FILM PROJECT. VISUAL, EXPERIMENTAL, POETIC RESEARCH INSPIRED BY "ALONE", MELANCHOLIA'S WONDERFUL PIECE OF MUSIC.
What will I do without you?
Alone
By Melancholia
Starting point of my project, a piece of music that was the inspiration for the whole research, while it’s lyrics spoke to my soul.
Melancholia’s performance after being eliminated from XFactor Italia, 27th November 2020
All the handwritted text, as the one just below this note, are an important part of explanation of the creative process. In case the reading of them is diffult, by clicking on them, the website will redirect you to a Word Document that includes the digital version of the text.
This video project was inspired, as shown above, by Melancholia’s performance after being eliminated from XFactor Italia. This moment impressed me (and a lot of other people) because of its pureness, intensity and truthfulness, rare qualities inside such a huge, competitive machine that is the the talent shows’ business.
The singer released different interviews after their elimination, in which she affirmed how her performance that day, and the fact that she literally shouted in front of the four judges while singing that she was “Alone”, was influenced deeply by the disappointment she felt: but what I saw and perceived was a burning anger.
Is that kind of anger that is difficult to explain and to label, it’s not something you feel for someone or regarding a particular situation: is more like refusing a system that doesn't represent you, refusing to submit to mechanisms that are typical of a capitalist society, refusing to accept exploitation, refusing to sell your voice and creativity and ideas to who is not going to value them.
Benedetta (that’s the name of the leader of the band) did, in her three minutes of performance, what is almost impossible for a lot of people to do in a lifetime: she conveyed a huge number of specific, strong emotions, without being political, but having at the same time a deep social commitment.
This is the reason why I wanted to speak about loneliness, about anger, about the imminent desire of being heard: to try to express and share what I have felt, and what I have gained emotionally by discovering this artists.
THE RESEARCH PROCESS
THE STARTING POINT, THE FEELINGS, THE MOODBOARD, THE FIRST DRAWINGS, SKETCHBOOK, EXPERIMENTS OF ANIMATIONS.
THE MOODBOARD
The sketchbook
Ideas on paper
The drawings
The animations
THE MAKING PROCESS
THE STORYBOARDS, THE SKETCHES (SOME MORE), THE COSTUME, THE SET, THE FINAL ANIMATIONS AND BACKSTAGE PHOTOS AND VIDEOS
The organisation of the process, the timing, and the schedule for the whole length of the project (November 2020-June 2021)
THE STORYBOARDS:
FIRST SKETCHES AND FINAL VERSION
BACKSTAGE AND PHOTOS
Costume design
The costume design was the part of my project I spent less time on. The main reason is that I am not a Costume Designer, and I didn’t plan to make an elaborate piece of clothing for my video, which had a very simple, yet deep concept which wouldn’t benefit from a complex addition of decorations.
At the begininng of my research, I didn’t have a clear idea of what my character and model was going to wear, and I only found some references photos to add to my moodboard as a visual description of what I thought would be a simple, everyday-life style of clothing.
When I planned the shooting, I still was unsure about what to wear, until I got inspired by the five colours (red, blue, purple, yellow and black) that I choose as colour palette for my animations, and decided to use sweaters that had the exact same tones (which luckily,I already had).
The result was satisfying, as the colours match perfectly with the animated drawings, and the final outcome is minimal, clear and has a lovely visual connection between the two techniques.
The space
At the beginning of the process, my idea was to film the video in a completely white space, such as a photographic studio, or a room empty by all furniture.
Despite a long, accurate research, during which I manage to visit a couple of spaces that were suitable for my work (a garage that wasn’t finished yet, and a professional studio), the lockdown didn’t allow me to use any of them, so after reflecting about the post production editing of the film and about the easiest way to find an adeguate place to shot, I decided to use the Green Screen studio at Central Saint Martins, which came out as the perfect choice.
I had lights already available in the space (even though my lighting was extremely simple) and enough screen to move around a film a full body clip.
The shooting day
And some more backstage
the backstage of the shooting day
I was singing Melancholia’s songs, of course
The shooting of the footage for the final video took place on Wednesday the 19th of May. Me and my friend, who was assisting and helping me with the photography, spent the whole day to have all the short clips filmed, even though we didn't have to rehearse them more than a couple of times, as the movements were very simple and easy to perform. Everything was recorded using a Black Magic Camera available in the studio (Green Screen Studio at Central Saint Martins), and there was no sound recording as the video will have the original song by Melancholia as the only audio track. The filming process, despite being delayed several times due to Covid restrictions, was at the end smooth and exciting, and my friend also managed to take a lot of backstage photographs and documentation clips for my portfolio.
