Material Choreographies

This semester has come to an end and I feel honestly quite relieved, but as I reflect on my semester in material Choreographies, I can't help but realise how much I've learnt and developed. In the beginning of the course, I felt quite overwhelmed by both the work load and the content of this class. When I looked on Canvas and saw how many assessment pieces we had, and how we had to make four short films, I almost felt like I wouldn't be able to do it. I even considered changing classes (more than once!). I am interested in screenwriting, so when I found out that we had to make films without dialogue, it really confused me. I wasn't sure how I would be able to convey feelings and emotions without someone speaking. Just generally, during the first few weeks I felt so lost and unqualified for what we were learning as it was all kind of new to me. Throughout this semester, my view on the course has very much changed. I found every brief challenging and sometimes frustra

For brief four, Wenping, Chris and I initially struggled quite a lot. We brainstormed several ideas, but none of them really excited us or felt like uncharted territory (we didn't want to just create something that has already been done). We then were reminded of Slow cinema, and its alternative name: Contemporary Contemplative Cinema. With this in mind, we wanted to make the viewer have to think in an abstract way for our piece. We also discussed how during a class, Smilijana showed us a film that put two totally unrelated images next to each other, and how people will automatically try to find a connection between these images. We wanted to use this idea but with image and sound. Basically, we used a video of something, and then put a sound over it that didn't quite fit. We also then put the correlating images and sounds within our piece, so it was almost like a visual/audio puzzle, that only 'made sense' at the end of the film. As a group, we worked really well t