User:Totoleheros

Hi I'm Toto. Welcome to my research

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Methods

CTMethods

Session 1

What, How, Why:

'Water that birds don't drink' is a documentary film about an Amazonian fisherman family, who are witnessing physical and mental displacement due to the construction of a dam. 

'Belo Monte' , is the name of a large hydroelectrical dam openend in 2016 on the Xingu river located in the Brasilian Amazon basin. The Belo Monte project, constructed to produce 'green' hydroelectrical energy, became highly controversial due to it's negative environmental and social side effects. In a short poetic film we follow a fisherman family who are witnessing negative effects in their lives, such as displacement and eco-logical disruptencies which lead to a lack of prospect on their economic activities as fishing and small scale farming.

how: In the film we focus on their split existence between their life next to the river and their life in the neighboring city, a traditional and a new way of living. The film focusses on visual contrasts and the family's reflection rather than hard factual data and information.

Why: First of all the film tries to highlight social implications and effects of the Belo Monte project on it's near inhabitants. But mostly the films tries to focus on reflection and meaning of loss of a livelihood, meaning of living close to nature vs living in the city. Next to this I personnally am interested in researching on people who are being in state of transition.

2nd take on 1st story What:

'Water that birds don't drink' is a 27 minute long poetic documentary film about an Amazonian fisherman family, who are witnessing physical and mental displacement due to the construction of a dam. 

'Belo Monte' , is the name of the large hydroelectrical dam openend in 2016 on the Xingu river located in the Brasilian Amazon basin. The Belo Monte project, constructed to produce 'green' hydroelectrical energy, became highly controversial due to it's negative environmental and social side effects. In the film we follow a fisherman family who are witnessing negative effects in their lives, caused by the dam, such as: displacement and eco-logical disruptencies which lead to a lack of prospect on their economic activities as fishing and small scale farming. In the film we focus on their split existence between their life next to the river and their life in the neighboring city, a traditional and a new way of living. The film focusses on visual contrasts and the family's reflection rather than hard factual data and information.

How: In the film I have tried to focus on visual contrast between the fisherman family split existence. Firstly we emphasited on this contrast by showing day to day sequences of their lives in the city as next to the river editeted harshly after eachother. Secondly we used a green screen effect to show the contrast of their split way of living by using it as a frame in a frame window that is showing ; a portal to the river being in the city or a showing the city being on the riverside.

Why: First of all the film tries to highlight social implications and effects of the Belo Monte project on it's near inhabitants because I think it is important to show that the social and ecological price, of projects like the Belo monte dam, can be higher than it’s benefits. But mostly for me I wanted to make a film that is focused on people who share their reflection of meaning on a loss of a livelihood, because I wanted to emphisise that these stories have a universal message and question, is the modern world really better for us human beings? I am personnally interested in researching on people who are being in state of transition, a transition from a way of living because it creates a space for us who we are as humans and how we want to live.

2nd story

What: Do I Smell Smoke? is a playfull exploration on what is on peoples minds during one of the hottest days in Rotterdam. Xaver, Toto, Lisette and Merijn collaberated for the first time to partake on i

3: What: Constructed Land is a short visual film that shows close ups on a construction of a river channel in Nijmegen (2015). A poetic film consisting of observing images on a construction side to question the relation culture and nature .In a series of close up shots we see moving land, sand and water like they were caused by natural forces, however they are the effect of human construction. The film plays with the expectation of looking at nature to question human domestication on the earth.

How: I have used the technique of zooming in on reality to decontextualize and to lose the feeling of scale. I have edited the film from super close to zooming out to reveal the scale in order to show the viewer the thing they were looking at. I have put a soundtrack under it of a very deep sound of a vulcano to empower the effect of a natural force.

Why: I am personally interested in theoretical topic of nature vs culture and tried to illustrate it with this vissual film.

Session 2

Eye Project

Steve re-sized this image

All right, so what are you making? I am currently being in the process of working on a project that is build up around the theme of ‘utopia’ the idea of an ideal world. I want to start this project by interviewing people in public space and question them if they have any thoughts on an ideal world. Besides, this, I hope to find personages that are living a very idealistic way of living. To make some portraits of people that are living a very distinct way or have some distinct beliefs.

Why are you making it? I am interested in asking existential questions on human beings. I think asking such a question, what would be your ideal world, is interesting because it allows different subjective perceptions on what is good or bad for someone. I hope to find different answers, so there will be the start of a dialogue, people questioning each other. Nowadays, there are so many catastrophic things happening, things that are not likely ideal for the human species. In the news we here bits and pieces of the reflections of the downfall of our western societies, think of environmental, economic issues. So I’m curious are there alternatives and are people really thinking about that and are people actually able to think about different kind of society? Are there common ideas about it, and how much of this is shaped by the direct context people are living in right now.

How does it relate to the other things you have done? In recent projects I have already been working with existential topics, for instance; in my graduation project; ‘Water That Birds don’t drink’, a film about a displaced fisherman family in Brazil, and were forced to change their way of living, and I am interested in what those different ways of living mean. And research on what the true human nature is, knowing that, that probably does not exist. Last year I made it small documentary in Rotterdam during a heatwave. I was interviewing people on the street and asking if they were optimistic about the future. So there are definitely strong correlations in theme and method between this project and the Utopia project.

Can you also talk about how it is different from your previous work ? So this projects will be different of course because it’s a different question time and context, but next to that I have the ambition to try to merge fiction into the non-fiction. I want to experiment with fictional scenes and blend it with a more documentary aesthetic. This combination of non-fiction and fiction in one project is something I have not really tried out well ever. However, this experiment has to be an urgent addition to the project, so that will be decided later on.

Are there any stands significant choice you have made during the making of the process? In the very start of the process there was a distinct choice because my first idea to just go filming on the street didn’t happen due to bad weather last week, and in the weekend I was out of town without camera equipment. So I decided, instead of filming interviews, I could do one audio interview at least with my dad and record it with my phone. After this, while I didn’t had any images, I used some of my own archival material to overlay the interview. It actually worked out well, and I used my own archival material, which I don’t use a lot, so these were kind of distinctive choices in putting this together and also different from how I usually work.

How does it feel to you to work with an archive project or archive image instead of start with the new footage? I guess this is definitely interesting, also the fact to use images that are not directly linked to what the person is saying, but they could be indirectly linked that allows room for some association and that is great to explore new meanings.

Notes and references

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About Me

Back to base: https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Methods_lens-based#Session_two