This was a tough assignment to get going but after a while I started putting the video together. My initial idea was based around toys, this was because toys are controlled and I wanted to focus on robotic hip hop dancing. I created a mind map of all the connotations of toys and the one that stood out the most was the word feel. This helped me develop my piece because there are a few different emotions that I could choose from. I looked around for music to go with this theme because I could improvise to the music to come up with some material. The song that I found was Logic under pressure intro. The song contained lyrics about feeling (the singer mentions that he used to 'wonder what it feels like') which was a great start as it left the conclusion open as it didn't mention what emotion it was about. I watched some hip hop dance videos for inspiration but looking at other people's choreography didn't help at all so I started improvising and devising from my own head. I played the song over and over again dancing along to it until I had 30sec worth of choreography.
After the 30 seconds of the choreography I started scanning the internet for some dance moves I could Inco-operate to make my choreography better from which I came across some robotic hand dance moves. I found out that they fell under a genre called tutting which is famous in street dancing. I then spent a few days learning this type of dance , at first it was difficult to make the 90 degree shapes but with time I started making straighter lines and started to pick up speed which is reflected in my first draft.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbBqtuYvags After watching this video about tutting I decided that I wanted to explore the dance and the following are some links from which I learnt the core basics of this dance which allowed me to create and develop my own moves within the dance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0rV2qcbEgc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkpvM2AfvTc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyMfpJh3h4A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lZ_1ZqJ9vg
After developing my skills in tutting and the material I created I had about 45 seconds worth and I needed a minute minimum for the criteria. I started thinking about exploring the location in depth for example have a few seconds of the song showing the location. That gave me a few more seconds however didn't really do much therefore I included some of my personal life into the story which got me even more engaged with the project. At this point I was learning to play a guitar and the first song I learnt was all of me therefore I got emotionally attached to it and dancing to it brought back memories which set me up with a storyline for the video---we see the character tuning a guitar and starts strumming the first melody of the song then stops gets up and starts dancing then gets back to picking up guitar in the end---I wanted this to show that nothing comes easy therefore if you want something then you need to work for it and not give up.
I then showed It to my friends and they seemed to like it therefore I recorded the progress which I then showed to the rest of the class. Showing the clip to the rest of the class paid off as I received some valuable feedback which is what I needed to improve my piece. Costume was one of the factors most touched upon as the majority of the class thought I could improve from my mickey mouse jumper to something more professional looking like a shirt. Originally I did take costume into consideration even though it may not come across that way. The idea of wearing the jumper was to empathise and enforce my stimulus because humans emotionally respond to the sense of touch.
The second most raised point was location. Shooting at Josh's place allowed me to access high angle shots and provided a warm wash light setting which are things that are not accessible everywhere. Indoors filming also meant that we could film despite what the weather was like outside.
Overall the feedback was amazing from my class mates which gave me a good feeling about working on this project. Many people complimented my lyrical movements which I later on found to be something I could also strengthen. Watching myself back I thought that the piece needed lots of improvement as some of my dance moves were not sharp or to the level that I was aiming to reach.
I decided to keep the idea of toys and controlling but have fluid control which visually looks better because when you include waving your body looks like its flowing in one motion. The music however did not let me go ahead with this idea and at the time I liked the song all of me and spent some time thinking about the stimulus and choreography link. Fluid made me think of water therefore I decided to film it on the beach which was visually appealing and complimented the fluid body movements I choreographed. While I practising my movements John legend's 'All of me' started playing and I didn't skip it and continued to improvise using the material I already created and surprisingly it seemed to work. Having spent weeks learning how to tut I had to include it in my choreography and from the first draft a friend had asked how quick I can because it looked impressive when done very quickly. Playing around with the speed allowed me to create more material however as a beginner I could only tut so fast and inside I just wanted to tut very fast like I saw some the guys on YouTube doing. Unfortunately that required years of practise therefore having it very fast was no longer and option. I then thought what would happen if I slowed it down instead of increasing the speed, I tried it out and showed to a friend who said it looked good. Having it slower allowed me to make cleaner shapes which visually looked better than doing it very fast and not keeping the right angles. The music went well with this therefore it was a win win situation.
Having a media student as a friend allowed me to play around with the music slowing and speeding it up however I wanted a violin playing in the background because it gave the song some uniqueness. Fortunately Josh could do just that for me. Having changed the music , I decided to pay a bit more attention to my costume. Filming on the beach I decided to wear a white shirt to compliment the beautiful background. White also enforced the perfection implication from the lyrics which provided a link of the song and choreography. I wore a black tie to help reflect the pureness of the white shirt. Since the song was about love I decided to contribute other themes of love , this was because it doesn't always go well therefore the black trousers showed that there can be a bad side such as a heartbreak which is something that we don't see in the song. For footwear I decided to wear my Nike rose runs because they wear blue and had a sunrise beach image which blended well with the location we were shooting at.
After filming I realised that it had all been done in ultra slow motion which was a big let down and I feared all the hard work had gone to waste ,however with the help of some media students I managed work with what I had and end up with a an improved dance project in contrast to the first take.
No comments:
Post a Comment