Creation of Final Piece

For my final piece I wanted to work much further into the film than I did for my initial experiment. I felt with that piece there was a lot of decorative work that I did, which partially I wanted but I found that it was a bit too much for the piece and made it look like it lacked in any deeper meaning. I thought a lot more carefully about my next piece and what I wanted to draw and include on it.

The major decision I made was regarding the scratching out of the people in the film. I did this for like 80% of the scenes. I made this creative choice because I felt that removing the one thing that you're supposed to be focusing on would be an accurate way of depicting ADHD and ADD within the film.

To do the scratching I used an etching tool commonly used for plastic etching for prints. This enabled me to easily scratch into the film emulsion repeatedly frame by frame. The designs that I drew I thought about in relation to my base topic and whether the represented what I wanted. I knew that last time I did too much decorative work but at the same time I didn't want to lose that completely. The elaborate designs were an aim to help visualise the distractions of ADHD and ADD and so I wanted to keep some of those elements in my work. I ended up just toning down the jazzy designs and just keeping a few to help with the vibe of the piece.

Something I felt was quite important this time around was editing the footage. For my initial experiment I didn't cut the footage at all and I just grabbed a massive chunk and worked with what was on it. This time I was more picky. I sifted through loads of the footage and added different parts throughout. I still wanted the base storyline to be there so it kind of made sense but I wanted it to me much more erratic and to jump around a bit through the piece, to show to the mercurial nature that often shows up in ADHD and ADD. 

I used a splicer to cut bits of footage together and a light-box so I could see what I was doing and what the film was looking like so far.

I then began doing testers on my film, because I knew that this time I wanted to do more than just scratch into it. I looked into using bleach for my film and found that it could have some interesting effects, and decided that this was something I wanted to incorporate into my film. By using bleach, this would add to the distortion and eccentric tone of the film creating a sense of agitation and restlessness that I wanted to show. I did several testers of bleach on film as I had never used it for something like this before and knew I should try it out before putting it on my final film.

I began by using a paintbrush to just lightly brush some of the bleach over the film to see what happened. It slowly began to take away layers of the emulsion on the film and reveal different tones such as purples, greens and yellows. I liked this effect a lot but it took quite a lot of time to get to this stage, and so I tried out some other methods.

I wanted to see what would happen if I just submerged the film in the bleach. This experiment quickly revealed how corrosive bleach actually is, as within seconds the whole segment had been dissolved from the film and there was no image left at all. The scratches were still there, but barely visible.

I tried using a cotton bud, just to see if there was a different texture than using a paintbrush and there was. I liked this technique quite a lot, the stripes looked good and it was a lot easier to get the effect I wanted quicker with the cotton bud. I thought this would probably be a good method to use for my final film.

I decided to try the submersion technique again, but this time to remove the film a lot faster. I quickly lifted the film from the container and removed the excess bleach with a towel and I got this effect. This was my favourite so far, I loved how it sort of faded away and had this fuzzy texture to it. I thought this would work perfectly in my film and add to the idea of zoning out of conversations and losing focus.

I also tested out the effect a sponge would have. I did like the effect but it was similar to the submersing, in that while the final effect was interesting it could be easier achieved using the submersion method.