User:Loes van Dorp/ Annotation Paper memories

About the film:

• Stop-Motion technique, approximately 4000 photos.

• Written and Directed by Theo Putzu
• Photography Theo Putzu
• Editing Theo Putzu
• Sound Design Martin Ortega Granella
• Soundtrack Miguel Marin miguel-marin.com

Awards

• Special Mention at VISIONARIA 2010 - Piombino - Italy
• Special Jury Prize at BOLZANO SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 2010 - Bolzano - Italy
• Special Jury Prize at Festival CinemaZERO 2010 - Trento - Italy
• Nomination for "BEST EDITING" at GRAND OFF 2010 - Warsaw - Poland
• Best Short Film at CORTO CORTO MON AMOUR 2010 - Cinisi - Italy
• Best Short Film at CORTI CIRCUITI 2010 - Calderara di Reno - Italy
• Special Jury Prize at MIGLIO D'ORO FILM FESTIVAL 2010 - Portici - Italy
• Best Short Film at FESTIVAL CORTO XX 2010 - Roma - Italy
• Best International Short Film at FESTIVAL PONTINO DEL CORTOMETRAGGIO 2011 - Latina - Italy
• Nomination for "BEST DRAMA SHORTFILM" at Festival STOKE YOUR FIRE 2011- Stoke-on-Trent - UK
• Special Mention at Festival VISIONI ITALIANE 2011 - Bologna, Italy
• Best Editing at FESTIVAL A CORTO DI IDEE 2011 - Ravello, Italy.
• Best Short Film at FESTIVAL SCHERMI IRREGOLARI 2011 - Bagno a Ripoli, Italy
• Best Actor at SOLOFRA FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - Solofra, Italy
• Audience Awards at DISPOSABLE FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - San Francisco, USA
• Best Short Film at PARMA VIDEO FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - Parma, Italy
• Special Jury Prize at CESATE SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - Cesate, Italy
• Best Experimental Short Film at FILM VIDEO MONTECATINI 2011 - Montecatini, Italy
• Second Prize at FESTIVAL INVENTA UN FILM 2011 - Lenola, Italy
• Best cinematography at FESTIVAL INVENTA UN FILM 2011 - Lenola, Italy
• Best Editing at FESTIVAL INVENTA UN FILM 2011 - Lenola, Italy
• Special Mention at SCREENGRAB NEW MEDIA ARTS AWARD 2011 - Townsville, Australia.
• Jury prize at TRANI FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - Trani, Italy.
• Special Mention at SCIACCA FILM FEST 2011 - Sciacca, Italy.
• Best ShortFilm/New Technologies at UNDERGROUND CISTERNA FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - Cisterna, Italy.
• Best Cinematography at UNDERGROUND CISTERNA FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - Cisterna, Italy.
• Best Screenplay at UNDERGROUND CISTERNA FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - Cisterna, Italy.
• Best Short film at WORDLESS FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - Acquaviva delle Fonti, Italy.
• Best Foreign Short Film at CORTOLOVERE 2011 - Lovere, Italy.
• Best experimental Short Film at I'VE SEEN FILMS 2011 - Milan, Italy.
• Best Short Film at NOVARA FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - Novara, Italy.
• Best Short Film at MESTRE FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - Mestre, Italy.
• Third prize at FESTIVAL CORTODINO 2011 - Torre Annunziata, Italy.
• Best Cinematography at SEMANA DE CINE EXPERIMENTAL DE MADRID 2011 - Madrid, Spain.
• Best experimental Short Film at TIRANA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - Tirana, Albania.
• Online award "experimental" at TIRANA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - Tirana, Albania.
• Best Short Film at CORTIAMO 2011 - Alcamo, Italy.
• Best Film/Public Choice at FLUXUS FILM FESTIVAL 2011 - São Paulo/Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Annotation

Story

An old thin, not healthy looking man is looking at old letters and pictures of a woman. This could be a woman he loved. On one of the pictures she sits in the living room. He holds the picture in a position so that the real room and the room on the picture is kind of the same. The woman on the Picture starts moving and getting up the table walking through the door. He decides to follow her and go's outside too, with the picture still in his hand.

