Migration - Experimental Film

by Tarald K. Tvedt 8:10 pm 0 comments Experimental Film Year 1

"not to be confused with a migraine, 

which I've found it is something completely different"

Migration

"Make an experimental film about migration." Well, okay, I'll be right on that ! 

Oxford Dictionary defines migration as three things: 

 a) Seasonal movement of animals from one region to another. 

 b) Movement of people to a new area or country in order to find work, or better living conditions. 

 c) Movement from one part of something to another.

Especially the third one opens up this task to an almost infinite amount of possibilities. Anything can move from one part of something to another, if that "something" is the universe! But alas, I can't make a film about everything in the universe - I don't think my poor hard drive could handle such a project. But where do I start researching such a vast topic? Well, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking off migration is the great migration to America during the colonial era. (It still goes on today, but the we generally think of this era when mentioning the words migration and America)

Video by National Geographic 

But I'm not really sure how I can use this, nothing springs to mind at least. But the idea of massive amounts of people moving fascinates me, so I would love to make something about that. Now that I think about it another story of people moving out of necessity comes to mind - the Biblical story of Moses. 

We have all heard the story at some point, and we have also probably seen the cartoon about it too, i know I have. It's an epic tale of a disgraced prince who saves his people, and performs astonishing things like parting the ocean. All with the help of God. Historians believe that a massive escape from Egypt did happen, although the parting of the ocean bit, might have been edited a bit over time. (It is theorised that the Red Seas water level was lowered due to a drought in the area, and that's how they were able to cross it.)

Again, I'm not sure what to do with this. I don't feel like this has any connection to me as an individual, considering I'm not religious, and also of very little North African decent. (Who would've guessed eh.) I want something grand, that I can feel a connection to. 

Then it hit me! The greatest migration of all time! The event that has been happening for longer than the oldest human alive, and is still going on today! The great movement of human kind! Evolution. 

That's it! That's my topic! It's grand, it's brought me to where I am today! It fascinates me beyond compare! Perfect. 

But how can I portray trillions of years in under two minutes?

I've wanted to do something minimalistic for a while now, so I looked into a couple of different artists that specialise in that area. Some of them really struck my fancy, and although they might not be what I looked for in this project, I've made a mental note to use them in later projects. (This includes artists such as Carl Andre, and Donald Judd. I especially liked Carl Andres elements series.)

"Trabum" by Carl Andre

I actually got my first idea while writing down my shopping list last week. While crudely writing down eggs, milk, and müsli on my post-its, I remembered how I used to make short stories at the bottom of post-its in my youth. Drawing small stickmen that move ever so slightly with every post-it and then flicking through them to reveal the story. I imagined using this technique to show evolutions story much like how they do it in the opening of a certain French cartoon I used to watch.

"Il était une fois... I'homme!" by Albert Barillé (1978)

That probably proves how much evolution fascinates me, the fact that I still remember the opening of a cartoon I haven't watched in probably 11-12 years. 

Well, I did this, but wasn't very happy with the results. It was difficult to capture every post-it on film, keeping a certain pace while filming, and making the story detailed enough. I think I went into this attempt with too much hubris, and thus underestimated the task at hand. 

Be warned, very rough edit.

I haven't scrapped this idea completely, and I do want to come back to it, but for now, I don't find this good enough. While working on this I had a different idea though. I pictured intercutting the video of my post-it story with images or video of apes. They are of course supposed to symbolise what we come from, but also question how far we've really come. I really wanted to use that astounding opening from "2001: A Space Odyssey" (An absolute masterpiece, and one of my favourite films! Truly some of Kubricks best work!) with the monkey and "Also sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss playing for the duration of it. To mirror the epicness of this piece, I would like to use very mundane clips of a person waking up, thus hopefully creating the symbolism I wanted. 

As you can see, I only used the music over the clips of me waking up. I did this to create a certain anti-climactic sensation, compared to the suspense one usually feels during that scene. I also made the video black and white to further bring forth my message about doubting how far human kind really has come. We used to be so free, and isn't everything now slightly more grey? 

To be honest, I don't think so. I think life is what you make it. We can still go out and enjoy whatever life offers us, we don't have to sit behind a desk all day. If we're not happy where we are, we can always move, and in the end, isn't that what migration is all about? 

-TJ

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Soruces:

Oxford Dictionaries. "migration"
oxforddictionaries.com.
(http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/migration) [24th January 2016]

National Geographic. "What "Lady Liberty" and Ellis Island mean today." 
video.nationalgeographic.com. 26th December 2013
(http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/liberty-ellis-island-vin) [26th January 2016]

BBC. "Moses."
bbc.co.uk. 6th July 2009.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/history/moses_1.shtml) [26th January 2016]

Guggenheim. "Carl Andre."
guggenheim.org.
(http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/5374) [30th January 2016]