#but i still have a very disjointed sense of self and difficulties with grasping a proper identity

[scummrevisited]

not feeling like one person yet not having any dissociative disorder rlly makes you feel in a weird spot. like. well what do i do here

[teine-mallaichte]

Say 6 @augustofwhump @ prompt - confusion

The reconditionign process leaves 84 extremely disorientated and confused.

CW: living weapon, conditioning, manipulation.

Asset 84 masterlist.

In the sterile white medical bay, Asset 84 stood rigid before a wall of mirrored glass. The mirrors, pristine and unblemished, distorted their reflection, turning the once-familiar face into an abstract mosaic of shapes and shadows. The clinical lights overhead flickered erratically, casting sharp, jittery patterns that danced across the room, their disorienting play making 84’s vision swim and waver.

The buzzing of fluorescent lights was a constant, dissonant hum that seemed to vibrate through 84’s very bones. Each step they took felt strangely hollow, the reverberation of their movements magnified and unnerving. Their mind was a tangled mess of disjointed thoughts and fragmented memories, each one slipping through their grasp like grains of sand. The world around them, once sharp and defined, now felt like a hazy dream where nothing seemed quite real.

As they stared into the mirror, the reflection that stared back was unfamiliar. It was as if they were looking at a stranger—someone with eyes that seemed to be searching for something, but unable to find it. Their previously precise and calculated thoughts now fragmented, leaving them with an unsettling sense of disorientation.

The reconditioning process had been grueling, its details now a blur. The precise commands of Colonel Carter, the sharpness of her green eyes, and the cold certainty of her orders were the only aspects of their recent past that remained clear. Everything else was a swirling fog of confusion and uncertainty.

A low, dissonant hum filled the space, seeping into 84’s consciousness and further disorienting their fragile sense of self. They tried to focus on the mantra they had once recited with unwavering conviction—“I am 84. I am a weapon. I will endure”—but the words now felt like a cruel mockery of their current state. They were unable to hold onto the mantra’s reassuring grip, which seemed to slip away into the same obscurity that shrouded their thoughts.

84 grasped at the edges of their sanity, their hands trembling as they sought to piece together a coherent sense of identity amidst the chaos. The mirrored wall reflected their futile attempts, the distorted image mirroring their internal turmoil. Every attempt to ground themselves only seemed to deepen the confusion, their sense of self melting away like wax in a flickering flame.

Colonel Carter’s voice, though cold and distant, pierced through the haze of confusion. “Asset 84, status report.”

“Colonel… I… I am having difficulty… understanding…” The words felt foreign, as if they were speaking from a place far removed from their core self. The response was slow and labored, as though their mind was struggling to construct a coherent reply from the scattered fragments of their thoughts. Some part of them was aware that this was not how they were meant to speak to their handler, but their thoughts felt murky.

"Some disorientation is to be expected," the colonials voice sounded calm, her eyes intense, "Remember, I am here to guide you."

“Your reconditioning is not complete,” Colonel Carter continued, her voice a cold anchor in the storm of 84’s disoriented mind. “You are experiencing cognitive dissonance due to the recalibration process. Focus on your core directives, resist the confusion, and trust my commands.”

84 nodded slowly, their movements still jerky and hesitant. They tried to focus on Carter’s words, clinging to the fragments of their training that remained. The mirrored reflection, distorted and fragmented, seemed to offer a glimmer of their past self - a self that was now a shadow of its former clarity.

"Come," the colonels voice suddenly sounded clear, "we have a debriefing to attend."

[generation1point5]

Year 29

A year ago, I had resolved to fight in the tiny little ways I could in the situation I found myself in, and a year later I find myself spent, but hopeful. It is not the result of anything that I have done.

A year of struggle is a year spent understanding the futility thereof. I am free of my old job, and hopefully will never again have to wake up at 5am answering calls from the military-industrial complex to keep their brown-people murder machine running smoothly. I’m sure whatever good I had tried to do at that place has been utterly lost, and whoever of my co-workers who haven’t left yet want to. Everything I wanted my local and federal officials to do in the time and power they have been afforded have thus far been met with disappointment. I only have one vote, after all, and there are many people who hold less than admirable views or consistency in their politics that would allow us to get through the crises of our day. This is spoken from a supposed socialist haven in the United States. Goes to show what the Overton window is like here, and the difficulty in gaining any traction for left-wing progress.

