Test Film

17thMarch2014

Following on from the previous post, this is the short film I produced in conjunction with the documentary style photography. Unfortunately the short film wasn't finished in time for the group crit, so I didn't have time to listen to my peers views and opinions on what I had achieved, nor did I have time to add in the ideas I was given. I am not entirely satisfied with the final outcome of this film, for example some of the clips run for too long and can be repetitive or boring, but the main focus when producing this film was to obtain skills to use equipment needed to produce a film e.g. Camera skills and practicing with editing software. The film hasn't been completely  useless due to the footage I have collected and the fact I have gained useful and transferable skills. As well as this I feel like the downfalls will help me choose what will work well together and what wont, and how long to preview certain clips for to keep my audience engaged. The film is not conceptual enough for a final piece but I think it would work really well for an Adidas [logo mostly present throughout] or a promotional boxing advertisement. Something perfect I can make use of from this film is the soundtrack I have chosen. It has a close connection to the boxing world as it has been used for many fighters 'big entrances' and used in many short boxing films. I think this part of my project has taught me the biggest lesson so far, and I am really happy that I have seen this process to the end this early on in

(Authors Own, Experimentation film - Learning how to use software and equipment)                             my project, because now I feel fully prepared and extremely excited to tackle the final film piece.

(Authors Own, Documenting Street-wise gym in Loughton)

First Photo Shoot at Street Wise Gym, Loughton

15thMarch2014

(Authors Own, Portraits of Boxers)

(Authors Own, Documenting Street-wise gym in Loughton)

This particular page demonstrates the images I produced on my visit to Street-Wise gym in Loughton. On arrival I aimed to only capture footage for a short film, but when I had finished up with the filming a member of the gym asked me to take a picture of him posing with a fellow fighter "Phillip Bowes" [who I filmed]. I was initially determined to produce my documentary style images in an old fahsioned, vintage gym e.g. Repton Boxing Gym in Bethnal Green, so that my compositions echoed character and history that is often associated with boxing. When I was actually there, in the thick of all the testosterone, sweat and grunts, the atmosphere alone created a perfect environment for me to shoot. This sparked a spontaneous idea so I had to think fast about the sort of outcomes I had planed, combined with having to adapt my initial ideas to suit the new location. Unprepared and not very confident I continued to take these "typical" after fight shots of some of the guys. Following on from this I asked a few more members if it would be ok for me to take some simple portraits of them. Some were confident and happy to help, while others were not so sure, but with a bit of persuasion I managed to capture some really beautiful high contrast, black and white images. The compositions are simple head shots with complementing backgrounds, which have been edited in Adobe Photoshop so that the focus is on the individual with a subtle hint of boxing in the background to confirm the meaning of the shoot. The other images have the same impression as the portraits, but unlike the portraits, these images are less contrived with no posing at all. I just observed some of the things going on in the gym, such as training, sparing, resting, equipment etc and documented it as everything was happening around me. I am really happy with both sets of imagery I have produced. Although it wasn't what I had originally set out to do, I feel that I have exceeded my first idea by creating an atmosphere of adventure, experience and history purely through the use of photography, and carefully selected compositions.  

Following on from this photo shoot was another peer crit session. This time there were different people in my group which meant I acquired different and unique responses and ideas, this is always useful to me because I think I learn best when I analyse other peoples work and vise-verse. I raised the point based upon my own work that I wasn't entirely happy about the way in which my project was moving in. I thought it was too sport based and there weren't enough conceptual, interesting, thought provoking ideas incorporated within in the work. I proposed the visualization of contrasting the conflicting practice of Dance with Boxing. Not everyone was keen on the idea, but I was given loads of great ideas that I could use in my work. For example someone suggested comparing and contrasting the different between street fighting / judo with boxing, another suggestion was child boxing / women's boxing with male boxing. I personally thought that contrasting another fight based sport or opposite sex boxing was still too sport based and this isn't what I was really aiming for. I still considered some of the ideas I was given, but im also interesting to explore the idea of dance.