The final animations, the editing process, the final drawings
The whole footage, before the editing in After Effects
The editing was for sure the most challenging part of the whole process. Despite I was quite familiar with Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects (I used them few times in the past), the green screen was quite harsh to remove, especially from the full-body shots I recorded, and together with the specific Keylight effect, I needed to do quite a lot of colour correction on my clips. After this first adjustments, I then cut the footage in order to have it perfectly timed with the animation that I already made, and I used a Masking technique in After Effects for some bits of video in which I needed the character to move from the foreground to the background. After around a couple of weeks, I had everything ready to be put together, and I started working on mixing the animation with the real-life clips (at the beginning I was quite scared about this particular moment in the editing process, which actually came out to be quite easy and manageable). In the meantime, I also created, using iMovie on my iPad, a short (30 seconds) trailer for the Showcase’s presentation.
You can find it just below this paragraph.
The trailer
A short teaser made on Imovie, to be used as a presentation for the Showcase visual.
The intro and the ending credits
Below you will find the introduction and the ending credits made for the final video. They both have been created using the same animation software used for the rest of the film. Even though they do not have any sound, I added the first seconds of the song “Alone” to the introduction afterwards.
The song
The Audio, Melancholia’s song, and how I tried, without being successful, to have the rights in order to use the music piece.
Since the beginning of my research process, Melancholia’s song “Alone” was meant to be main inspiration for my work and also to be the soundtrack of it. I thought of my film as a mix between a music video and an animation that explained emotions through movement and colours, so I have done everything possible to obtain the rights to use the song in my work.
I started in December, after their album came out, to contact everyone around them that could help me out; and I got to speak with their producer, which very nicely told me that the piece was registered with a major label (Sony Entertainment) and that it was really difficult even for them from the music industry to get in touch with someone from the company.
He gave me the email and phone number of the lawyer of the band, which has been an amazing help. Despite it wasn’t part of his job, he called me and kept in touch constantly during the past months, and tried its best to contact Sony, which didn’t answear not even one of his emails or calls. He was excited about the idea of having an Italian student promoting the band in a foreign country and through art, and he proposed me to check out Melancholia’s new single (that has been recorder with the label he works for, so way more accessible) in case I would like to work with it.
After all these months, I didn’t manage, unlikely not even through him, to reach out for someone inside Sony, so I wasn’t able to get the rights for “Alone” (not even for educational purposes). I’ve decided, at the end, to include the song as my soundtrack anyway, because it has been the main (and only one) inspiration for my film, which wouldn’t have made sense with another sound design.
I am aware this is something I am not supposed to do, but I want it to be a kind of a protest against these big labels and companies that, even inside a creative industry, are not allowing artists, students or small businesses to develop, to promote, and show their works or someone else’s one.
I believe both me and the band, Melancholia, would benefit from having their wonderful piece of music shown outside the small reality that is Italy, and I think it is unfair how this big label, clearly interested mainly in profit, is making it impossible and hard to do that.
Some editing snippets
The Final Video
The result of my creative process was a 4 minutes and 30 seconds video that mixes 2d animation and animated effects with real life footage. I would describe it as an emotional, poetic and minimal representation of the emotions that the song “Alone” made me feel, and that I hope I will convey with my work.
The title “What will I do without you?”, has been inspired by my Unit 8 Word and Image document one (which was “What would I do without you?”) as both of the works are characterised by a dualism, by the presence of two aspects that are strongly connected.
In my essay, the bond was between the disciplines of Art History and Cinema, and I wrote about how the first one inspired in many ways the second one.
In this Video, the connection is different, more emotional, and reflects the concept of loneliness that I wanted to convey: in fact, the real life figure (which is performed by me) is trying in any way to catch the animated characters’ attention, but everytime she tries, they diseapper, and they do not seem to listen to her, as they are just drawings.
This project, which started from a moment that impressed me so much, and that evolved into something experimental, exciting and new for me, gave me quite a lot of satisfacion. Apart of the final film (which I am quite proud of), it made me gain confidence in myself in moments in which I didn’t believe in my potential properly. I am happy to have worked totally alone for the first time on such a complex work, with the only help of Ariadna Alzuru, my friend, which was in charge of the photography of the film.
I want to thank everyone that was by my side during the duration of this long, hard process, and I want to thank the band, Melancholia, for being such a new, young, and exciting inspiration.