Final Piece - Wait, What?

Analogue scratch film animation from Chloe Debonnaire on Vimeo.

An experimental film inspired by people with ADD and ADHD. Using archive footage of an office scene I wanted to almost recreate the scenario with how someone with ADD or ADHD would be viewing the situation. I wanted the camera to be the eyes of the viewer, so that they can see into the scene as if they were present - they are looking through the eyes of someone with ADD or ADHD. I deliberately chose a stereotypically boring segment of footage as that is when distractions and lack of focus most obviously occur, with the person losing track of what is being spoken about and thinking about something else and making their surroundings more interesting with their imagination. I used colour, bleach and scratching to show this.
I also used sound to reflect what was going on, using a variety of office sounds and adding someone whistling so depict the way the persons thoughts are in the clouds and they're thinking about other things.
The title 'Wait, What?' I chose because it is what I find myself saying in like 60% of conversations when I realise I haven't been listening to what someone has been saying to me for a solid 5 minutes. Hopefully it will strike a familiar chord with others as well, as it's such a relatable ADD/ADHD phrase,  or some variety there upon.

Soundscape and Final Export

For my sound piece I spent quite a lot of time deliberating what kind of sounds I would want in my piece. I took a lot of inspiration from the other artists work that I've referenced and built up my idea from there. I knew very early on that I wanted to make a soundscape and not have music, as I felt it would suit my work best. That being said I did add whistling to the piece as I felt like it added a distracted and 'in your own world' sort of feeling, which I felt was an important feeling to be giving out for this piece specifically. I found my sounds from online archives and spent a lot of time sifting through different sound files and testing out which ones worked well together.

I aimed for there to be a certain level of background noise that was pretty consistent throughout, so that there wasn't actual silence at any point as with ADD and ADHD it's really difficult to get your brain to calm down and stop making noise. I wanted sounds from both environments, so there are some office noises mixed in with sounds from projectors. I shifted the arrangement of the sound files multiple times to test out which orders they sounded best in and where I needed to remove or add sound.

Once I was satisfied with my sound piece I exported it, but when I added it to my film I didn't like it, it was louder in parts that I thought and some bits just didn't work with the film. So, I went back into Audition and re-edited. 

Before I did this bit, I imported my film into premiere. I initially had to make a digital copy of my film so that I could hand it in properly to my tutors, but this did then enable me to add sound so it worked out pretty well.

I used a DSLR camera and tripod and set up in front of the screen that I was projecting on. I was then able to film my analogue piece and import it into Premiere where I cut the beginning and end where there was just blank screen. I used the motion effect to adjust the framing as the camera had been at a slighting off centre angle, and so I was able to rotate it just a little to line up horizontally.

Then once I had added the sound, I lined it up and then I was ready to export.

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.

Fields and Frames Initial Experiment

I sort of began to know what I wanted to do for my piece so I decided to go straight in and start to experiment and see what happened. I began with the idea of ADD and ADHD so my initial thought process was to use distractions and changes of focus on the film.
I began to scratch into the film and added parts to each individual frame. I was trying to look at it from the cameras perspective, as if it was a point of view shot. I used scratching and colour to take attention away from what you are supposed to focus on to somewhere else.
For example I sometimes scratched away the frame and left just the computer or a window as that was where the attention was taken to and now the viewer is not focusing on the person who is talking anymore. This happens at many random points throughout the conversations that take place.



I also used scratches to show eye line and where people were looking and added decorations around the characters faces to depict the overly active imagination of the subject who is viewing these people. I scratched some words in as I wanted the idea that whatever the two people are saying, the viewer is lost in their own world and whatever is being said is going completely over their head.

