Lost in daydreams

Finally I managed to put my film together. To be honest, I am not 100% satisfied with it but at the same time I do understand that I had too little time to concentrate on it. I did enjoy the fact that it has the emotions and feelings I intended to have in it, also in my opinion it turned out quite uncertain and dreamy as I expected. In addition, I thought the music I found was very good for it as it reflected also the Cadogan Hall (Mozart - Lacrimosa).
However, I am not sure whether it is documentary enough. I think I did not research enough the documentary genre for it. Still, I am satisfied with how the colours look, I just wish it had maybe a bit more of action, it felt in the end a bit too boring for me.
I believe next time I could do better by allowing myself more preparation and research time for it.

Below are screenshots of my film:

Presentation

Today we finally presented our presentation to the Cadogan Estate. I was happy to finally being able to present our ideas and show our work. Though I was very sad that an artist Jane Kukk that made an illustration inspired by the Cadogan Hall was left out since she sent me it on Tuesday's evening and it was too late to add to presentation. I think her design was my favourite out of everything. In addition, I truly loved the animation my artist friend did for us.
In the end, I felt this whole project thought me a lot about compromising, listening and being patient. I was happy to meet new creatives and work with them. In fact, I became good friends with one of my team mates. It was rewarding to finally say that we did all this and it is done, no matter if it was good enough, we all know how hard we tried as a group.
Of course, I was not as happy about the other Cadogan group, who had to be added to our presentation since they had only one idea and for a separate presentation, it would not be enough. But in the end I do understand why it was necessary.

I am adding here an illustration by Jane Kukk, the artist who is, in fact, pregnant last weeks and living in in Italy.

Fashion stylist, illustrator Jane Kukk:

"I was truly inspired by Cadogan Hall's white facade, which architectural form is very minimalistic and classic. In addition, the colours and details within my designs reflect the motives and tones from the stained window glass."

Changes to the presentation

Today me and Barbara started recreating the presentation as yesterday we had again presentation overview and there were many things yet to change. To be honest, yesterday's group presenting was a disaster as there was a lot miscommunication within the group. A lot of drama again, someone said something, someone did not say anything.. anyways it all made presenting tense and weird. Rosie and Rhys created a film, which was well done but in my opinion did not suit very much aesthetics of the Hall. However, we decided still keep the film in as 'interpretation' of the artists. Tutors told us that we need to change a lot in the presentation, so me and Barbara decided to create a completely new one.

We met up in the library today to work on the presentation. In order to understand the aesthetics the Cadogan Estate has in their presentations, we looked through their previous presentations. We were aiming also to have a similarly classical style, which would look minimalistic, professional and informative. Since we looked through all the templates and nothing was standing out, I decided to create my own. I took a photograph as a start point and through layering it and changing the colour, I created my own template for our presentation. We thought it looks clean, yet with its interesting twist as the patterns are straight from the Cadogan Hall.
In the end of the day, we almost finished the presentation, we needed to add a few things more about the artists but overall it was done. Now, we are looking forward for Monday, so we could see what could we change more in the presentation for it to look professional.

The photo (my own) I used for creating the template:

Testing for personal film

Here are some screenshots of the 'test' footage I took for my documentary. At first I though I am going to have a story how I fall asleep on the tube and then start dreaming about the Cadogan Hall but I did not have anyone to film me, so I could only film some bits and when I started editing, it did not work out the way I expected. Therefore, I decided to have my own dreamy depiction of my feelings, emotions of the Cadogan Hall without having this logical structure.
To be honest, I was satisfied with this decision as it did not give away the point of my film right away but one has to think more before they have the answer for it.

Colours, haziness, low quality

Regarding the colours in my film, I was inspired by Lana Del Rey music video Freak (screenshots are below). I feel like these very fragile and peaceful colours, a little bit pinkish create a dream-like atmosphere, which I intended to display in my documentary.

In addition, I decided to do my documentary in low-quality, I feel the haziness adds something more to the idea of the dream. In a dream I never feel certain and everything is a little blurry and uncertain, so it felt like a good idea in order to reflect the feelings, which one experiences while dreaming.

First presentation

Today we had our first presentation. We decided that it would be clearer if one person would present it. In addition, to be honest I am not the best public speaker due to my introverted nature. Lena was our presenter and I was truly amazed by her presenting skills, she did sound very confident and explained our ideas very well.  So, the presentation went well, though we messed up the times and arrived later than all other groups. I was quite sad that I could not hear other people's ideas.