I feel better than I used to, at least, knowing the familiar comforts and conflicts of the public sector. I see the struggles and the intense individual and disjointed reality of hundreds of people trying to make their way in life by helping others do the same, the only kind of tension you can see in government work (and very rarely, at that). It is a tragic admiration, and perhaps nothing more, but I see value in my participation thereof all the same. It is the human experience, valuable for its temporal novelty, never to be seen again after its passing. Many days I feel like the only thing I can do is to commit what I see to memory, knowing there’s little else to be done from my place and time.

By all metrics of career direction, I have returned to square one, albeit with perhaps more know-how wisdom than before. In a year I have processed my grief and rage through a deep binge into Souls-likes, and I’ve graduated from Night in the Woods to Disco Elysium, which is basically Night in the Woods for adults anyway. In a year I’ve turned far more left than I have at any prior point, no doubt alienating old friends and finding a contentious comradery with the rest. It wouldn’t be leftism if all its admirers got along.

The opportunities and moments for respite in these times are brief, altogether insufficient but by no means unappreciated. Self-care at this point feels more like coping, adapting, learning. It is like discovering the strength of the river current for the first time. You have to learn how to navigate it, as fighting it would certainly lead to exhaustion, if not expiration. I have spent a year fighting, understanding my limits and perhaps more clearly understanding the gap between where I am and where I want myself to be. I hope many others will benefit from where I want myself to be. I hope it’s a world that will be able to sustain its subsistence, and from subsistence, begin to truly live. 

I have long since suspected, and can conclude with some finality that the 20s are a blur for most people. In my last year of them I cannot even begin to comprehend that I am about to leave it. Even if there are times that it comes of as slow agony, there comes a point where you look up and realize it has all gone, the pleasant memories with the painful, blurred together in a sudden rush that any sense of that era can no longer be coherently grasped. I am not who I was when I was 20. I stare at him as a stranger, kindred only in our confusion of our identity and what we envisioned for the future, where we wanted to be. But I can still see a thread of the line that I had walked from then up until now, and what I will continue to do so long as I breathe life in these lungs.

I take another step in front of me, and another. 

[emilylookstraightatme]

Contextual Document and Film:

Moving Image: Look Straight At Me

Emily Osborne - 21281175

Initial Concept:

When looking at the three commercial client brief's and the personal brief options for this module I knew which one I was going to choose from the start.

Commercial Brief 1: The Ones with Stories a 5-minute film, with 5 still images.

When thinking about the theme The Ones with Stories I first thought…People who can’t get their story told? People whose stories don’t really matter to the greater population? Stories that need to be discovered? Everyday stories? Everyone has stories but what makes them interesting for other people to watch? Was it the dramatic storyline or the technical aspect of the story?

The idea for my project stemmed from a close personal experience I had when teaching a deaf girl to swim, she was only 5 years old but had already taught herself a valuable life skill which was lip reading. From when I was told she was deaf I had already started to build barriers worrying about how I would communicate, however, she broke these down with the ability to read lips to conquer my inability to use sign language. She had inspired me to start learning sign language, to help break down the barrier for other deaf people in the future who cannot lip read. She inspired my whole film however originally, I was going to look at the life of a profoundly deaf person and how they adapt their life. However, once developing my ideas with extensive research, I found the right story line for my drama style documentary reconstruction piece.

