This is my final Klynt sequence, it was very confusing to put together. So I had to create 6 menu’s thankfully Klynt has a duplication tool, this meant when I finally happy with how the menu interface looked I could duplicate this and it would transfer all the information I needed onto a new sequence, it was very beneficial to have this tool. The reason I have done this is because for each menu there is a different voice over of someone talking about climate change. Therefor when people go back to the menu it is not the same audio every time, it is something new. I think this is key to keep the user engaged as the menu is a big part of my project. I have set this up so each sequence is linked up to a different audio that way it is always different. This is the final one and I am very happy with this, although not what I was first had planned in Klynt in regards to design and layout I think it works. I believe this shows how my project has evolved over the course of the last few months, I was first planning on doing the map but realised early on that it was probably not suitable for the time I had to complete this project. Instead I have met this idea half way and used Bristol and London as my bases and worked closely with XR in these locations. I am very happy with the outcome as the hours I have put into travelling to these events have paid off and I have provided a well documented break down of the Rise of Extinction Rebellion.
This is my central sequence that presents a different side of civil disobedience, like I have mentioned I was going to use this central video to possibly show some negative parts of Extinction Rebellion but I feel this could be better explored in evaluative essay as I can go into more details regarding these issues, instead I have used this video to show the confrontation that comes with these protests. I am very happy with the outcome, when first looking through my images I thought I had a lot to work with but when putting this together I did find it difficult make a impactful video that really grasp the emotion on the activists. But overall I think it works well.
How I have put this together is by combining all audio together, I think that’s what makes this sequence most effective. I am really happy with the audio I captured as you can really hear the passion and motives of the activists, this resulted in joining the police talk with an activist aggressively trying to tell a policemen he had a right to be on the bridge. I decided to put this together as it portrays a contrast from the two discussion, on one hand the policemen is having a very calm, collective chat with an XR member and the other it is getting heated and out of control. It also sounds as if they are both talking to each other which asks questions surrounding how did the police deal with Extinction Rebellion.
Following on from that I decided my images demonstrate anger and passion shown by the activists, the willingness for all ages to be arrested is apparent as I think I captured a good range of individuals getting picked up by the police. I decided to make the first arrests multiple images to show how frantic the event was and also the you can really get a feel for the situation with regards to the people involved.
Whilst the protest have been going on for more than a week now I have been looking at how the media has represneted Extinction Rebellion. I would have thought it has been a massive success for XR, they have expanded the name and it is most definetly known nationally now. Over 1000 people were arrested which just shows how many people are taking the actions they feel are needed for Climate Change issues to be taken more seriously. Resulting in so much popularity I have found one video that really clarifies the issues that have made XR so popular. Jonathan Pie did a mock broadcast I want to involve it in this project as I find it very relatable in regards to my lost post. As much as he explains yes peoples days are being disrupted but this isnt just to cause inconvience the message behind this is powerful and civil disobedience has a record of working.
Parliament Debates have opened surrounding Climate Change and Extinction Rebellion demands…..
The last event I attended for this project was International Rebellion on the 15th April, I have come out from the event feeling sad, angry, motivated and worried. Since taking on this project I have been slightly apprehensive regarding XR. Week on week I have been trying to paint this picture and interpreted the group through my lens and really letting the viewer understand what/who they are through visual literacy. As I have spoke to my lecturer and on the blog about, I wasn’t really committed to XR instead standing back and observing the actions that were taking place. I have mentioned some weakness I think they have such as class, ethnicity and also challenging the affects there actions are doing for the rest of society. My thoughts on the movement have changed from today’s protest and now personally feel responsible for carrying on what I started when first starting this project and in the future continue to attend protests not as observers but as supporter.
I say this as International Rebellion was something special that I won’t forgot for a while. Although some of the issues I have mentioned are still clear, the power individuals can have in culture was evident for the rest of society to see. Throughout the day I visited all free regions they were road blocking, these were Waterloo Bridge, Pacadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, Marble Arch and Parliament. Square. All blockages where peaceful and inclusive for the general public to join in if wanted. Thousands of people were split between the blockages and made an atmosphere I haven’t really witnessed before. They stuck to what the believe and used no violence and were cohesive with the police. Throughout the day I captured what I could with the camera and audio mics but it was very difficult trying to be in five places at once.
