|
|
| (4 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) |
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
| | | [[File:Ariela Bergman Project proposal.pdf|thumb]] |
| "I want to make it clear that I do not hold
| |
| resentment towards
| |
| any single one of you
| |
| I am leaving this town , It has just drained me
| |
| I can't stand being here
| |
| any second more
| |
| And I am 18 years old,
| |
| you always saw me as a kid,
| |
| and nobody absolutely
| |
| Nobody knows who I am"
| |
| | |
| | |
| Does the Sun Shine in Argentina? Is an immersive musical biopic based on the eighty-one letters my aunt penned to my mother and grandmother from abroad over a thirty-year period.
| |
| | |
| After Cristina’s death, my mother told me she had a box containing her sister’s correspondences. I took them, and became third party in her story, with access to the letters that told the tale of her life. As a teenager she fled her homeland without her mother’s consent, claiming to never have been understood by her own family. After an adventurous early life, she settled in France. But she never stopped writing and caring about her homeland. There is a tension bubbling within her writing. It becomes evident that despite her best efforts, she never felt acknowledged as the free, independent woman she believed herself to be.
| |
| | |
| "The life I always dreamed of...
| |
| Although it may seem bad to you
| |
| I assure you that in everything I do,
| |
| there is no wrong at all.
| |
| | |
| Well Mommy, for Adriana,
| |
| tell her that I'm going to send her
| |
| the atomic bomb by mail.
| |
| Why does she not write to me?
| |
| Are her fingers paralyzed?"
| |
| | |
| | |
| I found the letters to be beautiful and vulnerable. I could identify with her pain. They were related to the tragicomedy of existence that my whole artistic practice is based on. And that is why I decided to tell her story.
| |
| | |
| Does the Sun Shine in Argentina? creates a place for Cristina’s histrionic voice. I will use VR technology to convey the bombastic, at points somewhat unhinged world Cristina fabricated for herself. I will create surrealist spaces inspired by elements found in the letters. The audience will undergo a subjective trip through her mental realm, as if they were looking from the character’s eyes, experiencing a speculative version of Cristina’s own dreams and nightmares.
| |
| With the use of VR headsets, the viewer will experience an immersive video divided into scenes constructed in CGI. Each space corresponds to a different letter: a teenager's room in which walls turn into a pink sky, snow falling in the middle of colorful mountains, a gigantic wig/creature hanging from a ceiling, a Palais de Versailles interior room that grows fungus in front of the audience. Both the musical and visual production will correspond to the design trends from the different decades and countries from which the letters were sent.
| |
| The journey begins in the late 1960s, with an enthusiastic eighteen-year-old Cristina and follows her to the early 90s with a disappointed middle-aged divorcee planning her possible repatriation to Argentina.
| |
| | |
| | |
| Why VR?
| |
| I am telling the story of a woman who was looking for freedom and expansion but was ultimately trapped in her past. I consider VR technology to be a space-based experience, where I can best metaphorically and emotionally express this.
| |
| One minute you can be a giant Godzilla stepping on the streets of Paris, and the next one you are a tiny ant who nobody looks at. One minute you have all the lights pointing at you and the following you are alone in a shrinking cave.
| |
| Through VR, there is an inherent disembodiment, a ghostly projection of things that are not actually there. This absence/ presence dilemma connects with the emotional state of migration that my aunt seems to have experienced throughout her life, the permanent desire of belonging while actually inhabiting a liminal space.
| |
| Cristina, as a result of a difficult childhood, was as an adult still longing to occupy the center of the universe, and a VR immersion translates this state metaphorically, since the audience can take a central role in the space and narration.
| |
| | |
| In using ‘the musical’ as a genre I reference a lighthearted, idealistic world. However, as the many sides of a multifaceted character are explored, these generic tropes are inverted and twisted, exploring alternative, stranger pathways into her psyche.
| |
| The songs will be constructed from excerpts of her letters, and I will be singing the lyrics to the songs myself, as a way to embody her voice. In doing so we hope this channeling act will work as the response that my aunt was seeking for her entire life, to finally be heard.
| |
| | |
| At the moment I have a first version of the script, I am acquiring 3d animation skills and I am applying them in the constructions of potential scenes. I am making the very first tryouts in VR.
| |
| I am working with musicians in the composition of songs, of which we have achieved three.
| |
| After discussing it with my tutors, I decided to redefine the graduation project to a smaller version of the whole project, allowing me to continue investigating before I jump into production.
| |
| In the following months I intend to explore: possibilities of game engines vs 360 video, implications of the use of Spanish or English language, introduction of visual words resembling lyric videos, possibilities of different aesthetics, writing a definite script.
| |
| | |
| | |
| This will take the shape of either a prototype or teaser. I do not know yet the exact duration or content of it.
| |
| I will be pitching the project in the IDFA in November, and hopefully make interesting contacts that could help make the project feasible in the long run.
| |
| | |
| | |
| I am working with a producer, who has so far helped me understand the project better and find ways to present it in a manner that can be better understood. I am also working with musicians in the composition of songs. I need to find an extra animator and VR specialist who could help me improve the spaces I create and also convert them into an immersive experience.
| |
| | |
| | |
| "This city is like heaven
| |
| Believe me,
| |
| Its an earthly paradise
| |
| Apart from the political mess, mmm
| |
| | |
| I really changed a lot, my hair grew I lost a kilo I am two inches taller
| |
| I’m more mature, spiritually
| |
| And that’s what I’m most proud of"
| |
| | |
| | |
| References:
| |
| | |
| VR works
| |
| The Hangman at home, Michelle and Uri Kranot, 2020
| |
| Dear Angelica, Saschka Unseld, 2017
| |
| | |
| Musical movies
| |
| Beauty and the Beast, Bill Condon, 2017
| |
| | |
| Bibliography
| |
| Virtual Reality Filmmaking. Techniques and Best Practices for VR Filmmakers, Celine Tricart, 2018
| |
XPUB & Lens-Based wiki