A Locked Door | Moving Image
Inspired by Mona Hatoum’s moving image, I decided to create my moving image using video clips my father had captured when I was a child, right before my mother was sectioned intercut with my house when my mother and father were viewing the house as potential buyers. The film inspired my editing style, “I’m thinking ending things”, edited by Robert Frazen. He intentionally went against the scene’s rhythm to visually represent what it’s like dream-up scenarios in your head. Frazen would have a constant throughout a scene but would either delay a cut or cut too quickly by intercutting it with another sequence that became more relevant later in the film, as if a passing thought has interrupted one’s stream of consciousness. I wanted to have a similar essence in my clip, so I had one long clip split into four parts, which captured myself as a child aimlessly looking into the distance, looking lost. Then intercut with a short burst of clips that featured any door related to the title of my mother’s short story.
After editing this, I superimposed scans of my mother’s short story that my mother handwrote on top of the previous sequence. As shown in the screenshots below, I dragged the image onto the timeline, right-clicked on it to select the scale to frame size, changed the opacity to 70%, and selected soft light on blend mode. I wanted to do this to the handwritten images to create a sentimental, nostalgic perspective as I felt inspired by Hatom’s moving image. I had previously researched different fonts to type in the text but received feedback to ask my mother to write out her story physically.
Initially, I was pleased with the results. Still, after consideration, I do not feel like the moving image resonates with the narrative I am attempting to create, depicting the hardship my mother went through, us reuniting and becoming close again after being separated multiple times due to differing circumstances. However, I did capture some more footage while swimming with my GoPro, so I will continue developing this moving image visually. I also have the duplicate footage with audio which contained a shot written piano piece created by my flatmate and audio clips of the sea, which I found emphasised the gloomy atmosphere of the visuals. I do plan on returning to the still image as I felt a creative block while working on this moving image and creating a zine instead, but hopefully, after adding the new footage and narration of my mother or me (depending on how her mental health is currently) reading her short story may change my perspective.
