Yana’s first draft ToP

1. WHAT

  For this ToP I would like to focus on three works which were my main focus in the past 6 months. 

  The first one was the video I created for the pre-Eye workshop. This work was centered around a topic I thought would be my area of interest throughout the master’s - how connection can arise between people with conflicting identity politics. I decided to interview a friend of mine whose relationship with a colleague of hers was fascinating to me - my friend is queer while her colleague is an open homophobe, but they manage to have a very strong bond. This project focused on the narrative of this relationship and tried to deliver the conflict with enough nuance in a very short amount of time. Therefore, the conflict becomes almost like a punch-line; I realized that such an exploration would need a lot more time to let the layers evolve without forcing the main point for shock value. 

  My second project was the one I did for the Eye. It is again an interview-based documentary project, making use of various visual media, such as live action, animation, and screen recordings. It focuses on explosions that are happening in Rotterdam and the reaction of its residents - or rather, the lack there of.

  Finally, recently I have been working on a dance sequence which was developed in the context of the seminar with Simon Iggs in which we had to interpret the story of Gilgamesh through a video work. I wanted to work with dance for some time, so I found a way to fit this in this assignment and used it as an excuse to pursue my interest. After the seminar was over, I decided to further develop the work, this time without the supporting structure of the narrative and focusing mostly on visual and editing rhythm. 

2. HOW

  1) The Pre-Eye video was interview-based and at first was an edit of other films which proved to be too overwhelming; trying to follow a fragmented narrative and visual was too chaotic. Therefore, I decided to focus on one aesthetic from a film project I participated in the year before. In this material, the video focuses on one female character, and I was hoping to achieve identification with this character on multiple levels - as a protagonist, antagonist, listener. This proved to be rather confusing for some viewers, but I don’t know if that’s not part of my intention. But anyways, I think this is not a story that can be told with enough depth in such a short time, so I believe this project needs to be developed further to be effective, and perhaps then my intentions of identification would be clearer.

  2) For the Eye, I wanted to focus on a topic that is more rooted in the environment I am currently in as the pre Eye project was about a story in Bulgaria, so I did not have direct access to it. Therefore, I decided to explore a Rotterdam-specific issue - that of explosions. I started doing interviews again, but this time I did not have a clear narrative I wanted to deliver. This project was as much exploration for me as it is for the viewer in the end. Therefore, I did not have a starting point for the narrative or the visual which left me with endless possibilities. At first, I made a montage of footage shot around the city - both talking heads of interviewees and atmospheric shots of the city, and trying to piece valuable quotes. However, the connections between the audio and visual felt too vague and I felt like I could achieve more with CGI (I am also just interested in exploring this medium more and in a playful manner). After talking with David&Barrend, I reached the conclusion that I should focus on simulating/reenacting the explosion and the idea that the medium where violence is most trivialised is video games and how I could utilise that. I then 3D scanned buildings where explosions happened and focused on the comparison between the before&after of these places; sometime the after was imaginary and sometimes the before-simulated. 

  3) For this project I recorded a dance sequence with the idea that the video would not be a one shot choreography, but that rhythm would come through editing and switch between aesthetics - be it AI vs footage, different cameras and lighting, or using the contrast between the body and environment as a mask. The challenge now for me is how to develop the video without the narrative structure. I am now focusing on a message/graphics, following the songs structure and the meaning behind it to try and tie it together. I labeled some movements as ‘seduction’, some as ‘rejection’, and some as ‘rising action’ to give myself a language to work with. 

3. RELATION TO PREVIOUS PRACTICE

  The medium of animation is something I used heavily before as this was my bachelor, but I think that now I use it in a more playful and intuitive manner which is an important step for me. This medium has always been very rigid for me, but through techniques such as scanning and kit-bashing, I managed to focus on the creative and not the technical side of it.  
  In the explosion project, I built a mosaic of narrative in an explorative manner like in a previous project of mine, called Balkoni where I pieced together multiple pieces of footage of people on their balconies to create a loose narrative about the experience of quarantine during lockdown. In the Eye project, however, I used interviews, which provided a more concrete narrative and thus, required more attention as to the order in which information is delivered. Another connection I see with my previous work is the focus on the environment as a character; this is present also in Balkoni, but I feel plays a bigger role in HC2121 which focuses on a garden in space and how this environment would look and feel like.

4. + 5. What do you want to make next? Why do you want to make it?

  I want to create a video on birds. i have gathered a lot of footage of birds since coming to Rotterdam, and I have also been met with a lot of stories of people's interactions with birds, and I would like to explore this relation further, through creating a rhythmic, musical piece. I was inspired by short experimental works I saw at IFFR, namely those of Colectivo Los Ingravidos, like Itzcóatl. I would like to have an intuitive process without starting with a clear structure, but rather interweaving footage, stories, and music together, with a focus on rhythm through editing. I imagine the process will be back and forth, in the best case working close with a musician, perhaps there is an edit, on top of which music is created, and then the stories get intertwined in the score, which then influences the visual content and so on until a harmony is achieved. 

I think my focus is on rhythm and how I can create a visceral experience for myself as a creator and also for the viewer and the topic of the birds is just an appropriate vessel for it. I was influenced by the shorts we saw in the thematic seminar by Nan on hand-made films in works, such as those of Norman McLaren. I was intrigued by the idea of how interest can be created through rhythm and by going in and out of sync with it - there is pleasure in having every beat of the edit in sync with the music, but it will become boring if that is the whole dynamic. I want to explore these mechanics (is this the right word?) further.