After looking at single images and how they provoke and convey sound, emotions and responses differently, our last project was to create a short video produced from still images.
The narrative had to be clear and easily understandable with a use of sound that helps convey the visual to our interpretation.
My final project is set at a boxing gym near my home location. Using only the sound taken from the gym from one particular training session and capturing over 1500 still images, I have produced a short video entirely made out of still photographs supported with a narrative that tells a story.
The story’s synopsis is about two young boxers who prepare to fight each other. It’s a simple narrative, but the procedure in how its shot is the most memorable element in which constructs the piece and makes it complete.
One of the most frequent quotes in which I received when making the video in post production was “how young are they”, their age being quite an important factor in the story. They are 13 and 15 years old.
Ages that when you view the film is quite scary knowing how young these kids are and the training in which they commit themselves to. But this is one of the representations and themes in which I wanted to show to the audience. After being influence by ‘Murray Kloses – Cuba’ portfolio, I became focused on the idea of teenage boxing.
I felt the themes in which it covered were extraordinary, however his photos were really representations on Cuba and the cultural impact of their country. I wondered what it would be like to manipulate a British version of actual teenagers boxing.
After learning through trial and error at the demo shoot for this project, I arrived at the boxing club with a storyboard in which I could go through chronologically with the kids and their trainer in order to create the film precisely to my intentions. Luckily this worked very well and the two lads in whom I met a few days before were brilliant to work with. They discussed with me what they do before fights as well as what they don’t do, which made my storyboard change a little as they introduced me to warm ups in which are more boxing related.
This was a good relationship to work with. They had already years of experience in boxing in which helped me in various sites. They directed me through their pre-fight emotions and actions, allowing me to shoot extra footage in which I initially didn’t plan due to my beginner knowledge of the sport.
We did only have two hours to record all the footage, due to deadlines to myself in order to edit the piece. The first hour went by very quickly, in fact too quickly. Although I had taken many images and recorded some strong soundscpaes, I still wasn’t half way across my storyboard. But after addressing the kids this, we upped the tempo of the schedule and worked a lot harder to get accurate footage quicker.
What I did find that the made the piece easier to capture, was to actually show the kids and the other boxers what I was doing and what my intentions were. I could only describe it to a certain extent but when I showed them on the camera they quickly recoginsed the type of piece I was trying to produce, allowing them to express their thoughts and ideas with mine.
I left the shoot with over 1500 images and 30 minutes worth of soundscape. This put me in great confidence in terms of producing a finished outcome that would show my intentions. However, I did not look forward to editing with such a great number of photos. But the process was not as difficult as I thought it would be. It just took time and patience. The easiest part was editing the sound into the piece. Due to collecting so much strong and clear sounds, I could loop and adjust various tones to fit the structure of the narrative. This was all achieved in half a day of editing. A contrast to the images, which took three and a half days, and over 800 images used to create the film.
One of the difficulties with my intentions was that I did not want every clip the same length. I wanted it to be a bit jumpy in places where other places I wanted fast tempo such as the skipping scene. I wanted the piece to look as old as possible but to contain modern elements – supported by the use of teenagers in branded clothing of the modern age.
Although my film is long and slightly exceeds the initial time allocated, I feel it works best at that length and its current duration portrays the best representations, themes and anticipations. Shortening it may damage its portrayal.
My intentions were to build up the anticipation of the final call as much as possible. Giving the audience the perspective of each fighter. Allowing them to witness each other’s emotions and thoughts as they train, warm up and fight.
After researching other media texts in which I regarded as an influence, I was able to construct the piece together in a viewing format that can be associated with this sport. However the representations and themes in the video are much greater and contain more depth. Themes that is open to interpretation.
I am very pleased with the finished outcome of my film. I feel it portrays youth as a much older generation, creating representations in the audience’s response to the characters. Conjuring their personalities and their futures as human beings and how they will proceed through life in today’s society. This is manipulated with the boxing. The boxing represents the conflict in which they will go through in later life, the issues and the fights. But by having people of such an age involved in such a violent and compact sport, it brings that epic, astonishing and silent initial response factor to the viewer.
This is why I titled the film ‘Young Hearts’. Hearts that are still maturing and developing, but ones that have already dealt and experienced conflict making them more powerful than they think they are.
Daniel Booker, Lens Media 