Journal - April 30, 2006

April 30 2006
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I’ve made up the “call for couples” sheet, complete with almost every question I could think someone might want to know before they agreed to meet with me and be recorded. Granted, there probably aren’t so many people who will want to participate but I hope it works out as I’m now pretty excited about the whole video thing and keep imagining editing possibilities. I try not to as I know it will probably all change once I actually have footage. But I will say that I’m excited.

I’m leaning farther away from imagining a straight-up documentary style piece, as that seems increasingly boring to me. Not that it would be boring really; I think if some filmmaker made a documentary on this subject it could be fabulous, but the truth of the matter is that I am neither a filmmaker nor do I want to be. I want to be a collector. A collector of people's stories, and gestures and looks and hesitations and nervous laughs and everything else that gives people away, letting you know that they are actually human with hearts and feelings and all that other terribly embarrassing stuff. I want to study but I don’t want to be clear in a logical way like one who studies: like a documentary filmmaker or a scientist. I want to be more vague so that you’re not quite sure why what you saw was unnerving or unsettling or moving. I want it to not totally make sense in a logical way. Not illogical either as that just goes against all my sensibilities. But mysterious.

I want to make a collage of sorts. Maybe? Or perhaps I should say montage. I might just love the audio though and am disinclined toward any linearity. Can the heart of this subject come across without narrative? Am I interested in narrative? Or fragments removed from context? Where will context come into play here, as that is the biggest question? Context is what I am in control of ultimately and what I have always been interested in manipulating. I can remove all context, misguide the viewer regarding the context, replace context. I can also subvert the context. But how? How do you subvert the context of a wedding? Of an interview? How do you subvert the context of a couple talking about their plans for an event or their memories of one already past?

What about with an entirely different subject? What about something that instead of making the difficulty of the event or planning stand out, diffuses it, makes it seem petty and silly and ridiculous? I think that would be far too easy. Weddings (or maybe just overbearing brides) can too easily be the brunt of summer jokes for the uncreative. Weddings are too easy to view as petty. But they are just as easy to view as intense and momentous and difficult. So where is the unexpected element? It is not the parents getting along or the in-laws, but the seating. Just the chairs. How did chairs come to be so difficult? Chairs and tables and name cards.

Perhaps I should try and think about juxtaposing images of tables and chairs with the clips of the interviewees. Perhaps I could do an Erasure painting on wedding photographs or video footage: paint out all the people so all that remains are the chairs and tables, the name cards. The images could be from the interviewees’ own weddings or not. It would be great if they could be authentic but I don’t think it really matters. The point matters. What color would I use? My instinct of course is white and yet what is that? A white bride melted: into everyone else, dripped all over the floor. Or would it feel like ghosts? Or a snowstorm? Or memory, washing things out – like how the couple always says they can’t remember much from their wedding day: “It was such a whirlwind!”

I think this is interesting. I wouldn’t want to just blur the people like in a Paul Pfeiffer video, as the blurred people are still unnervingly present in a way and somehow not quite as peacefully anonymous. That wavering blur is unsettling: creepy not sad. I don’t want creepy at all. I'd rather: well, wistful. Yeah, well...

Posted: April 24, 2006
Example #6

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted: April 24, 2006 Example #5

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted: April 24, 2006
Example #4

 

 

 

 

 

Posted: April 24, 2006
Example #3

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted: April 24, 2006
Example #2

 

 

 

 

 

Posted: April 24, 2006
Seating Plan Example
(apologies, I know this is tiny and illegible...but there are image size rules I must obey)