Proposal

My project for my moving image piece is about Dementia and memory loss, inspired by the work of Christopher Nunn and Phillip Toledano. I plan to use my Nan who suffers from slight memory loss due to age, and document her doing simple tasks and forgetting about them. The thing she does most is make cups of tea and forget where she places them, therefore, I plan to have her making cups of tea and placing them on the side table, forgetting about them and making more – the end conclusion being the cups of tea stacked on the table half drunk and forgotten about.

I have used the work of Christopher Nunn, Phillip Toledano and Keith Arnatt as my main body of research. Christopher Nunn was my initial research material, due to the fact I found his series based on David Blackburn and his struggle with dementia online. I fell in love with the simplistic shots of items around Blackburn’s home, as well as portraits of Blackburn reading and looking at old photographs, showing how weary he has become. Following on from this research, my tutor told me to look into the work of Phillip Toledano, who created the series “Days with my Father”. The series looks into the heartbreak and stress that people with dementia or severe memory loss go through, as Toledano’s father had no idea where his wife was, even though she was dead. The portrait of Toledano’s father looking in the mirror at his reflection was the photograph that influenced me most, due to the composition and meaning. In my video, I plan to use very still video clips to represent the stillness aspect, whereby the viewer is forced to focus on the facial expressions that the subject is making. It also gives the notion that the person is still because she is thinking. Further from this, I looked into the work of Keith Arnatt, who produced a series of images called “Notes From My Wife”. I wanted to incorporate hand written notes in my video, to help guide the viewer to understand that the video is about dementia and not about someone who just likes tea!

Christopher Nunn

Phillip Toledano

Keith Arnatt

I plan to use two cameras for filming; my boyfriends Canon C100 cine camera to make sure my video is high quality, as well as using my Canon 60D to film the notes that are going to be left around the house. I already know how to use Premiere Pro to a basic level but it will be good to learn more about the program. In terms of technical aspects, I need to make sure that I film with the right settings so I do not have to film more than once, as well as making sure my lighting is adequate and there are no items in the background that could cause continuity errors.

Research: Keith Arnatt

Upon researching into Dementia and how people cope with the illness, I decided to ask my Grandma and Grandad how my great-Grandparents cope with the illness and small things they do. My Grandad commented on the fact that my great-grandfather leaves small notes around the house, much like David Blackburn does in Christopher Nunn's series of images. Therefore, I decided to look into the work of Keith Arnatt. I researched this series of photographs during my college studies when I was looking into memory and love. These notes were left around the house by his late wife, and included in the series "Notes From My Wife"

Martin Parr wrote an article for The Guardian which I am referencing in my research, Parr speaks about Arnatt's early career and he "liked the unpredictable and acts of provocation". The series of images, two of which are shown below, are jottings and reminders (- and sometimes insults!) written by his wife, who was killed by a brain tumour in the early 90's. Parr writes "Taken out of context and blown up, they become surreal. This was Arnatt's strength as a photographer: he understood how the smallest detail or observation could be transformed by the act of isolation"

I like the idea of small notes and reminders being included in my final work, especially ones that express their concern for loss of memory or confusion as to where they are or where people are. I might included small reminders such as these in my video, especially around the central point where the subject becomes more confused by the obvious build up of undrank tea and confusion about where they have come from.

http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/may/19/weekend7.weekend4

Research: Gregory Crewdson

After looking into Julia Perione's work on awkward facial expressions in young girls and how photography and video can be used to invade into peoples personal space, I decided to look at the work of Gregory Crewdson as it felt right to do so. A lot of Crewdson's work looks at people sat within their home, and makes it out like they don't know someone is watching. Although staged, I thought it was appropriate to examine his work based on the fact that my film will be staged. Gregory Crewdson works like a film producer, with a massive crew and the whole process taking hours to produce. I like the idea of making a set out of a home, and making certain things look as if they were meant to be there. As part of my video, I will need to "dress" the set of my film, by moving certain object so they are not in frame. For example, at my Nan's house there is a large clock next to the chair I will be using. For continuity reasons, I will need to move this, as having a clock in the back of my frame where the time will be changing significantly in every single shot would be distracting as well as unprofessional.

