My research question

Basis of a research question:

1. What do you think about most in relation to your project? The thing I think about most with my project is 'eco-horror', and the feminised body. These are at the core of what I am making and I need to bring these ideas together to form my thesis statement.
   

2. What worries you or even scares you about it? The thing that worries me most is figuring out how I am going to structure it, and how I am going to walk the line between narrative/non-narrative in an effective way. My goal is to make a film without dialogue, that communicates my themes and ideas through the music, editing, performance, costume, lighting etc. The ultimate language of body language will be my primary mode of communication. I am worried that I will be my own worst enemy here, however I know that if I stick to the vision in my head, I can achieve it if I work hard enough.
   

3. What ideas do you find most interesting? The ideas I find most interesting relating to my project are ones put forward my Julia Kristeva and Ursula K Le Guin, regarding abjection, dirt, filth, and 'go[ing] yinward' (Le Guin, A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place to Be, 1989, 12). These two authors have been instrumental in developing my ideas for my project, as well as the writings of Barabara Creed and The Monstrous Feminine. I love this idea that Le Guin poses of discovering what a yin utopia would be: "Utopia has been yang. In one way or another, from Plato on, utopia has been the big yang motorcycle trip. Bright, dry, clear, strong, firm, active, aggressive, lineal, progressive, creative, expanding, advancing, and hot. Our civilisation is now so intensely yang that any imagination of bettering its injustices or eluding its self-destructiveness must involve a reversal [...] To attain the constant, we must return, go round, go inward, go yinward. What would a yin utopia be? It would be dark, wet, obscure, weak, yielding, passive, participatory, circular, cyclical, peaceful, nurturant, retreating, contracting and cold." (Le Guin, 11-12.) This quote has been at the front of my mind and I am going to take it forward with me for this project. I want to explore this 'yinward' feeling, and you can see that in my first WIP and from the studio shoot, I am exploring these ideas in detail. There are lots of membrane ideas; dark, cold, wet space ideas; ideas linking to abjection; to the monstrous feminine.
   

4. What techniques do you find yourself most interested in, or reliant on? I am very interested in lighting, sound design, production design, and colour grading. I think that these things come together to create the mood and feel of a piece, and I rely on them a lot to do the storytelling for me as I am making a non-dialogue film. In my studio shoot, I took a long time to figure out the lighting set-up beforehand so that it would be perfect on the day. I wanted to make sure that the backlighting was just enough to highlight the silhouette of the performers, giving this wonderful glow. Oliver helped a lot with this, as he suggested I try a few setups and camera angles, which ended up working brilliantly. In addition, I have learnt a lot in this course and have gotten so much better at sound design, and colour grading, which I now really enjoy doing. I have always enjoyed production design, I have a lot of experience doing it on film sets all the way back to 2019. So it's nice to put all my skills, old and new, to the test with this project.
   

5. What do you find hardest to explain about your work? I find explaining 'why' and my rationale behind the work difficult. I am a very visual and hands-on person when it comes to my creative projects. Finding the words to talk about it does not come to me instantly, I have to really think about it for a few weeks before I can articulate what I am feeling and seeing in my mind's eye. That is going to be a challenge for me.
   

6. What do you hope to get out of your project? What is its objective?

I aim to make an eco-horror film that engages with the monstrous feminine, in a way that challenges horror tropes and patriarchal story structures, taking inspiration from Le Guin's Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, and Donna Haraway's 'tentacular thinking'. I want to create a film that makes space for the monstrous feminine, and her viscerality, to be embraced by the viewer. For it to be uncomfortable, but ultimately for the viewer to want to participate in the dirt and filth, to become this primordial being. I also want to enable the viewer to have many ways of reading this film, to gain new levels of understanding as they watch, and to bring their own ideas to my film as well. Ultimately, I feel like my background as an Art Historian massively influences how I make art and films, as I create work with the intention of it being read in multiple different ways. I have no desire to be an auteur; for my films to only have one meaning. I want my audience to engage and bring new layers of interpretation, as that is what happens in the process of watching.

Themes:

• Women /feminised body

• Anxiety/Suffocation

• Eco-Horror

Notes:

The process has changed what my questions are. I know that I don't want to demonise the female body in nature and horror. How do I challenge this trope [edit: or embrace it] in eco-horror?

Female gaze, reclaiming the monstrous feminine, how do I do this?

How do I reclaim the demonised monstrous feminine in eco-horror?

[Edit: Perhaps instead I am seeking to embrace it, as I am still playing with these tropes, but I am seeking to engage with them and feel empowered by them. Rather than changing what the monstrous feminine is doing, perhaps I need to reframe how I think about her.]

Methodology - through performance and performivity, as a way of reclaiming what the male gaze has constructed, and how the feminised body has been treated in film. Look to Barbara Creed's 'The Monstrous Feminine' on this. (I have been making my way through reading this and very interesting).

My use of lighting (backlighting) to create this dark, 'dream space'. Performance and movement are incredibly important in my project as the method of communication.

The tension that arises between the expectation of graceful forms contrasts with creepy organic reality.

What methods am I using to try to reclaim/embrace the monstrous feminine?