  Development of Ideas:

Critical Analysis of Seeing at the Speed of Sound Essay by Rachel Kolb:

This essay was a way for me to evaluate some secondary research of a personal account through years of someone’s life with no hearing. Lip reading is ‘essentially a skill of trying to grasp with one sense the information that was intended for another’(R. Kolb, 2017). Rachel has put this in such a clever and simple way. I have learnt a lot from the essay, something I really didn’t think about with lip reading is the darkness and the difficulties that can arise when trying to lip read. It’s given me a true insight into a documentary style approach, which otherwise would not be possible. Rachel is commonly asked how she learnt to lip read, she would usually answer “practice, like how you learn to walk” (R. Kolb, 2017). But as a person with able hearing I struggle to believe it was that easy, it's her only option to adapt to get by. Rachel is very influential she says “self-confidence fuels the desire to practice and protects against the degradation of communication breakdown” (R. Kolb, 2017), she could have just given up and learnt sign language, but she pushed her skills so she didn’t limit her social possibilities. She can have conversations with anyone even if they are a bit disjointed. Rachel has shared with us problems that she faces with lip reading especially when reading the minutest changes in the muscles of the face. People that are impossible for Rachel and most likely most lip readers to read are: “people with thin lips, people who mumble, people who speak from the back of their throats, people with inexpressive faces, people who talk too fast, people who laugh a lot, tired people who slur their words, children with high babyish voices, men with moustaches or beards, people with any sort of accent” (R. Kolb, 2017). She also goes on to say she even struggles with people who try too hard to over enunciate everything as it distorts the natural lip movements. I will use this essay when thinking of the film and how to frame it. Looking at everyday task and how they’ve been adapted and the emotional factors behind being deaf.

 Critical Analysis of the Psychological McGurk Effect:

The McGurk Effect is a mental interpretation that shows the relationship and connection between hearing & vision in speech perception. It’s said that the visual information a person sees changes when they hear the sound. In the video example at first you hear ‘BAA’ then the visual element changes and you hear ‘FAA’ even though the audio remained the same. This is an example of the psychological effect where the visual information that you’ve just gained creates a mental interpretation. (Faculty ,2017) This is why is can be so hard for someone to lip read, especially if they’re partially deaf and if they aren't able to physically see the person they’re talking to, as they may get phonics mixed up. “Only about 30 to 45 percent of the English language can be understood through lip reading alone. Interpreting facial cues, body language, and context to figure the rest out” (L. Callis, 2016). This is why it is so important for people to look straight at each other when talking.

 Critical Analysis of a Day Through a Deaf Persons Eyes Video:

This is a video that has been put on YouTube (R. Soudakoff, 2015), it has been all recreated for the purpose of the film. It shows various scenes with difficulties and people being arrogant to the girl’s personal deafness but in contrast it shows her in the deaf community signing with others and how easy it is for them to communicate to one another using sign language. For my main character I won’t actually be able to use an actual deaf girl so I will have to use an actor, and film it in this style reconstructing a real drama.

 Critical Analysis of ‘Gravity’ Film:

Gravity (Gravity, 2013) is a film that has been produced in a very clever way to replicate the sound or more specifically the silence in space. There is no sound in space, it's a vacuum so sound cannot be transmitted though the atmosphere, but sound can be transmitted through elements, the science behind is in the film when the character’s grab or touch objects the vibrations travel through them to their ears. So they will get a muffled representation of that sound. When creating Gravity, the sound was recorded for surround sound and was recorded in 7:1. They struggled with an aspect of more futz the voices became the more realistic it was but the less emotion transmitted to the audience. Some of the sounds are critical for displaying the depth of emotion. This is something I can really take for my work and be influenced in the way they use the limits of no sound to their advantages.

Critical Analysis of What It’s Like To Have Autism Video Lets You Experience Sensory Overload Yourself Video:

This is a video which I have found very inspirational, it is a personal account about a disability and how they feel in situations, it’s also an awareness campaign. I am conceptually inspired as its been made in a way to make people aware of the disability and how the person actually feels and not to judge from what they see originally, it makes the viewer think about their actions. Technically I’m inspired about the sound element, where it focuses in on certain sounds, when the boy would also focus into that certain time of action where something is happening. It’s very clever in helping to give the viewer an understanding of what is going on.

  Critical Analysis of my work-

Pre-Production:

With my lack of knowledge and experience in moving image and using a DSLR to film, I had to do a lot of pre-production before I could even start doing test shoots for my film. This included research and practice shoots in to various ways to focus such as; manual focusing continuously, set focus and maintain distance, high aperture, auto focus FlexiZone and auto focus Tracking. I also decided to buy a stabilizer as my first few scenes the camera would be on the move a lot but I didn’t want too much camera shake. I had to get use to this and do many practice shoots walking at different speeds and different heights.

