Film Still

Title: Herbal Essences 

Date: October 2011

Medium: Stop Motion Video

Specification: No Sound

Duration: 3.14 minutes

I was continuing to work with the Herbal Essences advert and parodying this experience. I was focusing on the long history of women in nature, (Mother Earth, supernatural, seductive pastoral imagery) the idea that the female is connected to the earth and is a part of it but as suggested, we are not plant life. We do not consist of this natural substance, it is ridiculous to view it the female body in this way and I wanted to expose this absurdity. I felt it was a subtle approach to surrealism as opposed to the more obvious routes i have been exploring.

Having been experimenting with stop motion, I felt the slow pace/jerky movements really added to the mood of the piece, making the experience uncomfortably slow and relentless. I really love the technique of stop motion and I particularly like the symbolism of using photography to create film, this piece uses over 500 images to create a single, coherent streaming video and I think this ties in with ideas of manipulation, exaggeration and authenticity of imagery/experience.

 The model is stylistically over-posed, using a modelling technique known as ‘turtle necking’ which is considered elegant but is extremely uncomfortable for the model. I wanted to suggest a very meditative, controlled experience.  The exposing of the neck is in reference to Man Ray’s Anatomical series as well as a suggestion of vulnerability to enhance the intimacy and seclusion of the incident. The model never engages with the audience and it is about her experience.

Reference to broadcasting with the blue background, suggesting of blue/green screen – connection to how females are contextualised and mediated in spaces.

Reference to Peter Greenman’s ‘Draughtman’s Contract,’ in which he is killed by eating poetry.

Reference to ectoplasm - Ectoplasmics are (mainly female) spiritual mediums that excrete material/fabric like substances from orifices of their body, that can be transformed into limbs, faces or bodies of spirits. 

However, it almost an entirely fraudulent practise based on the power of suggestion and emotive appeal to the audience. Suggestion of artifice, falsity of the way images are constructed and mediated.