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.