Research: Julia Perione

I decided to look into the work of Julia Perione and her series of work concentrating on capturing awkward facial expressions in young girls who are concerned about their appearance. After looking into the work of Christopher Nunn, I decided to look more into photographic series that intrude on peoples personal space and lives, because of the nature of my film. My short film is being filmed inside my Nan's home, and I will be using camera angles that invade her personal space, such as close ups of eyes and cropped wide angles of her face.

Research: Phillip Toledano

Day's With My Father is the set of images by Phillip Toledano that follows the journey of his Father's short term memory loss and how he deals with it after his Mother died. Phillip writes "My Mum died suddenly on September 4th, 2006. After she died, I realised how much she'd been shielding me from my father's mental state. He doesn't have alzeimers, but he has no short-term memory, and is often lost. I took him to the funeral, but when we got home, he kept asking me every 15 minutes where my mother was. I had to explain over and over again that she had died. This was shocking news to him. Why had no-one told him? Why hadn't I taken him to the funeral? Why hadn't he visited her in the hospital? He had no memory of these events. After a while, I realised I couldn't keep telling him that his wife had died. He didn't remember, and it was killing both of us, to constantly re-live her death. I decided to tell him she'd gone to Paris, to take care of her brother, who was sick. And thats where she is now. This is a journal. An ongoing record of my father, and our relationship. For whatever days we have left together."

"I asked my father to look in the mirror, while I took his photograph. Now, you have to realise my Dad was very handsome when he was young. When people talk about 'Film star handsome', well, that was my Dad. In fact, he WAS a film star (of sorts), in Hollywood, during the 1930's. So when he looks in the mirror, he sees a man ravaged, a man no longer beautiful, and that upsets him deeply. You see, he's still vain at 98, in fact, his vanity can be quite extraordinary. I tried to take him to the doctor a few months ago, but on the way out, he caught a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror. He was so horrified with his appearance, that he refused to leave the house until I found a 'black pencil' to dye his white hair with."

The above two photographs are the ones that I have found most inspirational. The top one is his father and mother together, I presume from a previous photographic set he produced. It shows the love between them and represents how much it must have hurt and upset him every time Toledano was to repeat the news about his wife's death. The bottom photograph refers to the paragraph I have cited from Toledano's website (www.dayswithmyfather.com), which refers to him vanity and how it upsets him that he is no longer "handsome".

"My father often tells me he wants to die.

He says its time for him to go, thats he's been around too long. It's odd, because part of me wants him to go too. This is no life for him, living in the twilight of half memories. But he is the only really close family I have left."

I love the style of the first image, due to the fact that the light is covering half of his face, maybe relating to the fact that half of his memory is hidden. It could also be referring to the lack of a 'bright' future he has, a kind of opposite meaning. The photograph at the bottom has a bright and warm glow, but means the complete opposite. The photograph refers to the conversation had been Toledano and his father about his wish to die, which obviously is a negative and bleak conversation to be had. You can clearly see the worry and anguish in his eyes, and it saddens me as a viewer to see someone this way, although I have no emotional connection with them.

http://www.dayswithmyfather.com/

Film Research: There's a Difference, Alzheimer's Australia + Advertisements

I watched this 30 second advertisement for National Television that was created my Alzheimer's Australia, that compared forgetfulness to dementia in a simplistic way. They use shots that I am using, inspired by my research into Christopher Nunn, of items left around the house. Here, they use a bag and a set of keys as examples as things people might forget, and alerting people to the fact that losing or misplacing an items many times might be a symptom of early onset dementia.

Other inspirational advertisements

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2zXdWODNyQ&list=PLAwhBH-4GO5gop5nSfNoUo6q-aHoszHVk&index=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blrogSUrjRg&index=3&list=PLAwhBH-4GO5gop5nSfNoUo6q-aHoszHVk

Film Research: "Living With Dementia" - A Short Film/Documentary by Joe Yates

I decided upon researching into different photographic sets of images that looked into the illness of dementia, it would be a good idea and automatic link to then look into other short films created by other filmmakers and see how they tackled the issue.

I screens hotted some scenes that I found particularly inspiring and I am going to comment on them below.

The first scene begins in the bathroom, where the father is looking very confused about who he is and why he is there. In my film, I plan to capture a lot of confused and emotional faces to express the pain and anger people who suffer from dementia must feel inside. On the odd occasion, my great grandfather who suffers from early onset dementia, gets angry at his loss of short and long term memory and pulls confused and saddened faces. I want to express the emotion in my film to make people feel something.

