Reflective Journal by Chittock22

R E F L ECT I O N S

Photography: Michal Pudelka

Note: this is not just another boring journal about reflections. Ba2a Reflective Journal by Sophie Chittock. Following my journey through this project, I have chosen to reflect on: guest speakers, exhibitions, work experience, competitions, trips, tutorials and work that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been noticing alongside this project that is currently shaping the fashion industry that could work as inspiration for my own work in this project.

CONTENTS

6 6-17 Work experience Photoshoots, Set Design, Digital Marketing

18 30 18-29 Guest Speakers Brittany Bathgate, Anna Radchenko, Chris Cunniff etc.

40 40-51 Aesthetica Film Festival, York Lectures and Reviews of film screenings

30-39 Competitions The Orange Label Project, Diversity, Jigsaw

52 52-59 Industry work Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve noticed Vogue Articles, Hype Williams, Burberry Campaign

60 62 60-61 Exhibitions Bijork virtual reality exhibition at Somerset house

62-65 Tutorials Group and single tutorials, group crits

Model: Richard Sawdon Smith Photographer: Ross Trevail Stylist: Adam Howe

WORK EXPERIENCE

ASSISTED STYLING WITH ADAM HOWE JOCKS AND NERDS

locations within the same building (St.George’s) around the university. Adam was amazing to work with. He mentioned some of his work, styling the motion picture Northern Soul and he slipped in he had done some work for Italian Vogue which shook my world. I spent the day steaming clothes, mapping out the outfits so that we could take a few at a time to each location and writing down what the model was wearing and by what designer so that it could be used for the editorial. I never really thought of being a stylist for a career. Although, after helping out on this shoot, I really think it could be a possibility. I love the idea of creating a character around the model with the clothes and sourcing all these cool clothes. I learnt a lot about how photoshoots are carried out and the attention to detail about how the clothes are shown within a shot. Valuable experience, definitely.

Very last minute. This is what I’ve learnt with work experience is that it all happens quite quickly and most of the time, very last minute. Getting a call the morning before asking if I wanted to assist the styling on a Jocks and Nerds shoot was pretty exciting. Obviously I said yes. The photographer, Ross Trevail who I had met several times in lectures and the stylist Adam Howe who I had never actually heard of but I was excited to meet someone established travelling from London. The model, the Dean of Norwich University of the Arts. He’s not what I envisioned in my head, he’s in the older spectrum, with silver hair, an amazing style and covered in tattoos that map his internal organs and blood flow. The whole theme of the shoot was this concept that The Dean lived in the university, so the looks were somewhat structured as well as casual. We proceeded to take shots of the spaces Ross was planning to use whilst we waited for Adam to turn up. It was quite a smooth running day, with 6 looks being shot in several different

The editorial for Jocks and Nerds Magazine was released December 1st 2016.

ASSISTED SET DESIGN WITH ANNA RADCHENKO SCHĂ&#x2013;N!

Fingers numb, pins and needles, aching cold and copious amounts of hair. This is basically how I spent 2 days, in the freezing winds in Peckham in a derelict open car park, taping hair to walls. It was amazing. I first met Anna Radchenko at the Aesthetica Film Festival in York, where one of her fashion films was screened at the UAL special screening. I approached her at another talk where I was given her card and I then proceeded to email her and ask her for an internship of some sort. She soon replied that she would like some marketing bits done and that she had a shoot the following week that I could come and help with.

WORK EXPERIENCE

DAY 1 9:30am – Arrive rather nervously at Peckham Cinema and ask nervously if the lady standing there was involved in the shoot, which she was and breathe a sigh of relief 10:00am – Location manager arrives, set design assistants turn up 1 by 1 and we’re lead up the many flights of stairs, surrounded by pink interior (seriously, pink everywhere) and up to the top of the open plan car park 10:20am – Helen and Amy arrive, head of the set production team and brief us on the two days ahead of us. Showing us moodboards and explaining what hair is to be placed where and the storyboard for day two so we can visualise what they’re looking for and start the larger jobs. 10:40am – Unloading a lot of hair. White, Browne, Grey, Blue, Silver, Black, 11

Blonde, Green. All artificial of course. We split them into according colour piles and then Helen delegates what colour is going where and what we’re doing with it and then we’re off in teams of 3. 11:00am – Pulling out hair, brushing hair, placing hair on stairs and repeat. 1:30pm – Lunch. Followed by more hair. Just after blowing up a gigantic six foot balloon ready to be covered in hair, I’m taken downstairs to help build a wooden structure for a house of hair. 3:30pm – After some pretty questionable moments with a staple gun, we have to finish up and be out by 4. We are told this around 10,000,000 times by the location manager that we need to be out by 4.

