Read Script
I found that the sparse script was much more open than the other ones I've studied, which allowed for a much wider interpretation and artistic freedom.
Analysis
Time line 5 10 5 10 5 - Intensity
We immediately thought of the first breath you take when trying something new - "the world is new"
- Sky diving, Sex, first cigarette, Childbirth, War and Drug use.
Research
Admittedly, I did focus more on heroin addiction than anything else because I found it the most interesting subject and as a group we felt early on it was the path we may want to take. Our final piece may have suffered slightly from this as it meant that we slightly narrowed our sights too early in the project. If we were to redo the project I would spend more time gathering a wider range of influences before deciding on the path we wanted to take.
Fun Fact! Spending multiple evenings reading up about heroin addiction is a great way to bring you down if you're feeling a little too good about the world.
Samuel Beckett
Fought as a resistance fighter for the French during WWII. His unit was betrayed but he managed to escape and flee with his wife.
War would have been relevant to him as substance abuse is relevant to many in our age group.
Half a million heroin addicts in the US and rising. Bags can cost as little as £6.Personal stories
Rachel Whitear - Slumped forward
Summer Myers - Found by brother in a caravan
Songs
The drugs don't work - The Vervehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToQ0n3itoII
I found two stories both claiming to be the inspiration behind this song. The first is that it depicted the band's own struggle with drug abuse and the search for happiness. One of which being that Richard Whitear's father was dying of illness and the drugs did nothing to improve his health. In my opinion this was the much more powerful stories because of the love involved
Golden Skies - Little Robyn, a song about heroin addiction.
Popular Culture
Russel Brand
Trainspotting
Requiem for a Dream
Stephanie MacDonald Tony Fouhse
Cardiff, Living on the Streets
War - First kill, desensitisation - Kill Kill Kill -> dehumanisation and demonising of the Vietnamese during the war in Vietnam. - "Kikes"
Nazis, Cults, America (Walmart and national anthem in primary schools) Live and breath together. Indoctrination.
Relief - Guilt - pride?
Life
On a slightly lighter note, I briefly looked at the definition of breath and then of vital force. In our incubation phase we tried to combine both heroin abuse and the idea of natural life.
Incubate
Selection
By the time we had entered this stage of our design process we already had a pretty clear idea of the route we wanted to go down. The main selection came later on when we looked at the images we had taken and had to choose the direction we wanted to take the film in.
Implementation
Location - Will - scenographer
Camera - Shutter speeds, voyeurism, darker - Will
Belt Prop, costume - Blue shirt is trainspotting inspired, and make up - Sophie
Movie Maker - Me and Sophie
Photoshop - Me - Touched up certain pictures to make them more vibrant.
Evaluation
Out of all of the projects to date I am most proud of the final version of this project because I feel like we worked well together as a team and stuck close by to the seven steps of design. You can see a definite improvement since the last project in terms of sticking to the seven steps and giving each one adequate time.
One of the few negatives I can think of to the project as a whole is that I find many of the pictures pretty similar to one another and I would have liked to include more variation within the film to show a sharper contrast between the death/hopelessness of heroin use and the endless possibilities of a new life. As it stands I think that the film, although great in its own right, fails to live up to its potential. Additionally although not a criticism, if I were to redo the project from scratch I think it would be interesting to go down a more natural path, taking more inspiration from the stories of real life addicts and the experiences they had. I think that our final version does little to show the brutal reality of addiction and we could have offered increased realism had we offered more vague imagery. Most of the pictures were staged, which I feel takes away from the emotional impact that having more natural imagery would possibly have had.
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