Evaluation of project

This project consists of a photo montage sequence revolving around the love between a girlfriend and boyfriend. With the combination of image and music, we were able to portray our theme of couple's being apart effectively. In this case it is because the girlfriend has died, as revealed at the end of the sequence. Hopefully this montage will reach out to our target audience of 15-25 year old s particularly those who can relate to the situation of being in love or loosing a loved one.
When starting this project we knew we wanted to work with photographs creating a photo montage more than an animated stop motion. From there we compromised to creating a sequence that concentrates on relationships, as that is what the younger generation can relate too. Part of the inspiration for this narrative was the song 'Lemon' by Katy Rose, as many of the lyrics influenced our idea to have the girlfriend dead, and the tone and beat works effectively to create a motion.
In terms of the title for this project, we felt 'Hand in Hand' was most fitting for a number of reasons. Firstly hands appear throughout the sequence in the form of heart shapes and also as them holding hands. Secondly the idea of hand in hand represents, meant for one an other and other connotations surrounding the theme of love and togetherness. Finally for the motion of the title we decided to have the word 'in' in the centre and have the word 'hand' come in from the left and from the right to meet in the centre. This title seemed appropriate for our target audience as holding hands is a subtle but intimate gesture relating to love. Therefore by suggesting that these two are 'hand in hand' it says that they are together and in this case that the love is still there, and audiences can relate to that feeling.
To emphasise the differences between the life and death moments, we decided to have some parts in black and white and others in colour. Traditionally the past would be shown in black and white but the target audience watching would agree that at unhappy times everything seems grey, colourless and you feel drained of life. With this in mind we made a decision to have the memories sequence only in colour, as people who are apart from there loved ones would agree on how they live in the past, of their happy times together. This is what this montage shows as the girlfriend is in heaven reminiscing over their happy memories together. Then she becomes upset as to why they are apart and rips up the photograph. Then the scene cuts to show how the boyfriend has not forgotten her and is at the graveyard to put flowers on her grave. As well as changing the colour of some photographs, we also used Photoshop to make the girlfriend appear she is in heaven. The effect made was to have the edges fade to white to look like clouds or like a bright light is surrounding her.
As love is the structure for this sequence we decided to represent it in a generic way by having them playing in a park. Through having these simple but relate-able examples of what couples do, the audience can relate as it is what they do as-well. Some parts were more far-fetched in particular the transition where the couple are making a heart with their hands then after zooming in and out it reveals only the girlfriend making the shape. This directly represents how their love is still there even though they are not together. As well as these advantages about the project, there are a number of problems we came across. Firstly as we used a digital SLR camera the images were to large to upload on Flash, so we scaled them all down and in general the motion of the photographs do not flow as well as they could have. In terms of disadvantages for the audience, we feel that maybe they will not follow the narrative because of it's non linear structure. Also they may not realise that she is meant to be heaven but hopefully the faded edged images and the quote at the end reassures this.
Altogether I feel our final product shows what we set out to achieve. We wanted to create a narrative based around the theme of love and separation, that was unlike any others. Although this theme specifically is only aimed at a small minority, it can be viewed as a universal theme concentrating on love at a distance. I feel this montage sequence would have a positive effect if it were presented to the public alongside help centers designed for people, who have lost their loved ones. In a way this will highlight how even though they are gone the love will always be there but its ok to move on.
If I was to change anything I would have liked more time to experiment with animations and transitions to create a more compelling example of love and death. Generally though I feel we experimented enough and created a constructive photo montage sequence, that many can relate to, and brought awareness to these sort of situations.