An Inquiry Into Joy
For the last two weeks, I have been contemplating a topic that I hadn’t really given much thought to before, and that was the emotions of joy in film. Particularly in experimental film, and why this emotion isn’t often covered by this cinematic art form. Is it because to experience the emotion of joy an audience needs a linear narrative? Or perhaps it’s because the typical experimental film maker is unsure of how to portray this emotion effectively. Then again, it could also be said that experimental films are targeted to an audience so far removed from mainstream cinema that it has bypassed the need to hold any meaning (Laurence, 2014.) To explore the possibilities of finding joy in experimental film, and in some ways, myself, I posed the following question:
Experimental filmmaking is an absurdly powerful artistic medium but to what extent can elements that make up the experimental film be mixed and manipulated to evoke an emotional response?
Let’s talk about me…
To first answer this question, I had to ask myself, what is something that brings me joy? The answer was creating, it was a simple, I enjoy creating things to share with an audience, but the issue was what I was creating wasn’t necessarily bringing joy to the masses, or myself.
At this point I would like to add in a disclaimer, that if you are squeamish or offended by fairly graphic imagery please skip the following section and continue onto the next section.
I turned to my inspirations as a film maker and storyteller, lately I have been inspired by the work of Dennis Cooper, his film Like Cattle Towards Glow (Cooper, 2015)
This is a film that shows a group of gay youths resolving their psychological issues through exploring bizarre fetishes or conducting in sinister sexual roleplay. While not strictly taboo I do find that work that I have been involved with (outside of my studies,) have revolved around the topics of sex and identity. Two things that are generally associated with bringing a level of joy to people, but I have never been able to associate my work with that. It’s always been given a darker more sinister overtone.
The second example of my creative inspiration I am going to use for this post is the work of Poppy Z Brite, an author that is gifted with showing the grotesque side of our lives by mixing reality with her own version of what she calls swamp horror (Miller, 2004.) Reading her books, you can’t help but see these characters and places come to life. Something only a gifted storyteller can do.

In a single sentence, you are able to feel a connection with the two characters in this book, even without reading the whole thing, you know there is love there.
Making your main characters the outcasts of society can work for a film about joy and happiness, if they are wanting to seek acceptance from ‘regular’ characters, but again the characters I usually write are doing the opposite, they embrace their differences from societal norms and are proud to let their freak flags fly.
So why bring these two things up when I am discussing experimental film and joy. I wanted to explore where my creativity lies, and where I have taken it in the past. Now that it’s discussed I can move on and focus on the joyful side of things, but first let’s dig a little deeper. I’ve discussed what I can do, and have done as a creative. But what won’t I do?
Do I have limits and morals? Of course, they may be slightly blurred at times but they’re there. When discussing limits here I want to highlight where I believe things have been taken too far. I want to discuss a scene from Srdjan Spasojevic’s 2010 film A Serbian Film for this.
A scene like this in any sort of film I believe is unwarranted, no matter how many times the director says it is a commentary ‘On how the Serbian government fucks it citizens over from the moment they’re born.’ (Selavy, 2010.) I do believe that this scene does cross the line from artistic expression to just being used for shock value, and serves no real purpose to the narrative or story being told in this film. I strongly believe that anything appearing on screen in a film should serve a purpose, and reveal something about the narrative or the characters involved. I have not been able to find either of those things expressed in this scene, taking it out of the film causes no changes to the plot of any character development. The problem here is that the story telling grows more intense, so the audience knows it’s building up to something shocking, which is standard film practice, but then it veers off in another direction altogether (Macnab, 2010.)
Break time…
Okay, to take a break from the lack of joy I have brought you so far, please enjoy the following clip before continuing.
Experimenting with Joy…
Now that I’ve spoken about my own personal enquiry I have undertaken the last couple of weeks, and the brief analysis of what these influences and limits have had on my current body of work. I’d like to get back to the question at hand, basically what elements of experimental film can be used to evoke joy in an audience.
I’d like to start this by paraphrasing Police Chief Marge Gunderson
‘I’m not sure that I agree with you on your analytical work there, Mr. Barrier’
This quote from Fargo can really sum up experimental film, and its audience. Experimental film does leave a lot open to interpretation and discussion, this is because these films are more cerebral than a typical Hollywood main stream film Smith, 2011.) Experimental films appeal more to intellect, and it could be said that film critics and film scholars tend to be on the intellectual side, or at least they think they are. Is it this intellect that causes experimental films to come off as cold? So it’s easier to make a film about depression or anxiety rather than that of joy? Even though experimental film is all about spontaneity a lot of time, effort and skill go into picking out the right music, sound effects and creating the right mise en scene.
It could be said that the whole point of going to a movie theatre is because you are wanting to be emotionally manipulated into feeling something.
In order for a film maker to be able to manipulate their audience into feeling an emotion, they need to have an understanding of how to manipulate image and sound to be able to convey to correct emotional response. Experimental films are able to open up a world of expressionistic techniques that a film maker can utilise to create some powerful works that are able to make their audiences feel. I’d like to explore three ways in which film makers are able to manipulate emotions through their films.
Colour
Like background music colour has the power to influence how an audience feels without them even noticing. Film makers have effectively been exploiting our connection to colour since The Wizard of Oz.
