essence, without prejudice, without preservation, without malice, without hidden intentions. This is the secret that gives way to satisfaction, to light, to brightness, to liberation, to consolation, to the strength, to the beauty of creation.

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I've done works of 'Lady', 'Struggle', 'Life' and 'Food portrait' etc. What I tried to explore mainly were emotions and human nature. In this major project, I want to keep exploring feelings but make it more personal. This could be a very intimate project. My initial topic is Disruption, Broken and Awaken.