In my pitch to the class I had to sell my idea to everyone. Giving them an inkling of what was going on but not giving everything away. I explained the theme of my project being inspiration and how I was going to portray this and why it was important to myself. The second theme was awareness of hearing impairments. I then moved on to the approach I was going to take throughout the project this included my hypothesis before filming which was “to create a short film which shows an inspirational character which has learnt a skill that is so important in life, a skill to communicate, in a slightly different way to us but using her working senses to her strengths.” I also spoke about the equipment, angles and shots I intended to use and why. I then moved on to the content and structure, as well as the target audience. I also briefly addressed potential problems which I could come across.

Real Life Stories: My work is comprised of two real stories which I have then put together in the style of a reconstruction in a drama. The first is my personal experience of the little girl I taught who could lip-read and taught herself this life skill so she wasn’t so isolated from the rest of the community. She could still communicate with people who didn’t know sign language as she had learnt a very difficult skill which breaks that barrier. The second real life story I researched was about a deaf man called Timothy Green in Cincinnati that was hit by a drunken driver in a hit and run and left with serve injuries to his lower limbs. In his case the first witness who rushed to the scene to help actually knew sign language and realised Timothy was deaf and were able to communicate with him as well as keep him calm until the paramedics arrived (J. Baker, 2015). 

This is my final story board that I created, it has frame timings and camera angles. I will use a Steadicam to create soft movement so the attention isn’t taken away from the main focus of the subject, however it may make a slight un-natural feel to the frame, as real life isn’t so smooth. I will also attempt to use various other filming techniques throughout the film to portray different emotions, such as out of focus to focused shots, overhead shots, fast cutting and hand held filming.

There are a few potential problem or risks with my project, but I addressed them early and worked out solutions so they wouldn’t affect my idea too much. There are ethical issues around the sensitive subject of a hearing impairment, however I ensured myself and the cast remained aware of the implications throughout the shoot to guarantee it would not cause offense in any way. As this film is creating awareness it will be done in a very respectable way. Another issue is access to a quiet road, so that I can do the filming shots of the girl on the on the road, and the shots of the car as it speeds down the road. I carried out various location scouts to find a quiet road, and once I found a suitable road I then back to that road various times of the day to check the traffic flow to find the best time to shoot. Unwillingness of models is always a possibility either before filming or whilst filming. I will have back up models in place, and have the models sign release forms so any footage can still be used if they do drop out.

Casting: I chose a female model for the main character on the evidence found in a psychology experiment carried out by S. Stuijfzand, looking at gender differences in empathic sadness towards persons of the same-versus other-sex during adolescences. They found that female targets received more affective empathy than male targets. (S. Stuijfzand et al, 2016). Therefore, to create a bigger impact and awareness it seemed appropriate for my main character to be a female. I also created a mood board for the looks I wanted for the other models as well; driver, bystander 1, bystander 2, bystander 3 and the paramedic.

Production:

I ordered the scenes into priority of what needed doing outside with the available daylight and with the use of the car as we only had untill 1pm. Also the road was at its quietest between 10am-2pm. Other timing implications to consider included the café giving me permission to film between 1pm-2:30pm as well as this daylight would go by 4pm. We ended up filming the morning waking up scenes in the evening.

Whilst shooting I went out with the intention to use various angles and cutting techniques to create different effects. I made sure to keep the pace of the story consistent throughout with the technical aspects and the visual aspects. I then also cut a sequence of fast cuts for the car crash scene to construct a dramatic scene.  This technique was influenced by the famous shower scene from Psycho (Psycho, 1960), where you never actually see the whole drama, instead you see close up shots of one second as they keep switching instead of the actual stabbing, this intensifies the situation. Researchers at MIT discovered it takes ‘13 milliseconds for the human eye to process an image’ (A. Trafton, 2014). 