(Authors Own, Documenting Street-wise gym in Loughton)

(Authors Own, Documenting Street-wise gym in Loughton)

Secondary Research - Film&Photography

7thMarch2014
After the first peer crit I managed to take a lot of useful notes and turn them into potential ideas. It was made clear to me that my starting point had not excelled quick enough and I was realistically still at my research stage. I was advised to start looking at artists and photographers that interested me, and to start watching films that were boxing related to hopefully gain ideas for interesting imagery. There were suggestions of 'The fighter' starring Christian Bale, 'When we were Kings' directed by Leon Gast. These were all fantastic suggestions, and i went home to watch some of them straight away. It took about a week in total to watch all these suggested films, some interested me more than others based on story line and plot. But the two films that had the most interest to me where the older films such as 'Rocky1', 'When we were Kings' and 'Raging Bull'. Raging Bull took a particular interest to me, due to the alternative approach to the way it was filmed. I took loads of notes during this film based mainly on camera angles, composition, portrayal of characters, contrast and fashion. These are important aspects to me because I aim to produce my own film as a final outcome, so gaining stimulating and thought-provoking ideas is really key to help me produce a successful piece.

 (Youtube, Clip from Ranging Bull)

I have recently watched the film Raging Bull which is about an emotionally self -destructive boxer's journey though life  as the violence and temper leads him to the top of the ring,  it meanwhile destroys his life outside it. Director, Scorsese made it clear during filming that he did not appreciate the traditional way in which fight films show fights from a spectators' view. He insisted that one camera operated by the Director of Photography, Michael Chapman, would be placed inside the ring and he would play the role of an opponent keeping out of the way of other fighters so that viewers could see the emotions of the fighters, including those of Jake LaMotta. I like the reasoning behind the way in which the scenes are directed but what I was mostly interested in was the extremely high contrast black and white filter the film is shot in. The really dark black shades really emphasise the harsh and gritty reality of boxing by highlighting muscle structure or wounds and darkening the brow area creating a really intense gaze. I took loads of notes about camera angle, personas, stereotypes, fashion etc… But it really overwhelmed me with ideas which brought my creative thought process to a stand still, I had no idea where I wanted to take my project. It took me a while to work out what it was I really liked about the film, although the camera angles were interesting and unique, I think using them in my own work would come across quite cheesy and obvious. What Ive noticed while looking into boxing is that most imagery based around it is in black and white with a really strong contrast. I decided that this idea would be ideal to experiment with, which brought me onto researching artists that worked in high contrast, and are focused on capturing lifestyle and personality. 

10thMarch2014

(Adekokan, Adde. Collection of Triptychs)

I came across the  Germany-based street photographer Adde Adesokan, his photos series ’Triptychs of Strangers’ depicts photographs of strangers that capture wonderful images including the portrayal of the stranger’s personality… The black and white images depict the subjects features using a cropped frame and fairly high contrast filter. The background is very out of focus which draws your attention entirely to the model. I think the images are beautifully thought out and put together, revealing subtle amounts of a personality. The main aspect of these images that I like is the composition of the portraits, I think that the unusual framing of them intensifies the eyes and if blown up to a big scale the images would be really captivating. Because my project is about boxing I feel like the use of a triptych in this way would not be necessary to experiment with.

(Enriquez, Sebastian. Collage of photographers imagery from series Postcard from Perut)

Sebastiån Enriquez is a freelance documentary photographer and storyteller based in Lima, Peru. One of his most famous series of images link perfectly to my project - Postcard from Peru; Boxing for a dream. The series consists of images taken in Rojitas boxing gym in Peru. When Enriquez began this project on boxers he was curious about what motivated so many young people to get into a ring and get punched. "Why not play soccer or dance?" In the ghettos of Callao - the main port and one of the most dangerous places in Peru - has a special niche for boxing. This sport has always been a window of opportunity for young people, especially in a place where many of them must learn how to leave their problems in a ring and find a future by the gloves. Most of the children are disadvantaged and fighting to get out of poverty, drugs and crime. The ring becomes a subliminal space where the violence they face every day is tamed. Enriques series of photographs shows the workouts and training sessions in "Rojita" boxing school, the most important generator of boxing talent in Peru, which brings together teenage parents, young workers, colleagues and above all children. 

Primary Research & Trend Reports

20thFebruary2014

l have kick started my project by looking through collected newspaper clippings and saved tickets/programmes and putting them together in an aesthetically pleasing way. I started off this way because I was unclear where I wanted to actually start, creating something visual pleasing can often influence ideas. When looking at the collages I made from the clippings its obvious at first glance that the fashion and digital graphics used are very different from what we have today. Advertisements of fights are very basic, using only black and red ink and showing stereotypical aggressive portrayals of both fighters. Advertisements today are a lot bolder, with the amazing technology that is available to us we are able to create emotive pieces of art work. An example shown on the right experiments with interesting typography to create a fitting atmosphere, whereas the examples on the left show simplistic boxy typography. Another difference lies in the imagery used, in the poster for Mayweather and Pacquiao there is an electric storm or or star exploding behind both of they're perfectly molded bodies. Again the 80's references just keep it simple due to the lack of technology. I think its good to look at the different generation of design aspects because the recourse could definitely inspire future work of mine throughout this subject area.