By the end of the day I was tired and moved back to Waterloo bridge where I began photographing to rest and try to digest what I momentous protest this was. After relaxing for a little while I saw a policemen and an activist having a slightly aggressive chat with people gathered round so decided to go over and see what was happening and record some audio, from this the police were explaining the bridge needed to be cleared and it was done for the day but no one really stood for it and instead all gathered together in a line singing whilst falling back to the middle of the bridge.
Then the police approached (a lot of police) and began to speak to the activists telling them to comply but hundreds of people were singing, they were not going to be moved. After thirty minutes they made there first attest and dragged a young mans limp body whilst everyone cheered as XR knew for the police to start arresting they were on there last legs.
But it took a sad turn and they began to arrest more and more people, dragging them from the crowd all the way down the bridge. These adults they were arresting were not young, most were over the age of 60. This is when it stated to understand how seriously these individuals were taking this movement, old men and women were being arrested for there kids and grandkids whilst the police were dragging them across the floor with hundreds and hundreds of spectators watching this happen.
What started as a peaceful, enjoyable and inclusive day by night turned into the surreal environment that struck me with anger and helplessness. The dedication that people are showing in XR is insane and for a cause that we all know is beginning the effect our lives and more and more in the future.
The reason I have dedicated a blog post the explain this is as now I have finished the production work I am not reflecting on the last few months. Going into this project it was daunting but I knew exactly what I wanted to do and went for it. I didn’t really know to what except and also didn’t know if I agreed with the actions they were taking. But coming to the end of term my views have changed and understand how powerful individuals can be when coming together and for an issue that is life threatening for us and future societies across the globe.
These are the photo’s I captured of activist getting arrested (they are all unedited).
I’ve been trying to find relevant texts that analyses the ways imagery can be used as visual literacy, explaining why photography can be used to present and inform issues that are happening in society in contrast to reading text. It can open a different lens for the viewer to think about in there perspective. I want my images ask questions are visually impactful. Documentary photography can create a reality that conveys ideas and a medium for personal expressions, it can influence change through the lens by creating an atmospheric space that challenges different perspectives in culture.
I have found a relevant journal that explains how imagery can be used as visual language in this text she reviews how climate change imargery can spark emoitions in the viewer over just reading issues around the issue. In Visual Information Literacy by Debbie Abilock she states:
It invites everyone to share what they have learnt, as well as their feelings, opinions and questions about photography. Our values, emotions, and knowledge shape our responses to a photograph, just as they inform our responses to a printed text and indeed experience in our lives. Photography elaborates responses and add question to prompt further thinking. Some may focus on their their ‘personal lens’ by sharing their qualms about about climate change. Others may be led by their ‘ethical lens’ and become outraged about global warming. Whilst they understand that these are continuing problems, they may have reservations about the role countries and humanitarian organisations currently play or take in issues of social justice. The purpose is to become conscious of the perspective we bring to a visual image.
Bibliography
A, Debbie (2008) Visual Information Literacy: Reading a Documentary Photograph. Knowledge Quest [online] .36 (3) [Accessed 14/04/2019]
Since I have been working on other modules of late I have not had the opportunities to attend other events with XR. The final protest I will be attending is International Rebellion. I am going to post a separate blog post regarding this event and what I want to achieve by going. I want to dedicate this blog post to looking at certain interviews I have photograph/interviewed and analyse their story as these are the people trying to push the group further, some individuals have been in the press and I feel it is beneficial to see how they are being represented.
Firstly over the past few days I have been looking online and seeing how the press have been interpreting XR. I think everyone is aware of what the future holds if we do not take action on climate change. But this isn’t the question journalist are asking, instead they are trying to understand what XR are doing differently to tackle this issue.
Jack Harries BBC Interview after arrest
After Jack was arrest in March he went on BBC and was interviews by Victoria Derbyshire from This Morning. This interview turned into a debate when the presenter started asking Jack about the questions that are mostly preventing XR from stepping forward and getting more people on board. These were surrounding traffic/congestion and taking up police’s time, Jack’s response was interesting as it was different than the answer he provided me. In this interview he mentioned now is the time to be making these small inconveniences as the other choice is much worse. When talking to me his response was slightly different, Jack seemed to opened up more in my interview explaining XR already have a bad reputation and are seen by some as extreme and violent and if you are not being ‘controversial you’re probably not doing enough’. I’m as not trying to pick apart everything Jack is saying but it is interesting to see the dynamics between small interviews and big production interviews. In response to how I am working with this content I capture, I only had a small audio mic when interviewing Jack so it felt very intimate subsequently getting really informative content as it felt more of talk about the issue rather than a intrusive conversation where he may have felt slightly put on the spot.