Here are some photographs taken on the day by a second photographer to capture behind the scenes and my first experience filming and directing.

I imported all of the footage into Final Cut Pro and then put it into my timeline in the overall storyboard order so I could make sure I hadn’t missed any scenes. However, after I’d uploaded all the footage I realised some angles that I had filmed did not work. I was also missing a scene at the coffee shop to really set the scene of a wide angle scene, also I thought it would be best to reshoot the incoming text scene. After looking through the footage that I didn’t use in the timeline I worked out the shots I exactly need to pick up and re-organised this.

 New pick-ups screenshots:

Scene 1a

Scene 1d   

Scene 1f + 1g  

Scene 1h + 3e

Post-Production:

I carried out the majority of my editing in Final Cut Pro until it came to the end when I needed to create the text bubble which I could not do in Final Cut and instead had to learn to use After Effects. I had previously watched a tutorial video on YouTube on how to create the text bubbles in After Effects (YouTube, 2017), which worked well for the grey bubble as this was an incoming text which someone else had. However, for when our girl was typing I wanted to animate the text in a typing style instead of just appearing. I knew I could do this back in Final Cut Pro using Typewriter.

 I looked at Slumdog Millionaire (2008) for inspiration for a scene to show time had passed without the use of text as an aid. In Slumdog Millionaire there is a flashback scene where Jamel is slapped and it cuts to the interrogation room and then he’s slapped again and it cuts back to the game show. Then though out the scene it continues to show Jamels’ life history though flashbacks. There is a visual and an auditory element to aid the sense of the flashback for the viewer, this is something I will incorporate in my work for progressing to the final scene.

The important thing was to make sure the cuts were smooth for the viewer, the way I found to do this was to cut when on the move, when the character was crossing through the frame creating a natural body sweep cut. I carried this out throughout the progression of my film when the model was on the move to keep consistency.

My overall editing process for the visuals was: 

The sound was a vital part for the success of the film and it was also another challenging aspect as I've not had much experience with audio and manipulating sound. My plans for the audio were very adventurous, however, if I wanted the film to have the impact I desired, it was a crucial element. The sound needed to give the viewer an insight into what it would be like to have a hearing impairment especially in a serious real life situation. I had various meetings with a sound engineer to find out the best way to apply the desired filters that I would need for the effect I wanted to create, and what software I would need to use. He also explained the best way to capture the audio on set would be to use a portable microphone called a Zoom H4n which I could plug into the input of my camera, or directly record sounds to an SD card.

Following feedback from a group critic, I decided I was going to apply a low pass filter on certain parts of footage when it was mid and close up shots or when the main character was in her home, her comfortable environment. Then the wider angle shots and the impact shot of the car crash would be the normal audio.

With the vibrating alarm on the wrist, I enhanced the sound to represent the feeling of this vibration on her skin and conducting through her bones. This was influenced by the film Gravity and the concept that sound can be transmitted through elements. The café scene has various cinematic cuts with each cut having the camera in a new place with a different distance from the road and the main character. I replicated this in the sound with different clips of audio with different levels of traffic noise also suggesting a passing of time.  

A common auditory problem is tinnitus so during the clips where the audio represents the girls hearing there’s a high pitch sine wave representing the ‘ringing in the ears’ (NHS, 2015) caused by tinnitus. This was added as well as the filters in Logic Pro X after a tutorial with the sound engineer explaining how to achieve what I wanted. As well as this, I used the tutorial to learn how to use audio to create a larger impact during the scene of the collision. I then used these skills to layer up sounds of impacts, car engines and screeches captured using the Zoom H4 portable microphone during the shoot to create the overall sound of the accident.

The skills that I have learnt are going to be very useful in my future career as a photographer as technologies will continue to advance. If I hadn’t undertaken this module I would have no knowledge of moving image and the techniques of narrating, framing, directing, and all the post-production.

 Dissemination of Work:

My 5-minute film is ideal for an online distribution over social media pages.