DAY 2 7:40am –Inmyeverydayworldthistimedoesn’t exist. Getting straight into the building with hair and makeup already there, waiting to be briefed on the day. 8:00am – Hair wall. A horrendous amount of grey hair, taped on to a very wet and cold cement wall. This, as you can imagine, was frustrating. 12:30pm

–

Still

the

grey

wall.

1:30pm – We have conquered the grey hair wall and are breaking for lunch, not before I get a sneaky look at them filming the model though. Everything looks so good on camera, the struggle was worth it. 1:45pm – Networking. Going round and trying to talk to as many people as I can. I approached the production manager, stylists, production team and got some more contacts under my belt and the possibility of a few more shoots ahead. 2:30pm stapling

– Downstairs, trying to finish blonde hair to the structure

4:00pm – Back to the stairs. Finishing the hair ready for filming. Slight obstacle of it being way too slippy for the model to walk on, but thankfully we solved the problem by making her bare foot. Poor model. 5:00pm – Saying goodbye as I have to catch a train back to Norwich. Thanking everyone and getting a lot of hugs. (The shoot ended at 8) This was the biggest shoot I’ve ever had the pleasure of being a part of but it was a great experience. I met so many nice people, a lot that said they would gladly give me experience if I ever needed it, which I think in these situations is key. It’s not just about gaining industry experience, it’s also about networking yourself and taking opportunities where they come.

I just want to mention a little about the hair at this point. It was tied together with resilient elastic bands, where we had to open it out slowly brushing it with each pull from the middle so it didn’t matte together to release it into a 5 metre strip.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Photographer: Sophie Chittock Location: Peckham Outdoor Cinema

WORK EXPERIENCE

DIGITAL MARKETING INTERNSHIP YOGACLICKS

Having a small company is very difficult. When I had an internship over summer there were two full time employees, a developer, me (full time intern) and lucy. Which is already a small team, but when I came back in reading week to help out a few days there was only Lucy and Duncan there. In all honesty, I don’t really think I’m a major asset to the team but when there’s only two people with no one really knowing much about photoshop or design. When I came for the two days I had a lot of work to do. It was easy work, resizing product photos and uploading them onto shopify, sorting out SKU codes and filling in the details for each product for a few different brands. I then proceeded to design some graphics for black Friday weekend and for the online shop. However, as much as I like helping them out and as much as I enjoyed having an internship over summer, it’s so hard to try and break away. I want to be professional and obviously get a good reference but, it seems like they’re calling me to come in just because they have no one else to call. It’s hard, but I think it’s a good lesson to learn when to say no to companies because it’s not really helping me further my experience it’s just helping them.

So looking for an internship is hard. I had no idea who to apply to or what I wanted to do, so I thought I would start with just applying for some fashion week internships on a whim.I came across this website called fashionweekinternships.com and there was quite a big lengthy application process to possibly intern through summer in either London, Milan, New York or Paris. I applied and waited about a week before I heard anything back. From this I had a 2 hour long interview over the phone and the waited another couple of days to find out that they were offering me a summer internship in Paris! I couldn’t quite believe it and I’m still in a bit of shock. I’m yet to find out who i’m interning with, however I find out in the next couple of weeks. It’s all very strict and proffessional and I’ve had to sign contracts and put deposits down that I obviously went through with Sebastian just to make sure everyhing was okay. And it was! It’s really weird to think I’ll be spending two and a half months in a foreign country, the biggest fashion capital in the world and being apart of the industry throughout all of this. Honestly, I feel like all my hard work has somewhat payed off and now I just want to go and find out everything i’m doing!

WORK EXPERIENCE

Starting Instagram 4-5 years ago Brittany Bathgate started posting her outfits and selfies and gained a following. After going on holiday and posting about it, she saw her following dropped and realised that she had a target market. As her brand grew, the posts became more refined and tailored to what her viewers wanted to see aka her outfits. With small brands contacting her wanting her to post about their stuff, Brittany decided to start her own blog in February 2015, with more brands contacting her and building her social outreach. Working with brands such as: Barbour, Calvin Klein, COS, Whistles, Adidas, Nike and Urban Outfitters, Brittany has demanded a following and is now a celebrated blogger. I had a slight issue with what Brittany was saying though and something I have an issue with a lot of bloggers nowadays, what is real? She said her content was more refined because of her target market but isn’t the whole ideology behind blogging supposed to be about your life and not a refined edit of it? However, looking around the fashion bloggersphere that’s clearly not the case. Everyone’s obsessed with seeing this white, perfect image of someones life but in reality that’s not how they spend their days. They’re making it look like that so they can have a bigger social following. But what does a bigger social following give you? A bigger ego? More people to please? To me, it just seems like this big never ending black hole of proving yourself worthy to be Instagram perfect. For Brittany, I think she obviously does it for the money. She went through the process of how she makes money and most of it being through blogging but even so she still has a full time job because she noticed that being her own brand would take over her life in a negative way. I think what I took away from this talk more than anything is I don’t want to be my own brand. I want to work with a company hidden away, so I can be whoever I want to be.