I could go into a full analysis of colour here, but I’d like to focus on the ones that are able to evoke a feeling of joy, or happiness. Using Plutchik’s wheel of emotions it can be seen that joy is represented by yellow tones, the more intense the colour gets the more intense the emotion, so what starts off as serenity turns into joy and when at its most intense turns to ecstasy. Looking at many examples of experimental films there is a lack of this colour in the majority of films I watched, they were most of the opposite colour range, going from anger to sadness and grief through to fear. In experimental film making colour must be treated as a character in a film (Olesen, 2017,) it ultimately is the thing that will manipulate the audience in feeling. Even if the narrative is positive and the sound design is cheerful, if for arguments sake an experimental film about joy was done in blue tones the audience may assume that the film isn’t as happy as it appears, to put it simply, cold colours will make audiences depressed.

The meaning of colour in film can change depending on a number of factors including age, culture and geographical location. This is why experimental film is generally targeted at a very specific audience, and rarely do these films have any kind of financial success.
Sound
Sound design in experimental film is important to the narrative of an experimental film, it affects what is shot and the overall pace of the film. The music in an experimental film can alter an audience’s state of mind, it transports the audience into the story world of the film. Attention to detail in sound design is paramount in experimental film as if you have sound that doesn’t pair with the visual the intended audience will be drawn out of the moment and ultimately the emotional journey.
When looking at main stream film cinema the main concept of sound design is the give the film the most natural feeling possible. In the case of experimental film sound design can be broken down into four aspects:
1. Anti-Naturalistic — How the sound/image relationships are organised
2. The Sound of Technology — The rising interest in sound produced by film itself, such as sound recording and sound reproduction
3. Optical Sound Synthesis — Modes of sound generation, not depending on the recording of sound but the sound that emerges from the apparatus itself.
4. Live Generated Sounds and Images — Focuses on the features of contemporary projection performance (Jutz, 2016.)
For the Joy experimental film, I will be using an anti-naturalistic approach, as I believe using sound to compliment the images will help intensify the emotion of joy. To evoke feelings of happiness and joy the sound design is generally fast and animated, it also has a warm tone and a more constant melody than that of other emotions.
Narrative
Experimental films are highly artistic, and have little to no regard to structure and don’t focus on a traditional narrative as they are mostly montage pieces (Schneider, 2014.) The lack of narrative in experimental films transcends people’s narrative expectations (Silverstein, 2015,) people focus on the images and sound design and establish a stronger emotional connection to the work rather than trying to figure out any subtext in narrative.
The Big Conclusion
Taking the research I conducted I decided to make my own experimental film about joy. I aim to use stock footage and original footage to construct the visual aspect and want to experiment with sound to create something that will at least make people smile by the end of it. The ultimate goal will be to make people feel good after watching it. I feel like trying something new will allow me to approach my future creative projects differently and while I am not expecting this film to be up to my usual standard due to time constraints and my limited knowledge on the subject I hope that to use this as a learning experience and improve on the lighter side of film making while staying true to my existing aesthetic.
But in the meantime, enjoy my first exploration into Joy. Chris, this is dedicated to you!
References
A Serbian Film. (2010). [DVD] Directed by S. Spasojevic. Serbia: Contra Film.
Barry, A. (1997). Visual intelligence. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press.
Donaldson, M. (2017). Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions — 2017 Update • Six Seconds. [online] Six Seconds. Available at: http://www.6seconds.org/2017/04/27/plutchiks-model-of-emotions/ [Accessed 23 Aug. 2017].
Donovan, P. (2016). Understanding The Baby Rape In ‘A Serbian Film’. [online] Moviepilot.com. Available at: https://moviepilot.com/posts/3999024 [Accessed 23 Aug. 2017].
Jutz, G. (2016). Audiovisual aesthetics in contemporary experimental film. Oxford University Press, pp.397–425.
Laurence, R. (2014). Are experimental films elitist?. [online] Bbc.com. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140829-are-experimental-films-elitist [Accessed 23 Aug. 2017].
Like Cattle Towards Glow. (2015). [DVD] Directed by D. Cooper. Canada: Jurgen Bruning Filmproduktion.
Macnab, G. (2010). A Serbian Film: Is this the nastiest film ever made?. [online] The Independent. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/a-serbian-film-is-this-the-nastiest-film-ever-made-2137781.html [Accessed 25 Aug. 2017].
An Inquiry into Joy. (2017). [YouTube Video] Directed by W. McPhee. Australia. The Xinner Collective.
Meyer, B. (2016). Evoking emotion in pure sound design. [online] Designingsound.org. Available at: http://designingsound.org/2016/08/evoking-emotion-in-pure-sound-design/ [Accessed 22 Aug. 2017].
Miller, L. (2004). Bookslut | An Interview with Poppy Z. Brite. [online] Bookslut.com. Available at: http://www.bookslut.com/features/2004_09_003129.php [Accessed 26 Aug. 2017].
Olesen, J. (2017). Color Symbolism in Movies: What Do Colors Mean in Movies?. [online] Color-Meanings.com. Available at: https://www.color-meanings.com/color-symbolism-in-movies-what-do-colors-mean-in-movies/ [Accessed 19 Aug. 2017].
Schneider, A. and Pasqualino, C. (2014). Experimental film and anthropology. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Selavy, V. (2010). A Serbian Film: Interview with Srdjan Spasojevic. [online] Electric Sheep. Available at: http://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/features/2010/12/05/a-serbian-film-interview-with-srdjan-spasojevic/ [Accessed 25 Aug. 2017].
Smith, S. (2011). Emotional Manipulation. [online] Screenwriting from Iowa. Available at: https://screenwritingfromiowa.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/emotional-manipulation/ [Accessed 15 Aug. 2017].