The next scene shows the father taking some pills, which means he has been diagnosed with dementia and the doctor is trying to find a way for him to deal with it. During the duration of my film, I do not want there to be any signs of medication and means of coping with the illness, I want the illness to remain undiagnosed and unknown, making the cause of the woman's forgetfulness less obvious, relating back to my point about not spoon feeding the viewer.

Here, in this scene, the father is watching the television, and trying to change the channel with the landline phone. Then, his daughter walks in with a worried expression and replaces the phone with the remote control. The worried expression of the daughter makes me think about incorporating another character into the film, maybe a relative or neighbour who visits and looks concerned. However, with the short time frame I have to show my film in, between 80 and 240 seconds, it would be too elaborate of a concept to include narrative and conversation, especially without the correct sound recording equipment.

In the final scene, you see the father leave the house, much to the worry of his daughter, and visit what seems to be a local park or woodland area. Here, he becomes more confused and the camera angle makes the character seem erratic and confused. There are close ups of his eyes, which I already plan to include, and wider shots of his face whilst it moves around, trying to gage his location.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7vJP7dcgS8

Research: Alex Ten Napel

I was searching the internet for inspiration for an upcoming personal project and stumbled across the work of Alex Ten Napel who is a portrait photographer. He produced a series of image titled "Portraits of people suffering from Alzeimer's disease". I found these images very inspiration for my own portrait work as well as this project.

http://www.alextennapel.nl/alzheimer.html

Research: Helen Manley

I was looking into Helen Manley's photographic series on dementia which focussed on post-production and how Photoshop can make a series of images have a deeper meaning. Her series, titled "Living In Shadow" looks at several older people who are suffering from dementia and how they deal with the condition. Helen has used books flying off a bookshelf and disappearing to represent loss of memory, which is a really inspiring concept.

http://www.hjimages.co.uk/LivingInShadow.html

Research: Larry Sultan

Larry Sultan produced a series of images titled "Pictures from Home", which concentrated and followed the lives of his parents and documented their daily routine, some including mundane tasks like "Conversation in Driveway". However, because of the voyeuristic view that we are experiencing, where we feel like we are preying on their private lives. I am most inspired by the image where you can see the memories that the father has on his workspace. I plan to use this as research for my video, as I would like to document where my Nan's room in her home, and see what photographs and memories surround her to help her remember the past as well as she can.

http://larrysultan.com/gallery/pictures-from-home/

Research: Christopher Nunn

Falling into the Day is a story about Nunn's friend David Blackburn and how he lives a life with dementia after being an accomplished artist for a number of years. He photographs items are his home between 2009-2011 and then in various care homes he has travelled to and from between 2011 and the present day. Nunn says "what began as a simple character study of an eccentric man and his quiet existence slowly became a story about living with dementia and the subtle deterioration of a creative mind during the last years of self-sufficiency and independence." I found his work to be my main inspiration into my work, as he photographs specific items that would usually jog someones memory, but doesn't jog Blackburn's memory. I plan to use simple shots like this in my video to represent my models loss of memory and how these little reminders can help keep people happy. The props I plan to use for this film are old photographs and a photo album, which both represent the concept of memory and stillness.

http://www.christophernunn.co.uk/fallingintotheday/0ikfafpm6p5f612k0p9gzamd2fzf1t

http://www.active-minds.co.uk/news/post/christopher-nunn-and-david-blackburn-documenting-dementia/#.VDusBa1dXow

Film Research: Dementia (2014) + Ah Kong

I have been doing some research into Dementia and do how it affects people, so I can make an informed video that is accurate and ultimately doesn't offend anyone as a result. I researched into the NHS website and informed myself about what Dementia is. Dementia affects people who are usually 65 or over, and is a group of symptoms that form the disease. They're made up of memory loss, thinking speed, mental ability, language, understanding and judgement. I watched three short films on Dementia to see how people talked such a sensitive subject that could upset people or offend people who know people who suffer from the illness. My Great Grandad suffers from early onset Dementia, and seeing him in a care home, not being able to draw and write like he used to do is upsetting, but makes me more determined to make a really inspiring film about the illness using the theme of "Stillness and Memory".

