The aim of this project was to make a film in which there was no authorship from the filmmaker. It was created in response to two of Roland Barthes ideas.
1) The Death of The Author. Barthes believed that by reading and interpreting meaning in a text the reader actively kills the author. It is the "destruction of the voices" and the "destruction of the point of origin."
2) Readerly and Writerly Texts. My aim was to create something as "Writerly" as possible "...to make the reader no longer a consumer but a producer of the text." meaning that there was scope for the reader to write their own meaning onto the story.
In addition I was influenced by the idea that a text takes on a new life at the moment of exhibition and the less fixed meaning there is, the longer and more vivid a life the text will have (Keats, Foucault and Metz). Please see the 'Theoretical Essay' for a detailed account of the theoretical concepts that influenced the process.
The Process
STEP 1
I recorded a short bit of footage of a character walking. The only authorial decisions made my me were the choice of actor (a student at out school who has done professional film acting) and the camera shots and angles. The clothes were what he was wearing on the day and the location was convenient as it was on his route to his friends house (where he was going after school that day). The original film was then edited together and uploaded to you tube. It looked like this:
STEP 2
I showed the film to people I saw or spoke to the week following the recording of the footage and asked them to answer the following questions 1) who is this character? 2) where has he come from? 3) where is he going to? 4) what happens along the way? Danny, Sarah, Georgia and Steve I asked in person and recorded the footage on my laptop. Helen, Ed, Tom and Velia were the other people I saw or spoke to that week that had the technology to record a response. Only Helen and Ed responded (Velia went to USA and Tom was uncomfortable filming himself). None of the participants were given any idea of what the project was about. They were just asked to make up a story. Here are the results unedited.
STEP 3
Once I had collected these reader interpretations I set about making a longer film that would incorporate all their ideas but not fix anyone's meaning in a way that would eliminate the others. I storyboarded a variety of shots with their different comments in mind. We re-shot the film in the same location with the same actor and costume. The only thing I added was the "home" location as in the majority of cases the character's story started at home. I edited 2 films - one including the authorial comment from the particpants which is my final artefact and another which is a silent version.
STEP 4
To establish whether or not my project was successful I asked each reader (helen, Ed, Georgia, Steve, Danny and Sarah) whether they felt the new film was still the same character and the same narrative. Comments and reflections on the feedback I received can be found on the "Feedback From Reader/Writers" page. Here is the silent film that they responded to:
STEP 5
To know if my project was successful in meeting it's objectives I also needed feedback from the target audience to see what they made of both the silent film and the film with reader/writer voiceover to see whether they felt there was an obvious meaning or whether they were able to write their own narrative in response to the enigma codes presented. Comments and reflections on the feedback I received from students can be found on the "Feedback From Target Audience" page.
STEP 6
I will draw conclusions based on the feedback I received and draw links between the theories I have studied and the outcomes of this project.
