Developing Final Scene - Test Shoot and Tutorials with Sebastiane and Anna

As Sebastiane previously said he thought using powder paint or any brightly coloured paint was cliche, I decided to use beauty products, like shampoo, moisturiser and shaving foam, for She to create abstract art with her body onto the perspex plastic sheets. This reflects her rebellion against using beauty products in the expected ways and shows her liberation as she escapes through contemporary dance and artwork. I was nervous Sebastiane was going to think using products was too similar to using paint; however the beauty products reflected She's liberation further. I did an experimental test shoot and roughly edited it together to show Sebastiane my vision. I only focused on the movement and art in this test shoot, not the styling or makeup. I stood in for the dancer; however my dancer will be able to do beautiful leaps and extreme back bends etc. to heighten She's freedom. I asked my dad to build a frame and paint it black to conceal the plastic's borders. I think the test shoot was successful; however I was not completely confident when showing it to my teachers as I was still concerned it was cliche. My other concern was the test shoot did not build towards the end which I want, but instead it stayed at one level and become monotonous.

Anna Felton Feedback

I decided to book a tutorial with Anna Felton as Sebastiane could not see me that week because of presentations and I was concerned that the scene still looked slightly cliche. I explained the concept of my film and its target market of young people and creatives and Anna was very enthusiastic about the use of beauty products. She said the concept of rebelling against the norm worked with the model's strong movement rejecting the beauty products to create a fun, expressive scene. She suggested I should experiment with using even more product, so it drips and splatters, and bigger movement to emphasise her liberation as she felt the movement was too controlled in places. I said I was concerned about the styling so Anna suggested I filmed it with the full styling and then just removed pieces I felt were too dominant to create a balance between the styling and expressive paint to make sure the emotion and movement were the most dominant factors.

I felt so relieved that Anna thought this scene would work in portraying my concept as I had less than a week until the shoot and so had to organise everything and make the storyboard. I was excited to start choreographing the movement; however I decided to email my test shoot to Sebastiane to make sure he thought it would work, as he is my mentor.


Sebastiane Feedback

Sebastiane said he was concerned that what I wanted the scene to represent or mean was not what the images were communicating. He also said he didn't think the smearing of products worked and that I needed to look at smaller gestures and movement rather than expressive dance which can look slightly cliche. This was frustrating to hear because Anna had said she thought it worked and suggested I made the movements even bigger with more products. This emphasised to me that art is very subjective and so not everyone will view a scene in the same way; however Sebastiane is my mentor and I feel he has more background knowledge to my film as we have had so many tutorials so I will work with his feedback to create a scene that evokes stronger emotion.

We discussed how I originally wanted to portray her feeling of liberation and rebellion against society; however as this is an educational film it would be more appropriate to highlight to the audience the importance of feeling accepted by society as a unique individual rather than them feeling the need to fight society's expectations. I wanted to portray the need for a tolerant society which embrace everyone's individuality rather than a divided society where people who may feel different feel ostracised and alone.

He suggested I focused more on experimenting with synchronising movement to portray the feeling of acceptance and relationship. I originally wanted the dancer and She to be in different scenes that were then entwined together to reflect how She was losing herself in her subconscious, imagining how it would feel to be accepted; however I think having them in the same scene doing synchronised movement would reflect their growing bond. I think the dancer should represent a member of society that has reached out to She to show the film's audience the importance of accepting everyone's individuality and not shutting them away. I want the scene to reflect She's emotions when feeling accepted and not judged and we discussed the use of contact to show this between the dancer and She. He showed me Pina Bausch's The Fall Dance which represents the growing feeling of trust between two people through simple movement. I am excited to research more into contemporary, avant-garde movement to portray She's emotions.