Obviously, I understand I would have to follow guidelines to be a part of the companies’ brand but, in my own personal life I could do and say what I wanted. I don’t want to be restricted to posting something online that didn’t fit my brands ‘aesthetic’. Not buying something because ‘oh no, this wouldn’t fit right on my Instagram’. I want to buy what I want, wear whatever and experiment with my identity. I don’t want to be trapped by social media and it’s egotistical influence.

Image: BrittanyBathgate.com

Are we really getting the best out of the designers if theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re having to pump out so many different collections in one year?

Both images: Neuba A/W 2016, neuba. com

GUEST SPEAKERS

JAMES HAYES I never really understood the expanse to which PR companies hold in campaigns. I also didn’t really understand what they were and what they were about. When James started talking about the top 5 agencies, listing off the companies that they work for, there are some big brands. I always had the notion that massive companies would have in house PR people and not go to agencies but that’s not the case. Interestingly enough, celebrities will contact agencies and build a team through them for a campaign they’re running. I just didn’t realise all these little things come to place through agencies. With James running through everything to online databases, long lead/ short leads, digital culture, the fashion calendar and how to deal with clients it gave a real insight into the working environment. I feel like some guest speakers sort of breeze over the hard work and tell you about all the fun shoots they get to go on, but the inner workings of different campaigns really intrigues me. The fact that within fashion week, there has been so much pre planning to show for autumn/winter and spring/summer, however this is all changing because of the ‘see now, buy now’ initiative. You would think that the frames of the fashion calendar would be sturdy enough to tackle such a thing, but after hearing James I don’t think that’s so. He talked about how designers strategically place their shows in different cities for fashion week and used the example of Paul Smith exhausting London with his collections and therefor turning to Paris for 2016. Well I think this concept can be carried into the fashion week schedule. Fashion has exhausted the fashion week calendar, showing a full month for ready to wear collections with separate months depending on gender. Alongside this, through the year you also have couture and high couture week and resort collections and

bridal collections. It’s all too much. Whereas consumers are constantly asking for more, more, more and there is a demand for all these collections, are we really getting the best out of the designers if they’re having to pump out so many different collections in one year? This isn’t even tackling collaborations and possible capsule collections. But maybe within this collaboration is the answer. With Vetements using 27 designers to form their collection, maybe the work load needs to be shared to create a collection worth going to watch?

Image: SS16 collection, Nor-Folk.com

GUEST SPEAKERS

BOBBY & FIONA BURRAGE NOR-FOLK relate to but I think that is a huge gap in the market for something like this, which they’ve taken full advantage of. Seeing how invested Bobby was and how passionate about the brand he was made me excited for him and the depths he could go with their brand. Having only just touched the surface of what I’m sure they’ll eventually end up in is a good place to be. This has made me 100% sure that I want to work with a brand and rather than have my own because I don’t think personally I would be ready in the next 10 years to commit myself to something like that. I would want to know I was having a fixed income and that money wouldn’t be a struggle (or hopefully not). I think if I ever was to have my own brand, it would come second to the business I was working for until I was financially stable and ready if ever to launch it to the world. As well as they’ve done and as much as I admire them for making what they have, I don’t want to be in Norwich for the rest of my life. I want to be established within the fashion industry and work with the greats like Anna Wintour and Mario Testino, Karl Lagerfeld. As far-fetched as this may probably seem and many people tell me to pipe down with the dreaming, but I want to aim for something higher than being in Norwich from birth until I die.

