Creating a piece that was so focused on something that is comedic, yet still has the power to resonate with all audience members as it is about the process of creating a persona to fit in whilst growing up meant an inclusive angle had to be used. The photo essay of Owen is him doing his hair in the morning and getting ready for the day is as inclusive as I could think and be a great way to utilise the mullet.
I got a lot of inspiration from, “Living With Addictions,” a piece that was on the online moodle page. The creator of that piece came in with a serious angel and managed to pull together quite a humorous piece. It stuck out to me as I find it refreshing to have humour in light of what can be taken as seriously.
In Living With Addictions, the headshots are similar to a few that I took of Owen, I felt in the video that a centre frame headshot was the best way to communicate feeling with the person being interviewed.
Over the course of the semester, learning how to break up sentences with sound was something I attempted to implement with the “ummmmm’s” as it is bringing forth Owen’s personality but still breaking up the sentence. I felt that it acted as a comma in a sentence and for Owen, whom speaks very much like a teenager, definitely utilises um as a comma.
The non diagetic sound didn’t come through well over the video, which was upsetting as I spent a long time trying to find the sound that I wanted to use. As non diagetic sound can automatically change the message of an audio/visual piece. This was demonstrated in Media Storm. The strumming of the guitar over the top of the audio created a calming mood, almost suprresing the emotion of the video, which worked well as it was a visual essay about how an ex Marine suppressed his PTSD.
Originally I wasn’t going to do an interview with a professional, I was going to do an interview with a mate or someone that knew Owen with his long hair and could talk about his personality. But after discussions with my tutor Ben, I decided that having a professionals voice would create a new level for the visual essay. By using Maggie Dent’s research assistant, Carmen Myler, I was able to validate what Owen said in his interview with an adult opinion on growing up. This added academia to a comedic piece, which hopefully makes it more appealing and popular to the audience.
Overcoming the sibling bond to be able to get something serious was a challenege in my mind, but almost made the process easier as Owen was comfortable being interviewed and having his photo taken. It is not his first rodeo, as I drew him for my year 12 HSC piece, which helped when taking his photo as he already knew how to look/present himself to the camera.
I’ll link Teenage Persona below so you can watch after reading the reflection.
Hailee Pickering’s Blog 