Our feedback was reasonable, we were told that on Friday we should show more visual side of the things, not only the ideas. However, many things didn't only depend on us. For example I am still waiting for an animator and illustrator to get back to me about their contribution.

To be honest, the last few weeks have been stressful as working in a group can be very hard.  Usually I am working alone and I truly like it, since I can organise my time the way that is suitable for me and also there is no drama. I am quite quiet person and I do hate all dramas, arguments etc. At the moment, my group just only argues and has childish fights, I am trying to stay quiet and not get into that since I have to put my energy into other things than fighting. I feel a little bit like a mediator between people, trying to make everyone relax and get on with work.

I really hope we all can learn from this experience, how to work with one another and how not get offended by every little detail.
I am trying to keep thinking about my personal project too since I do not want it to be forgotten along this group project.

Moodboard for the documentary film

All the images: Anon, (2016). [image] Available at: https://www.pinterest.com/julieannsh/my-film/ [Accessed 11 Feb. 2016].

A pdf I created for the artists

I started contacting different artists about their interpretation of the Cadogan Hall. I created a short PDF for them, so they could have a clue about the Hall and maybe could be inspired by the photographs I put in the presentation.

Below one can find screenshots of the PDF:






Images on the second slide: Cadogan Hall. (2016). [image] Available at: https://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/the-church-of-science-fiction-cadogan-hall/ [Accessed 11 Feb. 2016].

Images on the third slide: My own photographs (2016)

New ideas in the group meeting

Today after very inspiring lecture by Micheal we had another group meeting. This time we had 4 people out of 17, which was not a perfect number but we decided still just do things and not be bothered by the people who decide not to turn up.
We thought again about all our ideas and decided to change them slightly. In the end we had three ideas:

1. Immersive tour

- "Google Earth"/ computer game inspired tour of the hall
- 3 points of filming and attention to the details
- observer point of view achieved by footage off GoPro
- engaging the visitor

2. Conceptual GIFs (inspired by trying to think more abstractly of the hall)

- creating pieces of conceptual art in the form of GIFs
- incorporating music similar to the classical performances from the hall with a twist
- making the viewers think of details they haven't noticed before in a conceptual manner

3. Creative interpretation of different artists

- contacting creatives from different fields for their different interpretations of the hall
- creating pieces of art such as drawing, fashion design, make-up, animation etc.

The film was left for Rosie and Rhys to produce, so the whole group relied on them in that aspect. GIFs was mine and Lena's responsibility, so I started trying out different things by merging various photographs I took of the hall and creating interactive, interesting GIFs.
Personally, I was excited the most about the interpretation of different artists, I thought about contacting a few I knew myself, which included a designer, an animator and an illustrator. I was truly excited about seeing their vision about the place.

Lucid dreaming

When thinking of my personal documentary, about capturing my feelings.. I became to think of lucid dreaming, which is a state, when one becomes conscious about their dream. Through that one can control their dreams - fly, create art, eat a lot or do whatever they want. (Bell, 2014)

The thing that interested me about it was that how one becomes into control. I read many different articles and many think that a person can control his/her dream by looking at his/her hands. From this I came to an idea filming my hands in the hall, so I could end my film by giving a hint that I am trying to become into control of my dream.. Also I thought that I could have a dream catcher in the film, so it would also be another sign for the dream.




Bell, V. (2014). The mysteries of 'lucid' dreaming. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/apr/27/mysteries-lucid-dreaming-brain-consciousness-research [Accessed 9 Feb. 2016].

Image: Untitled. (2012). [image] Available at: http://carolsdreamworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/my-first-lucid-dream.html [Accessed 9 Feb. 2016].

Thoughts on personal film

When I started researching about the style of my film, I tried to think of eeriness the Cadogan Hall made me feel and how I could portray it within my film. I came across A Haunting, which is a documentary TV-series. It portrays people’s diverse stories about their encounter with paranormal activities, such as possession, exorcism and other spiritual things.

Firstly, what inspired me while watching these series was the way A Haunting is a documentary but it is still kind of poetic. The footages are beautifully made and there are many different interesting angles which I took inspiration from. (screenshot 2 and 3) In addition, there are certain effects that make the footages dreamy and surreal, which was something I intended to do in my film.