Their life is their brand. I hadn’t really seen it in full effect with someones life being their brand and their income. I know Brittany had some sense of this, with her outfits being a part of her source of income but it’s not her entire life. She’s still somewhat separated from blogging with another full time job. However, for Bobby and Fiona Burrage, they made their company from posting about their lives. This scares me. I’m not the sort of person to think about what I post on social media and I’m quite instinctive and quick to post something if someone has annoyed me or if I’m happy, sad etc. However, to have my whole life monitored as income, I’m not sure I could handle that. Besides the fact that the concept of their brand scares me to no end, it’s an amazing thing they’ve made. Starting out by just posting pictures on Instagram, quite like Brittany, they noticed people were starting to pick up and both being creative people themselves, combining to create NorFolk. All the branded products they make I think are spot on, with clear concise writing and simple colours not only fit into their aesthetic but I think works with where the fashion industry is at now and where young creatives are at. A large part of their brand is to do with kidswear and kids products which I personally can’t

GUEST SPEAKERS

Both images from Nor-folk on Instagram of Bobby and Fiona and their child

ANNA RADCHENKO 26

GUEST SPEAKERS

Working alongside Anna before in London, when she came to talk about the process of her different shoots everything came and clicked in to place because I had been in the aftermath of all the planning and saw everything carried out. I thought it was really interesting to see how she took a concept and just ran with it, making the most obscure images but still powerful and effective at the same time. We’ve had a lot of talks where people have said that you can’t be that creative when you’re producing something for a brand but I think Anna contradicted that completely. It was really refreshing to see weird and wonderful images used for brands and used well. I think the key points I took away from the talk was organisation is key. Obviously I know this, organisation is the essence to any project, but when she went into depth about the moodboards they send, the call sheets, model casting, just everything involved for just one shoot it kind of

blows your mind how much organisation goes into a short film or editorial. It was reassuring that she gets stressed, as trying to organise my own shoot has proven difficult, but I have hope my project will look even half as good as some of her final pieces. Something I will also take to my campaign and when doing my shoot is how to take photographs and film at the same time. She uses the same camera, with the same lighting to do everything, however I’m still thinking that I want to use two separate cameras, I’m just not sure how all of this works. The points she made about photography being dead and everyone having short attention spans was really eye opening. I think to when I look at facebook videos and I do get bored after a few seconds and scroll, but how do I make someone want to watch after a few seconds? This is something I think will be interesting to test with people and the watch time with my own video. Image: Nice Lies, Anna Radchenko, Trendland.com

CHRISTOPHER CUNNIFF What I liked best about Christopher is that he was determined and proved that you can do a lot with a small budget. Although he started off the talk saying how he had missed out on certain opportunities because he felt he wasn’t ready, he then went to Australia and shot this really cool slow motion fashion film that was showcased at Aesthetica. He talked very quickly so it was hard to keep up with what he was saying but he made some really good points. He explained a lot about keeping everything with your work transparent. By this he meant with the client, so you have to state exactly what you’re doing and explain why you’re doing it so that you can back up every decision that you’ve made. We do this a lot as students with every bit of work we do, but if I’m honest I just thought we had to do it to get the grade. But now I know that this translates into the actual industry as well, people don’t want to imagine what they’re going to get from you or think they’re being blind sighted in any way so you have to literally tell them everything you’re going to do. From this though, you can obviously gain a lot of trust from different brands but you also risk the exposure of a company taking your idea and running with it through their name so, it’s tricky. There has to be a level of trust on both parts. After the talk we had a chance to talk to Christopher about our projects and he showed an interest in mine and told me he knew someone that could make my campaign a reality which just sounds nuts. So after I shot all of my assets, I emailed him and asked him if he could direct me to the right person and fingers crossed it all goes through!

*The first time I saw Christopher’s work was at a short fashion film screening at Aesthetica film festival in York.

GUEST SPEAKERS

Image: Still from short film by Christopher for Fashion Revolution 2016 Rachelmanns.com

Image: Jigsaw AW 2016 Lookbook, Jigsaw.com

COMPETITIONS

ORDER & CHAOS CAMPAIGN JIGSAW

The briefing gave me so much inspiration in to what I could do with this project. My mind flickered straight to the surgical side of mathematics. Maybe doing something about how woman look at their bodies so critically and maybe playing on how surgeons see the bodies of women with the mathematical surgical lines? I’m not really sure exactly how I could bring that in, but that’s the thought process that instantly came into my head. This is does look like a great opportunity and the fact that it’s showcased in Norwich Fashion Week is great exposure for my work. I’m still unsure if I would want to base this around my whole project because it’s a lot of time to base around a subject and I want to be really passionate about what I’m doing for my main project. After really thinking about this and discussing with other people about possibly collaborating, I’ve decided not to par take. I’m one for taking opportunities when they’re presented but I haven’t had a strong idea come to mind that I’m really passionate about and doing this as a side project alongside my own campaign is way too much work to handle. I want everything I do to be at the highest of my abilities and to know that I’ve put my all into it. So to go into this with only half the amount of effort I couldn’t confidently present this to a board of people.