It would work best listening on headphones or some good speakers as the sound is stereo rather than mono so it sounds like the viewer is surrounded in the environment that they are watching. This was done intentionally so that it wasn’t as flat, and the viewer would become more empathic, even if they watch it on their phone it doesn’t matter they just don’t get the full potential sound quality. My target audience is anyone that has a limited view or knowledge of hearing impairments and to educate them on the issues encountered by both parties. It aims to show that some people are choosing to learn a certain skill to help not isolate them from everyone else, this skill being lip reading. By distributing this online its likely to reach the largest audience in the shortest amount of time.

 Artist Statement:

‘Hearing loss occurs primarily when the inner ear or auditory nerve is damaged or when sound waves cannot reach the inner ear’ (U.Mueller et al, 2017) people lose the ability to hear high frequency sounds especially letters such as ‘f,h,s’ or experience complete deafness which is also known as being proudly deaf. This film summarises the struggles that someone with a hearing impairment may experience, however it also shows the importance of awareness in our actions and how we can help others. “Blindness separates people from things; deafness separates people from people.” - Hellen Keller (T. Balkany et al, n.d p31). I wanted to portray the difficulty of having a hearing impairment in today’s society even when carrying out easy everyday tasks, what it may be like to try to find a companion and dealing with your emotions. After watching the film, it may give the viewer a realisation of how they take hearing for granted and how their own life would be impacted by the loss of hearing. Hopefully it will inspire the audience to build a community where everyone learns sign language in order to break down the barrier of communication between the hearing and the non-hearing community.

 5 Still Images:

 My Final Film: Look Straight at Me

Like mentioned in the dissemination of work, to get the full potential of the sound, please listen on good headphones or good speakers. Also please make sure the video is showing in the highest quality on youtube 1080p.

 References:

A Day Through a Deaf Person's Eyes. (2015). [DVD] Rachel Soudakoff.

 A Trafton (2014). In the blink of an eye. [online] MIT News. Available at: http://news.mit.edu/2014/in-the-blink-of-an-eye-0116 [Accessed 6 Nov. 2017].

 Baker, J. (2015). Police: Drunk driver hits deaf pedestrian, flees. [online] Fox19.com. Available at: http://www.fox19.com/story/29011567/deaf-pedestrian-struck-seriously-hurt [Accessed 3 Oct. 2017].

 Balkany, T. and Brown, K. (n.d.). The ear book. p.p31.

Faculty (2017). McGurk Effect. [online] Available at: http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~rosenblu/VSMcGurk.html [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017].

Callis, L. (2016). Lip Reading Is No Simple Task. [online] HuffPost. Available at: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/lydia-l-callis/lip-reading-is-no-simple-task_b_9526300.html [Accessed 9 Oct. 2017].

 Gravity (2013). Cuarón, A., Cuarón, A., Cuarón, J., Bullock, S., Clooney, G. and Harris, E. [online] IMDb. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468/ [Accessed 21 Nov. 2017].

 Kolb, R. (2017). "Seeing at the Speed of Sound" (via Passle). [online] Passle. Available at: http://rachel-kolb.passle.net/post/102c03y/seeing-at-the-speed-of-sound [Accessed 1 Oct. 2017].

 Nhs  (2015). Tinnitus. [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tinnitus/ [Accessed 11 Dec. 2017].

 Mueller, U. and Yeager, M. (2017). Discover - Deafness and Hearing Loss Research. [online] Scripps.edu. Available at: https://www.scripps.edu/discover/deafness.html [Accessed 17 Dec. 2017].

 Psycho. (1960). [film] Directed by A. Hitchcock. USA: Shamley Productions.

 Slumdog millionaire. (2008). [film] Directed by D. Boyle and L. Tandan. USA: Warner Bros.

 Soudakoff, R. (2015). A Day Through a Deaf Person's Eyes. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/ecmCHXZkTGI [Accessed 3 Oct. 2017].

 S. Stuijfzand et al (2016). Gender Differences in Empathic Sadness towards Persons of the Same- versus Other-sex during Adolescence. Sex Roles, 75(9-10), pp.434-446.

 What It’s Like To Have Autism Video Lets You Experience Sensory Overload For Yourself. (2016). [DVD] Youtube: Autism Safety Education & Training.