Blood of Our Children – Activist Interview
This video published to YouTube is about one individual who was part of the Blood of Our Children protest, I found the video very interesting as I actually spoke to this activist for a small amount of time and took some photo’s whilst he was demonstrating. I watched him for a while when at the protest as he sat on the ground with his hands together from start to finish. On the surface I didn’t know anything about him where he comes he what he does but from this video he speaks about his past and why he is taking these actions. It really hit home to me that these activist are just normal citizens that are trying to make a change any means necessary, from a glance I think people forgot these activists have stories they are not doing it for a cry of attention but rather scared of the future. Now I know more about him I understand why he was praying throughout the protest and it is nice to put understand further why he is taking these actions.
BBC Article (Interesting title)
Lastly today (10/04/2019) a this article was published on BBC, it confronts the issue surrounding XR’s position on wasting police time, Roger Hallam takes part in a interview (linked below) and was asked a slightly sarcastic and controversial question.
Reporter: Do you really think ruining peoples day, blocking their way to work, is going to make them go, great I’m going to go and join those guys?
His response: The only way people change is by getting upset.
I’m still unsure of he BBC’s stance on XR, they seem to be asking very direct question challenging the reasons why they are taking these actions, it is interesting they are working this way as it seems they don’t really want XR to be doing the action they are. But on the other hand they are being told by individuals who have worked for the BBC such as David Attenbourough and George Monbiot that our system needs to change. If you compare BBC from The Guardian it makes this argument a little more clearer. The Guardian just seems a little bit more optimistic rather than pessimistic about the movement, I just find this an interesting contrast between two huge new outlets.
Roger Hallam on BBC (I also make a slight appearance in this video)
I am in a good position in my project, over the last two weeks I have put down the camera and began to edit my photos and find ways to to bring it all together in the premiere to then export onto Klynt.
Premiere Pro Edits
XR Breif
The XR Brief edit has been fairly complicated, I have struggled to find a good sequence that presents the show in a fluid way. When editing the video I was beginning to get bored myself as it ended up being 4 minutes long. In this time it was a little bit stagnant I could see how the viewer could loose attention of my work. As a result I reduced the time of both audio tracks. Roger Hallam is the first audio, I have narrowed this down to just Roger talking about the three demands XR want from the British government. This is very important for my work as I have mentioned what the actual outcome XR want. As a result this clarify’s this for the viewer and should help understand the motive of XR. The second audio is Jack Harries, he talks about the controversial side of XR that I feel hold great value when reflecting on the activists group. They title themselves as a non-violent civil disobedience group and Jack seems to have a different opinion on how individuals outside of XR think about them. The video is now 3 minutes long and is full of valuable audio that works well with the images.
Stokes Croft Street Party
I really enjoyed editing the street party event, this was mainly due to the beat of the drums in the audio. As the audio was clear and I had the drums I found it very clear which images worked with certain areas of the audio. I also experimented with time lapse with the individual in the red jacket dancing in the middle of the drummers. This represents clearly how photography and audio can changed the dynamic of presenting work in a documentary form. During the end of the video I have also included audio from the stage that was constructed at the street party, on this stage was a small dj set and I have used it to conclude the video.
Introduction Video
My introduction video was a much different edit from the events I captured, it demonstrates a different angle of XR that I wanted to keep abstract for the viewer to interpret. I firstly used a strong and moving clip from David Attenborough at a conference. In this clip he talks about the need to take action before the extinction of much of the world. This worked really well with audio from audio from an XR event where George Monbiot expresses how XR are the people who are taking action in the face of mother earth. In the middle of these two clips is the XR symbol flashing, this is meant to represent 1. Hazard/danger 2. manipulation/brainwash. It is up to the viewer how they feel about the introduction but in regards to my own thoughts this is how I perceive the actions taken place by Extinction Rebellion.
Blood of Our Children
The Blood of Our Children was a very Solomon event to photograph, it was presented more as a staged ceremony than a protest where many activist chucked artificial paint across the road outside downing street. When editing this sequence I mostly outlined how I perceived the event by starting from the beginning and taken the viewer through the stages of what happened. Following on from that I added a small talk from one of the activist to clarify why the event was taking place and what the blood represents before moving onto the action that took place. Some of my images are very powerful and I have left them till last when the activists are sitting down looking very disheartened.