I realized that I did not want to create a simple documentary showcasing my experience about the group work.. I wished to create a documentary about my emotions and the mixed, uncertain feelings Cadogan Hall made me feel. I wanted to create a dreamy world of my own, which would have certain signs to the idea behind it but it would not be straight there.

Secondly, A Haunting has many footages of people going up or down the stairs, also empty eerie corridors. I wanted to take these ideas and convert them into something else since I did not want it to be just creepy. I wished to have a dreamy touch to it.

In the end, I was also fascinated by the footages, which looked like it has been filmed on GoPro or FishEye lens. (Screenshot 1) It was truly interesting and made me feel so surreal. Because of this I was eager to film some scenes on GoPro, so the dimensions within the footages would vary and it would not be too boring.

Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2

Screenshot 3

Tutorials

Unfortunately, I could not attend the tutorial today, but people from my group kept me updated. They told me that we are excluding the editorial idea and also the filming idea. It turned out we have only an hour to be in the Cadogan Hall and it would not be enough to create a proper film or editorial.
Also, we had to drop the idea of filming people in the hall as we did not get a permission to film before and after the event (or during).
My group mates told me that we were instructed to think more abstractly and become more creative in our ideas - to rethink and come up with something new.
I feel I need to research more about the place in order to get more of the vibe within the hall as I did not feel connected enough. Since we had been only once in the hall, I feel it is hard to be intertwined with it. I want to read more about it and try to find any resource to know more about the hall, so I could come up with some interesting ideas for our next group meeting. 

Thoughts about my documentary film

Today I found a blog post, which made me think of the Cadogan Hall's history. The blogger suggested that Cadogan Hall might have been a place for the 'newer forms of religion', for example semi-occult movements like spiritualism and Theosophy. (Walker)

I found this thought really intriguing because I would associate spiritualism with the dreams and paranormal activities, which kind of reminds me also Cadogan Hall. I took few footages with GoPro in the hall and after seeing them I could actually imagine in my head how there could have been in the past some other things going on than just simple church services. Probably, it is just me having a vivid imagination but somehow I felt inspired by the idea of the dreams, supernatural religious things..

I thought that maybe I could incorporate this somehow into my own documentary film.. maybe it could be my angle? I just find it very hard to make behindthescenes usual documentary film as it is absolutely not my thing, it would be too plain and boring for me to produce. I thought that maybe I could do it somehow in my own way, in a poetic way.. describing my feelings/thoughts/emotions about the project.

Below one can find my tiny footage of walking around The Cadogan Hall.

Walker, Dave. "The Church Of Science Fiction – Cadogan Hall". The Library Time Machine 2013. Web. 14 Feb. 2016.

First Group Meeting and The Outcome

Today we had our first proper group meeting. We did have another one last week but it was more for getting to know each other more rather than focusing on project. This time there were only 5 of us and we tried to come up with the ideas of how we could attract people to The Cadogan Hall. I found it quite hard to make my voice heard as I am have a introverted personality.
We tried to think about who is our target, what is our purpose and what do we want to get from the project. We wrote down 5 potential ideas for our further development.

1. filming a 'tour' with GoPro around the hall, so the potential clients would have an overview of the Cadogan Hall (have a model/person going around and filming from her/his perspective)

2. 'fashion street club' - taking photographs of people going to the concert and asking them what they are wearing (show the atmosphere of the events and the way people dress)

3. create a fashion related editorial, which would have the history of the Cadogan Hall within it

4. film the people going to the concert and then after the concert (film the emotionality the Cadogan Hall's events bring to the people)

5. creating an art exhibition out of different artists' interpretation of the Cadogan Hall

Timelessness is coming from nature, if you are inspired by nature

More of my images from Chelsea Psychic Garden. 

ps. Chelsea Physic Garden was founded in 1673. It was gifted by Sir Hans Sloane to the apothecaries in 'perpetuity'. 

Chelsea Physic Garden

Today I was introduced to the most wonderful place - Chelsea Physic Garden. Though the garden isn't all blooming it is still absolutely beautiful. During the walk we were encouraged to look at each flower/bench/tree as a piece of art, feel and see the texture of it. By these thoughts I was inspired to create the images below, I tried to see how these fragile plants are connected with each other.

little fragments from Chelsea Physic Garden (my own photograph)

little fragments from Chelsea Physic Garden (my own photograph)