Firstly I watched a trailer for a film called Dementia made in 2014. This trailer started off well, showing an older lady trying to piece together a jigsaw whilst her daughter watched on. There was speech from the daughter layered over the top narrating what was happening. However, as the trailer went on, I soon began to realise it was a horror movie and that it had no reference to actual dementia as an illness, just a reason to use it as an illness that might cause older people to "see" or "hear" things that aren't actually there. I have dismissed this as a reasonable source of research for my project apart from the use of speech.

Followed after this was a short film called Ah Kong by Royston Tan, which was a documentary inspired film that interview people who knew or used to know the man who had dementia. They spoke about his humour, his kind nature and how he used to be when he was younger. The film then looks at how his Father is now, and how he has deteriorated from the man he used to be. It was such a hard hitting documentary that opened my eyes a lot about the illness a lot. I loved the interview style that was shown, and it gave a real insight into how Dementia can affect people and change them completely. I do not want to execute an interview style of documentary, but more of a creative film that doesn't spoon feed the viewer into instantly believing the film is based on Dementia.

Research: Alec Soth

I have decided to research in Alec Soth's NIAGRA, particularly the ones of the love letters that have been left behind by estranged lovers who visit the location for holidays or to get married.

I like to concept of having handwritten letters or notes in my video, as a gentle reminder to the characters self as to what they need to remember. This reminds me and I take inspiration from Phillip Toledano's set Days With My Father, were his father writes in a notepad "Where is Hectore? Where is Phillip? Where is Ralph? Where is everybody?". Having simple notes around the film or even behind in the simple shot might be handy in getting the message across about the concept of the film.

Research: Ally Bain

"In July 1999, I was assaulted and the hard hitting punch forced my head to land heavily on the concrete pavement. I was taken to hospital and, whilst still in a coma, I underwent two brain operations with the first being to remove a haemotoma (collection of blood). The second operation was to remove some dead brain cells, a partial lobotomy in my left frontal lobe. The coma lasted for several days and that was followed by post-traumatic amnesia. Once fully awake, further tests were taken and this showed significant problems. The main areas were, and still are, my language skills (reading, writing and speech), certain parts of my memory and other cognitive problems. Due to my experience of these problems, I chose to look into the realms of showing loss of memory by corrupting the photographic image. Fragmented and distorted, my work is an attempt to visualise the complex notion of memory and its loss."

Ally Bain took images from his past, which he cannot remember or recall due to his lack of memory and partial lobotomy, and re wrote the coding inside the data. This produced a series of images that reflected his mental memory state, distorting the images and making them almost unrecognisable to the owner of the photograph. I like the way that distortion can be used to reflect a mental illness, such as dementia or memory loss through accidents, and I hope I can manage to combine this into my final film.

Research: Robbie Cooper

Immersion by Robbie Cooper is a series of videos and stills looking into how people can become comfortable and immersed in their surroundings when distracting, for example, by playing video games.

I love how the concept of stillness is incorporated into this series of videos, as the subjects are all sat in the same place, sometimes for hours on end, playing a video game, however, time for them will pass so quickly it will feel like they have only been there for a few minutes. The shots that are presented in this series are something that I would like to capture (see below)

I love the way that there is an adequate amount of background around the subject, so that he is the sole subject in the shot but there is room to move our eyes and make sure that he is the centre of our attention. I would like to capture a shot like this in my work, based on Cooper's composition.

Initial Ideas

I have been inspired for my project by visiting my great grandparents who both have dementia in a care home. The theme of the project, "Stillness and Memory", inspired me to do a piece looking at how memory fades over the course of our life and can not always be preserved. I have been inspired by the work of Larry Sultan' series "Pictures from Home" and the work of Christopher Nunn documenting the fading memory of David Blackburn. I plan to incorporate the stillness of subjects sitting and thinking, as well as memories that they have at the front of their memory. I wanted to use my great-grandparents in the video, but they are too ill and confused to understand what is going on, and I would hate to upset them. My next plan was going to be using my boyfriend, his father and his grandfather to represent the idea of ageing and losing memory, as his grandfather could suffer from dementia in the very near future, and he struggles to remember some aspects of his childhood and events that have recently happened. However, upon planning a storyboard, I came to realise that the shot list was very extensive and I didn't feel like I was going to portray the idea very well.

After gaining all this feedback and thoughts, I have decided to use my Nan on this shoot, and film her carrying out everyday activities. She can be quite forgetful sometimes, so I am going to film her over the course of a day and edit the footage together to produce a piece based on dementia, but that really has the viewer thinking about what the piece represents. I don't want to spoon feed my viewers, I want my work to be very questionable and informed, but creative and insightful.