Suddenly he stops walking and looks at the picture and then to the space around him. Again he holds the picture in such a way that the surroundings fit almost perfectly. The women smiles at him and walks away again. He follows her again expecting to see her in real around the corner. After a bit of walking he sits down to rest looking restlessly around him. He starts walking again, while looking around him in search. He finds a spot again and holding the picture again in the way the two worlds overlap. She again stands up and walks away and he follows her again with determination but looking confused.

He walks again a longer stroll now. He stops to look at his picture and holds it again like before and she again walks away. He follows her again and walks to a bench and sit on it while looking at the picture and sees an image of the women on the beach. He gets up and walks away, knowing where to go. He ended up on the beach where he walks toward the sea and putting the picture in the sand in the right position. You see the women walking towards the sea and sits down. He gets up, leaving the picture in the sand and steps over the picture. From that moment you see him in the picture too, walking towards the women he loves. And sits next to her.

Together again.

Sound

The sound is really direct and obvious; Ticking of a clock, and sounds of the things he does (walking, breathing, sitting, the wind etc.) And there is a very soft piano melody on the background.

When the picture is hold against the real world the sound changes, gets more noisy. You hear people talking in the background and when she walks you hear footsteps.

Technique

Everything is in stop-motion which gives something surreal and unreal to the motion. Every movement you notice, because they are rigid very rigid.

→ → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → →

What do I like about this work and why

What I like about this animation is the literary overlap of the past and the present. The fact that the woman on the picture is younger than him, makes you think that she died a while ago and that he is looking at the past through the pictures, trying to get hold of it.

I like the parts where the picture and the real world overlap and the image in the picture starts to live. Especially the part in the end where the old man is in both realities.

Why do I Like that? I like it because it mixes different realities into one image. It is also very easy to understand how it is made, but still it doesn't loses its magical aspect. You know that you are looking at a trick, but you let yourself be tricked. And it is not only a trick, it tells a story through the trick. It really refers to the longing to the past, by using pictures.

Film and Photography are often used as metaphors in thinking about dreams and memory. We also use pictures to conserve unforgettable events, so we can use them to remember what we forget. Which often results in that we remember the picture of the event, not the event itself.

People want to archive everything. They make pictures of every event of their live. Why is that? Why do we want to be able to look into the past? What is it that we have urge to preserving live. Are we afraid that we will forget? Or are we afraid of not be remembered after we are gone if we do not archive ourselves? Is it a way o get hold of the present and future? Why do I want to write/ draw/ picture things of my live? Is it to order the chaos around us? Is it to help you to filter the impressions? Or does it help you to enjoy live more by filtering, saving this parts of live.

What I like less about this animation, is that the picture suggest that it took place a longer time ago, but that this is not visual in the locations where the pictures of the woman are made. In both realities the same graffiti tag is on the wall... Which probably would not have been there anymore, or new graffiti would have been made. ....Unless the woman is the only ghost from the past and not the location. That she went into this new time through this pictures. Maybe that is way the old man expects to see her in real when he walks around the corner....

Connection with my work

This animation has similarities with my project 'Portrait of an empty house'.

In 'Portrait of an empty house' I experimented with how to show different times and different worlds in one image. I tried to show how memories define a known space.

The space is given this extra layer of the past by using a Plexiglas screen (+/- 140x200 cm) to put a drawn animation upon using oil paint.

You see a girl/woman pushing this big Plexiglas screen around in an almost empty house, while memories appear in form of a drawing on the screen.

In the beginning she is actively involved with the drawing, but is more passive in the course of the film, while her white dress gets more black.

One of the similarity is that I also used stop-motion animation technique to record the 'real world'. I animated the real world and a real person.

Another similarity is that the protagonist carries the past around. Only in my project the past is present through a Plexiglas screen instead of a picture.

And the fact that there are two realities in the same image (the reason why I liked 'Paper Memories' so much and made me think of my project)

The difference is that I didn't stick to one defined and clear story.

Due to the fact that this was the first time working with this technique and being the director, animator, protagonist, camera man at the same time, made it very difficult for me to focus on the whole story and got lost in performing the technique.

The only thing My project needs is a good story related to the technique and then it might gets as beautiful as this film...

For this reason I see this project as a research of the technique, rather than a finished animation video, as 'Paper Memories' clearly is.

The only thing My project needs is a good story related to the technique and then it might gets as beautiful as this film...