Jonathan Williams: February 2015

After Effects Tutorial: A Hampered Attempt

26.2.15

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reflections//memory//forgetting

Reflections stills 15.2.15

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Reflections film pitch

Reflections Film 9.2.15

'Human Memory is in a constant state of renewal'

Jonathan Safron Foer at an introductory seminar welcoming new students to Middlebury College

TREATMENT

A 5-6 minute film exploring how digital storage is simply delaying the inevitability of forgetting

This film will be compiled from archive footage assembled from old hard drives acquired off of friends and family, accompanied by a voiceover providing thoughts on the fragility of memory, and how easily it can be lost.

The film will begin with a shot of a piece of home video, perhaps a child opening a gift, or a family spending time together on holiday. After about thirty seconds the frame will zoom out to reveal 2 or three more clips in addition to the original. As we zoom out further this pattern will continue. We will see hundreds of different shots, each one getting smaller, and the sound of them becoming more and more faint and distorted the farther back we go. Eventually we will be so far zoomed out that the clips will become out of site and out of earshot, fading into a white/gray solid colour. It will remain this way for a few seconds and then the zoom will continue going backwards, revealing a grey hard drive sitting in a derelict attic in a cardboard box. It is in this continuous motion that the viewer will realise that the video clips (or memories) were files stored in the hard drive, and will hopefully realise how easy it is to upload our memories onto digital devices, and let archivesfootage build up and then eventually forget about them.

CONCEPT

Due to the fleeting nature of memories, we are compelled to document them using the technology at our disposal, and archive these moments on storage systems (such as the cloud, or external hard drives).

We do this in the hope of retaining some of the emotional significance we felt in that moment because, above all, it is human to want to remember.

Yet human memory is in a 'constant state of renewal', meaning that we are always creating new memories and constantly building up nearly endless archives of memories that carry 'fleeting moments' that we wouldn't have remembered if we hadn't documented them.

"If a memory can be retained forever, captured in a string of ones and zeros hovering above in an always accessible cloud...the memory is already on its way to being forgotten."

INSPIRATION

I am kind of inspired by the visual style of 'the power of 10'. the gradual zoom out and the matter of fact voiceover guides the viewer through a journey of our known universe.

Failed Memories, by David Szauder is also a favourite.

Szauder draws parallels between human and digital memory, suggesting

‘Our brains store away images to retrieve them later, like files stored away on a hard drive. But when we go back and try to re-access those memories, we may find them to be corrupted in some way.'

Of course, this idea is still a work in progress, but with the proper attention to detail I believe it can become something really special.

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Light work vol.2

4.2.15

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NEW IDEAS

Reflections Film 3.2.15

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I have decided to change from the idea of a 'memory box' (which is still a project I wanna undertake) and transition down a more experimental route.

I wish to explore digital memory, and it's fragile connection to the memory it is recording.

After a bit of research, I came across a speech given by Jonathan Safron Foer at an introductory seminar welcoming new students to Middlebury College in America.

The speech, being about 24 minutes in length is mostly quite droll, however, around 9 minutes in, Foer begins to talk about the relationship between human memory and digital memory. He states that

"If a memory can be retained forever, captured in a string of ones and zeros hovering above in an always accessible cloud...the memory is already on its way to being forgotten."

Foer goes on to say that:

"Human memory is in a constant state of renewal"

He also states:

"A single computer can remember more than every human on the planet put together, but no computer can remember something by heart"

In summary, I want to focus on the idea that whilst digital memory can store all our memorable information, it cannot replace the memories themselves. When we put stuff onto a hard drive, it is just our way of trying to hold on, when in fact it is just another step towards the memory being forgotten.

I want to make a film that focusses on human memory, the emotion it invokes and the ephemerality of it. I want to show how fast in can dissipate, and how digital storage can help retain that memory, but then eventually let it fade into the infinite mass of digital storage, lost to human input.

I want to recreate a memory using old footage found in hard drives of people on my course. I will start focussed on one shot, then zoom out to reveal 2 or three more clips in addition to the original. As we zoom out we will see hundreds of different shots, each one getting smaller as we zoom out farther. Eventually we will be so far zoomed out that the clips will become out of site and fade into a white/gray solid colour. It will remain this way for a few seconds and then the zoom will continue going backwards, revealing a grey hard drive sitting in a derelict attic in a cardboard box. It is in this continuous motion that the viewer will realise that the video clips (or memories) were files stored in the hard drive, and will hopefully realise how easy it is to upload our memories onto digital devices, let them archives of footage build up and then eventually forget about them.

THIS IS A GOOD IDEA I FEEL. Just gotta work on it a bit more. TO BE CONTINUED.....

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