Brainstorming Process
When thinking of a theme for Sight of Sound, we gathered topics of what we were most interested in at the time. Some of them include family, relationships, Studio Ghibli, and nostalgia. We were both drawn to the idea of the nostalgia of Studio Ghibli, and wondered why we felt that way about those movies even though our backgrounds are quite different. We zoned in on that feeling of caring about something that does not exist in the real world, almost like escapism. The term for that nostalgic feeling for a place you’ve never known or been to is called “anemoia,” and we decided that would be our theme.
We looked at various analog photography and image editing methods to see what was possible to create the feeling of nostalgia. Another aspect that was inspiring was Studio Ghibli’s movie palettes, which we thought resembled the vibrancy of the risograph. In terms of typography, we wanted a clean thin serif look and elevated the elegance of our photography and video footage, which we later settled on to be Apple Garamond. It was used a lot in the 80s and 90s as a display typeface for Apple’s advertising and conveyed the feeling of nostalgia.
Video Footage Process
A method that was brought up was using the viewfinder and lens of a DSLR as framing, and shooting the photos through it on our phones instead of actually using the camera. We wanted to contain the world in a small space, where it felt more surreal and out of reach, almost like a self-contained dream space. As we shot, it reminded us of the little house image that would be shown to a patient when they are getting an eye exam. We picked several locations that were nature intensive, as we felt that to be the best way to show a surreal space. They include Amory Park, The Commons, and the Charles River Esplanade. Each had their own strengths, whether that is being next to a body of water, or had expansive amounts of greenery. We took advantage of having a lens, using it to either muffle the clarity of the footage or transitioning some shots from clear to blurry. This in retrospect cut down a lot of time needed to edit the footage with grain later, as it already had a blurred look we were going for. In some scenes, we added human presence into our mostly nature footage to let the viewer focus on a protagonist.
Animation
We each made our own 16 second video made from the shared pool of footage we gathered. They were timed with a track from the movie, Spirited Away, titled One Summer’s Day by Joe Hisaishi. They were made with a frame rate of 16 frames per second, making a total of 256 frames. We exported all the frames into InDesign, where we fit them into 4 tabloid sized papers — 64 frames each. We brought these contact sheets into Photoshop to split the images into CMYK and scanned each color in the Riso to make them saturated and vibrant. Afterwards, we scanned the riso sheets and imported them into After Effects to stitch the frames together and create our final video.
Sarah — The main focus of my video was how I could incorporate the black framing throughout the composition. Some portions are split in half, drawing your eyes to two different videos playing simultaneously, while other portions of the video are layered on top of each other. Though the clips could seem random and not cohesive at all, the thick black frame grounds them and brings it all together. I also included snippets of myself in the beginning and end of my video. The figure is hazy and I am looking off into the distance for both clips.
Vincent — My animation focused on playing with the framing of the composition. I wanted to convey a surreal space within the animation and increase the haziness of the footage with lots of noise and grain. The main appeal of the animation is to show off places of nature with little context as to where they are, as if they were encountered in a dream.
Postcards: Smol Fotos
Vincent: Smol Fotos was a project that I had started at the beginning of summer. It was a for-fun photography experiment that I had adopted when I saw my friend taking a phone picture through her disposable camera. I had been gathering content during the summer when I was traveling around Massachusetts with my friends. However, I never found a proper format or place for them until this project. There was an idea to display them like Pantone cards, but anemoia seemed like the best fit.
Posters
Sarah: I made the poster compositions using some candid pictures that Vincent took while we were collecting video content. Seeing how I had myself at the start and end of my video, I wanted to continue that pattern. The posters have a similar vibe as my video as well, with a four color CMYK riso layering, creating a dream-like ambiance.
Vincent: Wombo jumbo style with lots of thresholds and noise filters in Photoshop. Interestingly, I learned that adding noise to a picture first and then using threshold on it will increase its clarity than using threshold directly on it.
Zine
We created our zine as a process documentation, so we included much of the Medium blog post in there. It was meant to be a display of all the analog methods that we used to make this project possible.
Typeface
Exhibition
