A required three-page report on the process and post-class critique of Hand Gestures, a short film I made for Interdisciplinary Media.
Requirements
Create a short video or film up to five minutes in length. Camera and editing technology at your discretion, though demos for, and availability to, Sony consumer-level MiniDV cameras and Apple iMovie editing stations will be assured. A brief discussion and reading concerning beauty and ugliness will be the sole (and only slightly emphasized) conceptual background for the assignment. Do not make a music video or produce a feature about your pet.
Process (Idea)
I’ve been interested in, and have studied, documentary film and have always had a desire to produce one. More recently I’ve been watching the short films of Charles and Ray Eames (circa 1960s), whose style is often concisely didactic with well-designed and composed subject matter, from spinning tops to bread to animations of the solar system to manufacturing processes.
Like the Eames film for Tops I wanted to study a seemingly mundane and ubiquitous object or form and present it in a beautiful manner, or rather, compose and edit footage in such a way as to highlight the subject’s inherent and easily-overlooked aesthetic qualities. After contemplating everything from stairwells to bicycle cranks to toilets a friend suggested I try different hand gestures.
In addition to creating a video formally pleasing to the eye my second primary goal was to provide the viewer with new information—i.e. to educate—and have he or she come away from the video with a slightly new perspective on the subject and/or a starting point to discussion.
For example, perhaps the viewer knows all the hand gestures featured but only via a North American interpretation (“I didn’t know the ‘OK’ sign could also mean ‘anus’”). Or, a viewer knows something more about a gesture that wasn’t given, or knows a significant gesture that should have been featured but was not (biting your thumb at someone is offensive).
I did not want to create the authoritative account of international body language (esp. within five minutes), thus the process behind my selection of gestures and the way in which I presented them would be significant.
Finally, researched some definitions for hand gestures among sources such as Wikipedia, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and sign language books.
Process (Construction)
My gestural starting point was one I learned during travels in the Middle East, where pulling my sweaty shirt away from my chest with two hands (also a Looking Rather Dapper movement in the West) could be considered rude to an Arab, meaning instead “I have had enough of you.”
While wanting to explore different cultural gestures I also wanted to account for the ambiguity of those well-known to a young, Western audience while still steering clear of the more boring and mundane gestures (such as Handshake or Hi). I compiled roughly 40 different gesture clips split between two performers, myself and—for more contrast, aesthetic appeal and less self-centeredness, a female actor—and imported the footage into iMovie.
I debated between intertitles vs. subtitles and chose the latter in order to maintain more continuity and less jarring edits between shots, for a more direct correlation between description and action, and to shorten the film under four minutes. The timing of the subtitles was also important to create these effects as well as to generate more humour in terms of expectations and evidence (thus the subtitles appear first, slight pause, then action).
During the filming process I instinctively presented the hand gestures in a methodical and, as my third self-imposed assignment criteria, a slightly humorous manner. After reviewing the footage I realized my specific “gesture style” was in direct reference to Martha Rosler’s “system of harnessed subjectivity” in her short film Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975), whereby the artist alphabetically traverses a seemingly benign tour of various kitchen utensils punctuated by sudden violent actions followed by calm and composed returns to monotone composure. I had recently seen this video during an Art History seminar last term.
Evaluation
Classmates and the instructor offered the following during the critique of Hand Gestures:
- Monotone (in terms of gesture) hands were funny
- Sterile aesthetic
- Looks like one continuous shot
- Editing was distracting
- Is it instructional? A social critique?
- What is the context of hand signs?
- Language-based piece, semiotics popular in the 1980s (see Martha Rosler)
Regarding the edits and continuous shot comment: no, each gesture was done separately for ease of editing and acting, though I would have to agree that a continuous take would have been less jarring and more effective, but would have perhaps been less instructive in terms of filming and editing skills.
I wanted to avoid too much politicization of the content and rather leave the interpretations to the viewer, esp. for gestures that differ across cultures like the OK and Stop signs. At the same time I wanted to acknowledge my viewpoint as a western male and thus included primarily gestures familiar to my contemporary audience. The instructor’s comment regarding the semiotics, or the language, of the piece is something I think was beginning to emerge in the work yet was an aspect I, if I were to remake the video, would more consciously incorporate or at least think about.
Overall I think the video was a success if mildly boring. It did elicit a few laughs and myself and some friends are consistently referencing it whenever we make a gesture (I’ll wave Bye and they’ll extend the gesture with a Gun sign, and I’ll counter with a “rub poo in your face” sign).