Basic Scientific Research

I decided to do some basic research into Dementia as an illness and learn more about it scientifically. The knowledge I have gained has been through my great-grandparents illness which has been told to me by parents and family members in vague detail, and also from the television news and documentaries online. However, in order to present a well informed and educated piece of video work, I feel like I need to know more about the illness from a professional point of view. I decided to read Dementia by Lawrence Whalley and John Breitner which is an easy to read but informative book focussing on the neuroscience and symptoms/treatment for dementia.

Basic Neuroscience

"Although the presence of dementia does not always imply the existence of an identifiable brain disease, it usually does so. A basic knowledge of some of the principles of neuroscience and the anatomy and physiology of the brain is therefore essential to a basic understanding of the illness" (Page 7)

The book then goes onto show the layout of a cell in the brain, and got me thinking about different ways that I could show how a person thinks and using sound to insinute thinking and mental production of thoughts. However, this chapter did not go down to well, due to my lack of interest in science! (SORRY!). So I anticipate my main body and inspiration from scientific research will comes from the symptoms section of this book.

Symptoms, signs and course

"Sometimes, particularly in the UK, the term Dementia is used to signify a brain disease with a precise corresponding neuropathology. However, we prefer to define dementia as a clinical syndrome without implication of any specific etiology. The syndrome is characterised by a decline in multiple aspects of cognition that is not attributable to alteration in consciousness." (Page 34)

My personal knowledge understood dementia to have a few symptoms, such as loss of memory, and loss of reasoning, but this book lists a lot more that I would never have associated with the illness, such as lack of perceptual interpretation, lack of use of language and lack of ability to deal with relationships and friendships. In my film, I definitely want to concentrate on the lack of memory aspect, as that is what most people associate with dementia, but would also like to intertwine the idea of lack of language by not having any narrative or speech included, apart from the occasional sigh from exhaustion of trying to remember specific memories or sighing from anger.


(Lawrence J. Whalley, 2002. Dementia Fast facts Series. 1st Edition. Health Pr.)

Research: 30 Seconds to Mars (City of Angels)

I watched this video a long time ago, the day it came out as a music video, and fell in love with the way it was shot. I previously mentioned, when researching into the exhibition "Autoportraits in Lovelike Conditions", that the style of an interview piece really interests me and that I would like to incorporate the stillness into my work.

Research: 30 Seconds to Mars (Up In The Air)

Up In The Air - 30 Seconds to Mars

I have always been inspired by this video and the editing techniques behind it. Recently, I have fallen in love with the way some parts of this film have been shot, especially the references to the Damien Hurst artwork (of which, I am a HUGE fan). At the beginning, there are very fast cuts between certain elements of the music that happen later on, such as the large lady in the bikini dancing, and the butterflies. The entire video is filled with very still shots that could be useful in putting forward a certain feeling or emotion.

This is the shot I was most inspired by. I love the wide angle shot that puts him central, but still has a lot of unused space that the bees can fly around it. Although the subject is interesting, I still find that the composition and the stillness of the model makes the shot. I would like my models to be composed like this in my own video, and have the same stillness and look at the camera. When I visited the "Autoportraits in Love-like Conditions" exhibition at the Cornerhouse, the artist looked at people's awkwardness in front of the camera and how it affects the feel of the film. I don't want to disguise the awkwardness that the model radiates from them.

The incorporation of text is something I have always wanted to try in video and never got round to doing so. I love the font in the video, especially for the single words that flash up on screen; "Love", "Lust", "Faith" and "Dreams". I feel like this is something I would like to experiment with in my piece, but maybe not incorporate it into my final piece.

The stillness of the model surrounded by the movement of the butterflies, but in slow motion. It gives this shot a surreal feel, as the model seems unprovoked by the butterflies that are landing all around her. The butterflies give reference to Damien Hurst and his work that involved butterflies, both dead and alive. Knowing Damien Hurst's work gives me a different angle to look at this video at, because the artwork, creatures and expression give it a personal touch to his work.

Research: Stranger Than Paradise

I watched the trailer to this film which was released in 1984, which was referenced in the book Slow Movies: Countering the Cinema of Action. The beginning shot shows a woman looking out at the planes, which I find very interesting, as there is a combination of quick movement from the plane as well as the stillness of the woman with her suitcases.