Hysteria!
My final project is really strange, and I don't truly understand it. I first became enthralled with the idea of adapting TS Eliot's poem, "Hysteria," in an abstract visual and auditory form. This poem, to me, encapsulates the feeling of being in love with somebody's laugh. From there, I realized the difficulty in expressing the warmth and romance of Eliot's poem. This led me to aim at capturing contagious laughter in an abstract form. So although I kept the title, the end product truly does not represent the tonal qualities of Eliot's poem.
Upon recognizing this, however, I recalled a moment in which my mom and I broke into hysterical laughter during an interview. I had audio! I spent two weeks recording different moments of conversation, but was unable to record an audio which effectively matched that from the interview with my mom. Rethinking my project once again, I realized that I laugh harder with my mom than I do with anyone else. So I decided to ultimately make this video honor a single moment in time.
The visuals are presented as stop-motion animation. I used bright colors against stark backgrounds and quick movement to compliment the tone of the recorded audio. I manipulated the visuals to match with the audio temporally. I do feel that this piece succeeds in capturing the moment in which this laughter was captured. But I don't think it is as accessible as I had hoped.
It is interesting how some moments in this sound more like crying than laughter. This definitely turned out way different from what I was imagining when you first brought up your idea, not that it matters. This final product is very unique and honestly just makes me happy. Contagious laughter, indeed. Also, somehow those little balls of paper are really cute.
ReplyDeleteThis made me smile. Your mom has a very unique laugh. I'm not sure I got the connection with the balls of paper, but it did create kind of a relaxing effect. It's really cool that you tried stop motion though; that's one thing that I haven't gotten around to yet.
ReplyDeleteI think the brevity of the video really fits the lightness of the soundtrack, as do the simple paper balls on the plain background. The low res definitely adds something, too -- I would be interested to compare the two formats!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this. I think the fact that the video is short kept true to your concept of hysteria and laughter: that it is brief and fleeting. The stop motion somehow adds to the hysteria but doesn't go overboard to make it overwhelming. Like Lucy pointed out, they're somehow really cute. While this may not be your typical style, it was still really cool.
ReplyDeleteWhat a sweet moment! I'd like to know how you found stop motion, since its so different from what you've done before this!
ReplyDeleteThe sound recording is SO remarkable, love the snippets of conversation and the repetition of the laughs. Maybe there could be a better visual or maybe not. It's a weird use of stop motion, nothing to really hang on to with the forms. Somehow the lack of a reference point seems perfect.
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