In a conversation about this task with my fellow classmates Esme and Amory, we agreed that positivity is harder to express artistically or poetically. Nevertheless, it is one of our constraints this week in making a "visual haiku". Having written informal haikus before, I thought this project would be more straight-forward than it actually was. I decided to use visual parallels and juxtapositions to act as the required "sudden jump of thought". One thing that has always stood out to me about haikus, and characterised them in general, was their rhythm; a dynamic pace that your reading voice cannot avoid adhering to. This manipulation of language and tone is one skill that poetry highlights, and an essential part of making a successful cinehaiku. Therefore, I felt it important to collect enough footage for a quality edit that was short and sweet, just like a written haiku. We were tasked to give glimpses of the world that made the ordinary extraordinary, so I tried to make the most of simple locations near me.
Whilst researching haikus, I came across one that inspired me by its simplicity and imagery. This poem helped me think about what my intended message was and exactly what visual cues I wanted to highlight it.
Idea generation
Nature, elements, seasons. Encounters and similarities with humanity.
Autumnal changes. Timeless evergreens. Succulents. Adaptibility.
Blue sky = blowing up blue balloons.
Clouds = kettle/vape against blue blinds in conservatory.
Wind = blowing tea/coffee.
Mud/dirt = crumbling/snapping biscuits, tea leaves ripped from bag, coffee grinds.
Leaves = crunching cornflakes.
Branches = tangled black wires.
Human beings, colourful bundled clothes, colder temperatures, layering up montage?
Rocks = use my sensory goblin pouch, close ups of textures and forms of collection?
At first, I conceived a sort of continuous split-screen assembly to help to convey the connections between shots. The vertical progression would be almost scroll-like, emulating traditional Japanese column-style writing known as tategaki (縦書き). Importantly, this split-screen format would mean that in order to more fully display each clip rather than crop out the intentionally framed compostion, the video would need to be exported at a different aspect ratio. Realising this during the flow chart process, I thought to use a 4:5 ratio in the edit, both tackling this dilemma and making the final video Instagram-friendly. I also thought the blank spaces right before the first clip and right after the last clip were good placements for my written haiku and ending title credits, respectively. Below is my initial plan, which I ended up modifying.
In the end, I decided the video should be more clearly structured and focused on creating a mood in the edit rather than toying with conceptual effects that detracted from the video's purpose. To this end, I used sound bridges, muted audio, non-diegetic layering and extra downloaded sound bites to add meaning to the shots. Loosely inspired by last week's Vertov/cinetract brief, I sought to portray a day-to-night effect, so I used my phone's torch as lighting to record the algae-covered pond in my garden, nodding to Matsuo Basho's famous haiku about the frog splashing into the pond. After this, I set up my camera on a tripod in the conservatory overnight so I could later replicate the electrical light switching on effect that I saw in Ari Aster's Hereditary (2018). I did record a POV shot looking down at my boots walking over crunching leaves, but I didn't want to repeat that from last week's task, so I left it out. For colour-grading, I wanted to try a different look - something uniform, saturated and expressive, as the seasonal colours were key to the video's tone.
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