Photoshop Edits
All my photos I will present in my final work have been edited in Photoshop before imported onto Premiere. I feel it is not necessary to show every single edited as I have used over 50 images in this project, as a result the images above show roughly the process of every image. Before I began the edits I first cropped the images 1920 x 1080, this was due to how I am going to be presenting my work on Klynt. The standard computer interface is 1920 x 1080 as a result I want all images to take up the whole face of a computer so used this dimensions to get the best outcome.
After doing so I then went into correcting certain areas of each image, I didn’t change much from each image as when at the events I used the correct setting for the different lighting’s. For each image I slightly adjusted contrast, exposure, lighting, saturation and offset. By working closely with each setting my images came how I wanted without over editing.
Throughout the production I have been experimenting with video, photo and audio. Mainly due to the start of capturing the events I didn’t have a plan going forward and wanted to work freely. As a result when coming back to look at my production work I started to connect photos and audio I realised the different effect when looking at images. The audio really complimented the photos and makes the viewer think more about the context of the photo. Video can sometimes loose the context in the amount of footage thew viewer needs to look at, maybe spending more time looking at whats happening rather than thinking about whats happening. Photos and audio can leave the viewer question certain elements of the content and creating a space for imagining in there own heads what the environment was like at the events.
Another reason why I have decided to just use photos and audio is also because I don’t want to me intrusive and in the face of these activist, it could be seen as a much more subtle way of documenting XR. I think this is a very important factor mainly because they are already in a very uncomfortable and vulnerable position and camera and the press can really distract the individuals from the action they are doing. By working with audio all I have to do is place two Zoom mics around the space the event is taking place, hidden away from the crowd and leave to get the photos. It has given me the freedom to capture very diverse imagery that I don’t think I could do if filming.
I have been very productive with production on the past 2-3 weeks, over this time I have attended two events I have been invited to by XR to photograph. They were both in London and the first was a XR media briefing. They held this event to invited people in the media to come for a overview of the progression of XR and what they attend to be undertaking in the future. The second was a protest outside of Downing Street called The Blood of Our Children, it was a very powerful protest that saw dozens of individuals chuck artificial blood over Whitchapel Road which is directly out of Downing Street.
I wanted to dedicate this post to where I’m currently at in terms of productions and publish my best images that I feel I captured at these events (unedited). I would like find a way to put all my photos on this blog but so far I am struggling to do so, this is mainly due to the amount of photo’s I have accumulated over the past two months, overall I have around 1500-2000 photos that I have been shimmering through to find the most effective in my final piece. In regards to my final piece I am still deciding to best way to present the photos, I now have a solid structure to how I am capturing my photos, doing this by linking photo and audio that I will dedicate a separate blog post to explain why I have decided to choose this form.
XR Media Briefing
Blood of Our Children 1
Blood of Our Children 2
Outcome
I am very pleased with the outcome of all my images, they display the right emotions and atmosphere I was trying to capture. At the XR media brief it felt very formal and how I taken the photos shows this, everyones facial expression are fairly serious whilst they are talking to the group, it wasn’t necessarily a uplifting meeting more the main individuals part of XR trying to express how important climate change is for society and how the media plays a big part in influencing the everyday person. I feel they were trying to get across the importance of the media telling the truth about climate change and ways XR and media teams can work together in a time of need. I did struggle in regards to camera techniques whilst this event was happening, strangely I feel the camera was in some way playing up, it was on low battery and I don’t know if this affects the settings whilst on manual but looking back at the images you can see how underexposed some of the images were coming out even though I was on the correct setting for the lighting I was in. As a result reverted to the beginners tactic (shooting on Auto) for times I wanted to make sure I at least got some photos I could take into editing.
The second event Blood of Our Children was a very serious and dramatic protest to capture, there was a lot of crying and sad faces whilst artificial blood was scattered across the floor. I am very happy with the outcome of the photos I have selected to take in for editing. They are rather diverse in composition and and subjects, none really resemble one another which I think is good for the viewer attention. I am going to cut the editing process into two stages for these image. The first is going to be the indviduals who were chucking the blood and second will be the youths who were making speeches to the crowd, I have audio from both stages of the protest so I might make two different sequences on Klynt for this protest.
Audio Organising
Whilst looking through these photos I also attempted to pin together what images would go well with the audio I have collected. This are my notes showing the break down of each event and the timings that will be most beneficial for my project going forward. In my next blog best I am going to explain why I have made this design choice of just using audio and photos.
Intensive Production 2.0 