Fields and Frames Research

Stan Brakhage

Brakhage was a key influence in my ideas development. His piece 'Eye Myth' was a favourite of mine. I used Brakhage as a reference because of the nature of his work. It was really similar to the sort of thing I had in mind for my own work, and he really inspired me with the way he worked into the film so much, really testing the limits of how far he could go.
What I liked about his piece Eye Myth was the way that it was different to his other work. In this piece you could make out the outlines of people and characters moving around the frame which I loved. He had worked into it so much you could barely see what was going on but then every now and then you'd see someone moving in the frame and then they'd be gone again. I really liked that part of his work.



I really love his use of colour in the film, it really brings another tone into play. It brings the film to life and adds depth, making it more engaging to observe and get involved with.
Brakhage was really experimental with his work and I really liked that there weren't a lot of other filmmakers like him out there at the time, other experimental film workers mostly just made scratch films etc. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what he used on his film to get the effects that he did as I knew that I wanted to try to do something similar with my own piece.
The intensity of the piece is something else I admired, its so erratic and chaotic which is another aspect that drew me to his work.



This is another example of his work that I enjoyed, although not as much. I mostly really liked the techniques he used to work into the film and take away different layers show the figures as silhouettes. I also thought that the way he edited it was clever, with the jumpy cuts and transitions and I thought that may be useful in my piece. I don't like the grainy quality of the film, it gives me a bit of a headache and I find it unpleasant to keep watching. I do appreciate the variety of the different film clips and how experimental he has made the piece but I'm not sure it's something I will draw on too heavily.


Feeling My Way from Jonathan Hodgson on Vimeo.

This was the first piece I found that inspired my work, it was shown to me by an animation student friend. I loved the way he drew over the his outline in the shadow and thought that it had a really interesting effect. The way this man looks at the world makes it much more interesting and imaginative which is something that would link to ADD and ADHD and the way that people who have either one, look at the world and get distracted by thoughts processes like this. The handheld quality adds to the perspective quality of the film. The sound design is also quite interesting, adding in the sounds of the objects the character walks past with the added continuous sound of hie footsteps.

Peter Renn and Nicky Hamlin Workshops

In preparation for our upcoming unit, we did multiple workshops on old film techniques. One of the ones we did was with Peter Renn, who specialises in film photography and spoke to us about lots of different types of cameras. We spent some time making our own cameras out of cardboard boxes and a lens, and shining light through to make an image.

We then used photo sensitive paper and large format cameras to take our own photos.

 The first image we took got pulled out of the _____ too early and fogged half of the image, as well as it being out of focus.

The second image we took was more successful. It was however, still a bit out of focus and we left it in the developer fluid a bit too long and it went too dark.

Our third attempt went well overall but was still a bit too dark. This one did end up being one of my favourites though as we also spent some time composing the shot, with the long table protruding into the foreground and the subject positioned in the dead centre, and at the opposite end.

We then decided to experiment, and took a double exposure image. We did this by setting the exposure time on the camera to half a second, and then swapping the first subject with someone else and exposing the image again for another half second. This turned out very dark, but you can still see the two faces in the image if you look closely and it make for a quite interesting photograph to look at.

We then had some other workshops with Nicky Hamlyn, working with 16mm film. This was my favourite of the workshops, as we were given old used film and clear film and film that was covered in black enamel and told to draw on it.

When I say draw I also mean scratch and colour and sew and do whatever we wanted and see what we create. Nicky had a projector in the room and so we were able to look at everyone’s films as they made them.They were all only a few seconds long as we had to draw on every frame, at a frame rate of 25 frames per second.

I found this workshop inspired me for what I wanted to do for my project. I had done a scratch film once before during my foundation and I had forgotten how much I liked it. It was also a really nice opportunity to get to work with my hands again.

I have always loved drawing and painting and have dabbled in hand drawn animation, and so being able to do this work without computers was something I really enjoyed.

For my short film I chose to use the blacked out film, as this was what I had used before. This time however I decided to make more of an animation than I had last time. I used a lot of shapes and even some small animals through the film, which in total lasts maybe 5-6 seconds. I used markers to colour in parts of the film to add a bit more dimension to the piece and make it more pleasurable to watch.