How can lacuna be visually explored and represented in the context of public human interaction? Gathering stimulation from the film, sound and comedic techniques of 20th century satirists, depict the empty space we see in the learned tension of societal communication.
Inspired by the works of Charlie Chaplin and Jaques Tati, we’ve decided to use a blank studio space and simplistic props to convey the cautious and stunted nature of strangers interacting. Minimalistic sound and colour, along with static camera angles and no dialogue force the viewer to engage in the awkwardness of the situation. We developed our ideas by viewing human interaction and then choreographing one of our own, dramatising the rigidity and anxiety seen in our actors’ body language. The box is symbolic of the unspoken gaps between strangers; neither party address, but both are aware it is there.
Throughout the entire semester of working on the film, it has been a challenging experience especially when we got to the point of concept development – we were unsure of what we wanted to do as a group. There were so many ideas on how we saw lacuna and considerations on how we should conceptualise it in our final film. It progressively became more and more confusing as we tried to tie many ideas into one concept. The relief was when we finally decided on the final concept and prepare it for our film. We’ve mapped out what we wanted to film in different scenarios – making sure the concept was communicated strongly in each one. The first few drafts involved a mix of different shots that revolved around the idea of seeing the interactions and relationships of people act as the invisible space. A few experiments lead up to our final film which also shared this idea, I found this experience to be most valuable as all of our ideas were finally brought to life.
The editing process of the film, involved edits of cropping the scene into a square – creating a more intimate environment that adds onto the feelings of discomfort and anxiety. We took feedback from our first draft to account with keeping a consistent colour palette going on as well as structuring our scenes better. A few scenes had to removed as we felt like they were useless towards conveying our message. Structuring the film again gave us in insight of how we planned to connect the characters to the environment closer – there were more reasons to why certain scenes were appearing on top of another for instance, setting up the cube to interacting with it to interacting on it with a few close-up scenes of uncomfortable gestures to match how the characters felt about their relationship.
It was also interesting to learn bits and pieces on how to edit sound and structure them in our film. Most of our sounds would play a perfect tune, we’d edit them by reversing it, slowing it down, fast forwarding it, pitching high/low and overlap each other to create new sounds that work well with our scenes especially glitches. I felt like this entire editing process was the biggest task we’ve achieved along with filming the video. It was truly an experience of satisfaction.
Overall, it has been a fun, yet challenging semester of trying to sort things out and it’s been amazing that we got through it together as a team.
Lost In Lacuna 