I chose to look at Native American Indian art forms for my GCSE Art and since then I've always had a fascination with the design and background of it. The dreamcatcher obviously originated from Native Americans and were used to protect sleepers from negative dreams. They believed that the night air was filled with both good and bad dreams and that as the individual was sleeping the dreamcatcher would swing and catch positive ones, passing them down the feathers and to the person below. Negative ones would get trapped and perish with the first light of day.

Structure

Dream catchers traditionally consist of a hoop, leather, string, beads and feathers. Native Americans thought highly of the symbol of hoops, because to them it represented strength and unity and this then flowed into the deign of their dreamcatchers. String used to create the web in the centre was often white, light brown or clear, while the leather surrounding was typically brown like a lot of Native American fabric/ clothing. 

Modern day times have seen the dreamcatcher develop into a variety of different shapes other than a hoop and become much more colourful and stylistic. 

Traditional Style Examples

An inspiration for the fast paced sound editing

Inspiration for final sound

We've also began editing in after effects, putting the memories behind the interviewees with the green screen. We have a lot of archive to go through, but I'm confident that as long as we are organised we can carry through successfully with the editing. 

I still would like to stick with the polaroid style for the photographs, as I feel it makes the piece feel a lot more raw and represents memories in a stylistic way.  I've played around with taking my own polaroids.

I've been looking more into the meanings behind the painting and trying to find out the different feelings and moods that are given off. Here I have highlighted and noted anything relevant or helpful for me that I have found: 

"Bacon’s popes depart even further from their source, often replacing the pontiff’s head with the equally recognisable screaming face of the wounded nurse mown down by the soldiers’ gunfire in the Odessa steps sequence of Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin." 

 "The insertion subverts the encapsulation of power and self-assurance projected by Velázquez. The screaming mouth, isolated from other facial features and divorced from any narrative context, suggests existential agony. The pathos of human vulnerability and loss of faith or conviction are accentuated by the precisely rendered space frames in many Bacon images of popes"

"Bacon's obsessive reworking of the papal theme suggests that it may have possessed further significance and perhaps psychological charge for the artist in relation to his sexuality"

"Francis Bacon, the artist, paints provocative and disturbing images that carry a raw sense of anxiety and alienation. They reflect that existential fear, loathing and incomprehension at the atrocities of the Holocaust that came to light at the end of World War Two"

"If Velazquez's 'Portrait of Pope Innocent X' portrays the public face of power while hinting at the private flaws of the man behind it, then Bacon’s ‘Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X’ broadcasts his inner psychoses."

Opinions

I've found to be a lot of relation to anxiety and fear mentioned around the picture through my searches online. I even found quite a few suggestions that his paintings may 'encapsulate Bacon's traumatic feelings' about his father who rejected him when he found out his son's 'homosexual inclinations.' The encapsulation of power also seemed to be a keen interest of Bacon. 

I feel a real sense of the how he has distorted the original image and it seems to me like the one powerful image of the Pope by Velazquez has been re-made to show that the Pope isn't perfect. Bacon once said 'We are all carcasses' hinting in a belief that no man should be better than another resulting in this 'The Pope is flawed like any other human' theory. The colours create a kind of monstrous and frightening vibe and despite the purple giving off a haunting presence it is also meant to be a royal colour, hinting towards his status in the Catholic church. The vibrant colours make the painting stand out with it's weird, twisted mood. The Pope's face reminds me of agony, something that appears to be associated quite a bit online with the painting. 

Sound

From my research I have learnt that I want to show some kind of agony or terror and relate it back to the church and more religious scenes. This could be done with mixing screams and scratches with the sound of church bells, sermon, choir etc. I want to reflect back to the painting with the sounds and perhaps scratches could represent the stylistic nature of the paint and how it looks like the image has been dragged. 

We had booked room G27, a green screen area, from 9am - 8pm to film RAM in. We arrived on time and immediately set up the equipment so that we were ready to shoot as soon as the interviewees showed up. A lot of time was spent testing out different lighting techniques until we found one that we agreed worked, without casting shadows.

The shoot went very smoothly and because we had the studio for such a long time we didn't feel under pressure or rushed at all, even when some interviewees were late or if we ran into small problems.  A few extra sets of hands were offered to help when needed which was appreciated as some of the interviewees were intrigued and wanted to see more into what the film was going to be about. 

Background

My idea for the film is that it will be about how people change and develop as they move away from home, such as to university.  This is a very significant period in a lot of young people's lives and I feel it could make an interesting piece to look at their emotions and feelings on the subject. Moving from Northern Ireland to England for me was personally a very big change that has effected me in many different ways and I've had to learn to do a lot of growing up in such a fast period of time. Generally in NI not many people leave and having about 98% of my friends stay back home has created a whole new reality for me. Personally I know that I am a very different person to what I was like before I moved and I'm sure I'm not the only one to feel like this. I have an interest into how others have coped with this transition and whether or not they feel they have changed at all during the process. 

Film

The film will consist of many different interviews from our fellow students and friends, about how they have grown and developed in their time away from home (if they have at all).  The interviewees, one at a time, will hold a photo up to the camera. Behind them a clip of their memories (footage they have donated) will be playing. This will then cut to more memories without them standing in front of the camera, creating a nostalgic feel. We will create a soundtrack for it out of their voices : the plan is to cut out keywords from their interviews and only put these into the film. For example if someone answered with 'I feel I have become more confident over the past few weeks' we would use only the 'more confident' part. I'm hoping this will highlight the main emotions more and make the piece more interesting than if we simply placed the entire interview over the clips. I got inspiration from this from one of the screenings when we were shown the short BBC2 documentary Blight which featured a collaboration between a director John Smith and a composer Jocelyn Pook.