Seminar exercise; Still Image Narrative Deconstruction

Boring title I know but this needs a bit of explanation before we get to brass tacks. Or something. In our direction class we (the class) were asked to produce a short narrative using only still images. These had to be produced with time, audio and image composition in mind. Now, having watched the results I need to comment on how I thought the project was tackled. But first, I should point out I've have made mine and I hope to upload it onto this blog in the next post. Let's hope my html knowledge holds out. And then you'll be able to see an example of a final piece. Also, I might link to, and comment on, other people's clip as they also use blogger. If I'm feeling sexy. Hear me now:


It seemed as a whole the class tackled it in a similar fashion. Functional, and about people or situations of people. On other words, nothing was experimental. It seemed very little symbolism was used. I'm not saying that's a bad thing mind, I guess its done in more art-based courses, it's just a favourite style of mine (I'll leave the judgement of my piece for the next blog entry.)

For me, since the project was limited to still imagery the use of sound is extremely important. As is the edits. Now, generally, the class work produced ranged from functional to an afterthought in my opinion. The still images/photography rarely went wrong. It seemed to be frequently a strong point in fact, using framing and juxtaposition of props. However, I think more consideration of audio could have been useful.

There were examples of animation also in the works (Ed Walsh's; the rolling of the joint reminds me of a Jan Svankmeyer.) Which I always love. And it's entirely within the brief since animations are just a load of stills right? (yes, I'm probably trying to justify mine) But then, others stuck close to the brief and used the still imagery as a way to tell the story. I have a really good example but I've forgotten who did it. It was a story of a night out that ends up on drugs, it was good because it cut really professionally and it knew where it was going. Good use of comedy to. I'll link it as soon as I find out who did it so apologies to the person in question. It's definitely worth a watch.


Okay, I think that's that. Now, I'll try make the next post my video and maybe give it a brief comment. Hold on to something firm.