Creating collages out of the old newspaper clippings did seem pointless at first, and I felt I was wasting my time trying to fill my sketch book with work. Although at first it seemed pointless it has fueled ideas of my own based on styling, typography, layout, photography style and headings or slogans that could help create names for pieces I will create. Whilst putting the copies of the clippings into one aesthetically pleasing document on photoshop I accidentally set the transparency of one of the images to 50% and I really liked the results that this produced. The text and imagery combined worked really we together. Although its nothing worth presenting, this accidental outcome has helped me to think outside the box, and plan for future work.

(Authors Own, Collected Imagery Scanned in)

I then created a general mood board surrounding the area of boxing, including fashion imagery, documentary style photography, tickets, newspaper clippings etc… I thought that by starting with a very broad understanding of the sport I could then begin to branch off into more specific, personal aspects and transform it into something creative. After gathering imagery I started to look at the more personal elements of my project - Family. My family have a strong link with the sport, and much memorabilia has been collected over the years. My Aunties ex-husband was the European Heavyweight Champion of the 1980's - John L Gardner - which has left me with loads of amazing primary sources that will help me to produce some really strong work in the coming weeks.2ndMarch2014

(Authors Own, Collage of Imagery found on google and personal collection)

5thMarch2014

When creating the mood board, something that really fascinated me was the obvious change in fashion. Most of my images are from the 1980's or the current 2014 period, and the drastic transformation from simplistic to glitzy and contrived sportswear is very obvious. It seems that in the 1980's things were fairly plain with iconically "masculine" / "manly" colours [Red, Blue, Black] whereas now, things seem to have derived from this idea of masculinity and moved onto the idea of fame and glamour. Below shows a series of trend reports that I created that compare the fashion of boxing in the 80's to the fashions of today. To me the results are very different and the contrast is apparent in many mediums, from materials used, fit of sportswear, colour etc… 

(Authors Own, Trend Report)

To begin with I compared the trends and fashion of the two well known boxers George Groves [2014] and Muhammad Ali [1980]. This comparison is not obvious at first, the colours remain fairly simple in both, sticking to classic blue and red, but there are really important differences in the fabrication of the sportswear. When looking at the length of the shorts it is apparent that in the 80's the design was a lot shorter than todays current design, this is just due to what was considered fashionable at the time. The high wasted design of the shorts acts as a guideline so that the opponent cannot "hit bellow the belt" - a rule in boxing is that boxers shorts must be raised so the opponent is not allowed to hit to the groin area with intent to cause pain or injury. A major change in "uniform" is the mouthguard, not only has it become easily customised, but the fabric has been improved for durability, comfort and protection. Initially they were manufactured from impressions using wax, rubber and steel springs were even recommended to reinforce soft materials. Subsequently they were drastically improved by a dentist who used a transparent acrylic resin to form what he termed an "acrylic splint". It was moulded to fit unobtrusively over the upper or lower teeth, it also meant that the athlete could talk in a normal manner while the mouth guard was in place. Now days the technology of material knowledge and manipulation has improved greatly and a simple thermo-plastic material manufactured in a pre-formed shape in various sizes can be adapted to fit more closely to an individual's teeth and gums by heating and moulding such as boiling then placing in the mouth.

(Authors Own, Trend Report)

Here I have compared the trends of the two boxers John L. Gardner [1980] and Phillip Bowes [2014]. With this contrasting trend report it is a lot more evident that fashion has changed, not only has the fabrication and fit of the sportswear improved drastically, but the colours and style have become more radical and eccentric. Despite being east London born and bred Bowes took the unusual decision to represent Jamaica at the Commonwealth Games. The fighter felt the only way he could pursue his dream of reaching the top of his game would be to swap the English flag for the yellow green and black of his parents’ homeland, and this is strongly reflected through the colours of his kit. I created these trend reports not only to get an understanding of how boxing had changed, but its also helped me to think of styling ideas for future photoshoots, and how I can portray different times or eras.