Longing for In-Between
Film
8.42 minutes
2024
This video is what I made for the degree show. It consists of static videos I took as I travelled from Manchester to Mountmellick on the ferry. I used the same tape camcorder that was used to film all of the home videos I used for the Third Space to replicate the quality of those videos. I thought it was important to use the same media to film as the journey in itself was nostalgic for me, the fact the boat hadn't changed at all and I knew my way round it immediately. The fact that my dad's childhood home hasn't changed since before I was born (which is also where I stayed when I was younger and on this current trip) was memory-provoking for me. Being there in an empty home apart from my auntie and an empty yard where we all grew up was emotional knowing it would never be the same since the death of my dad's uncle.
The smell of burning turf was the most distinctive smell of Mountmellick. I was a marker for knowing when you're 'home'. This was all I spoke about before and during the journey, however, on arrival to the town this smell had now completely gone as they have begun to ban the burning of this type of fuel. I found this somewhat symbolic, after waiting to smell this wonderful smell again and for my friend to get to experience it, the emptiness in me was significant, almost like the emptiness of the home.
This made me want to write about my memory of my feelings of travelling there, with a spotlight on the idea of the boat and the feeling of in-betweenness, which is what is included in each gap of the clips. I included it in the gap of the clips to separate it from the present day videos whilst also connecting each section of the journey.
Learning new software: Premiere Pro.
I added effects to each clip to fade in and out t the start and end to mimic the way the camcorder would do it when stopping a video. I kept the original audio from the camcorder to keep that same auditory quality of the original home videos.
Trying to figure out how to describe the smell of burning turf. Finding that no one knows how to describe it however all have a connection to it. How do I express this connection/ replicate this smell in an exhibition environment?
The Towns I Love So Well
Video Collage
2.57 minutes
2024
This is a video I created by using some of the same content from the original video as a forefront video and also adding videos I took of my home in England. This is also a timeline or a journey, but instead of a linear one, it is a more complex journey. A journey through borders and thresholds. A journey through time. The videos in the background are either the home videos previously used in The Third Space or videos of the journey itself; switching between them, constantly crossing borders.
The sound used in this video is a never-ending kettle boil- this time recorded with a proper recorder, which helps it sound much more like it is rather than white noise, although I am still worried it sounds like this to a viewer, which is why I decided to not include this in the degree show.
The original concept of this video came from a technique I used in a previous unit where I would place a still image infront of a moving image. However then, unaware of the software needed to digitally superimpose this effect, I compromised to have a piece of paper with the threshold cut out and placed over the video on my laptop. Since then I have acquired a new skillset using Premiere Pro and have learned to do this in a more effective way.
As is evident in the video, I have focussed on the removal of thresholds from the front video. This is my ideal world: where I can view both aspects of my life at once. There is no need for longing for the other as they both exist as a new entity- linking back to the theory of the third space by Homi Bhabha.
As a newer video-maker, the MSOA screenings were helpful in seeing all the possibilities that film can offer and has encouraged me to send my films out for future film festivals.
After a visit to the Reckon exhibition at O! Peste! and after seeing the video work of Sophia Kelly, who also used video collage, I was encouraged to venture into new software as after speaking with her she explained that video work doesn't always have to feel cinematic and it is all dependent on your context .
Lindsay Duncanson uses the monotonous sound of a clock ticking along with the sound of inside silence, similar to white noise. This creates an uncomfortability within the silence and an awkwardness even though there are supposedly three people present within the room. This enhances an anxious feeling as it creates a sense of waiting for something which is exactly what I was referencing with the never-ending kettle boil in my video. (click on images to read more)
Zineb Sedira (click to read more)