The Orange Label Project UAL and UN Trust Fund ‘Say No To Violence Against Women’

COMPETITIONS 2 weeks. This is a very short time frame to conduct a photoshoot, think of some text and put everything together ready to be submitted into a competition. But thankfully, it’s something I really cared about and that I already had in mind for my whole campaign for Ba2a anyway. I brainstormed a few ideas and boiled it down to 2: the three monkeys, sight, sound and speech or this theme of just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Both not the catchiest sayings, but that I could work on. After a quick meeting with Harriet, it was the theme of hidden pain that striked the most so that’s the one I rolled with. I remembered watching America’s Next Top Model and they did this alter ego photoshoot, something I had seen also done on The Real Housewives of Atlanta, but both times it was used in more of a gimmicky way. What if I could use this concept and build text around it? So that’s exactly what I did. I was entering into the Fashion Journalism section so I needed a powerful bit of text, but I also wanted a powerful image to compliment it. I had a photographer in mind, a student I had worked with before on assisting shoots and for a shoot in summer too. So, after making some quick moodboards, I sent the brief over to Kane Layland and get the ball moving. 2 days later, we were shooting the image. I had started on the written piece as soon as I had received the orange label project brief but I couldn’t finish it until I had my photoshoot done, because I needed to see what I was writing about. The shoot was only 2 looks and took around 3 hours, changing hair and make up slightly through each look. The images came out amazing. Just what I had envisioned in my head. After long hours editing the images together, I had the written piece and the images put together. I made a few variations of the finished product and showed it around to friends and family to get an outside perspective of what looked the best. I then resized and formatted the photo ready for submission and with crossed fingers sent it away.

2ND PLACE I really can’t quite believe it! My work is up on the UAL website and I’ve been announced as second place. Slightly annoyed that first place winners got published on vogue.co.uk but still! This is probably to date one of my biggest achievements and I’m just still in shock. YAY

Image: Photographer Kane Layland, Model Liv Harrould, Styling Sophie Chittock

COMPETITIONS

HIDDEN PAIN HAS NO GAIN

NO to violence against women.

Say NO to violence against women

COMPETITIONS

DIVERSITY NOW A very long lecture. I think it was informative, but I’m not sure that it needed to be that long? I think because we’re young and just coming into the fashion industry, I’m already aware of inequality in diversity on the runway and fashion in general because we have the internet. We can notice things by ourselves and we’ve got fashion shoved in our faces every day with all these different movements like feminism and diversity and as young individuals we are expected to have an opinion on these issues if not we’re labelled stupid. Therefore, most of the presentation didn’t really shock me into thinking wow, there’s no diversity because I was already aware of the issue. However, already being aware of the

issue, I am ready and fuelled to enter this competition and hopefully be picked to be submitted. As for thoughts, I’m thinking along the lines of blind leading the blind? Or something about everyone just following the norm because they’re scared to break out and use different models. I’m not sure whether I want to specifically go for a minority represented group for example, black models or old models. I think I want a range of ethnicities, races and age so I can make a real impact of anyone is welcome. I’m really excited about this project and I’m so glad we have more of a time scale to complete it than I had with the orange project and I think next steps is to brainstorm ideas and come up with some form of action. Image: Marina Pamies Styling winner, Diversity Now 2016

Image: Pinterest.com

COMPETITIONS

DIVERSITY NOW ALL WALKS BEYOND THE CATWALK

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for the Diversity project but I knew I wanted to do it because the opportunity to be published in I-D magazine is too good of an opportunity to waste. So, I went to pinterest and made a moodboard of images just on anything really until I found some form of a direction. Then I kept coming across these New York teens, around a high school setting and I really liked the visuals. Spinning off ideas from seeing these photographs and having very recently just watched the movie ‘The Virgin Suicides’ I came up with the concept of Girlhood. I actually had a pinterest board already with this title and loads of images correlating with this, so I just brought all these different references together in a moodboard and voila! So my idea is to essentially use a high school and some teens and just get them to lounge around the school in sporty outfits like you would at high school. I obviously want to incorporate different sizes & races and possibly gender too. The whole feel of the shoot is that we stick together no matter what the race, age, gender sort of like you do in high school. You get in your clique at school and you stick by them no matter what they do. This is where girl code and guy code has formed in recent years. I think what is crucial in this shoot is the styling and I really need to get the naivity of a teen through and just this feeling of not caring who are what a person looks like, just who they are as a person. So, after making a brief, I contacted Taverham High School, my old high school and set up a meeting to see if any of this was possible. On meeting the head of Art department and with a little bit of negotiating, I have a few meetings set up with potential models (students of the school) and a date set for the shoot! So now looking forward all I need to do is find outfits and a photographer and I am ready to go.

HIDDEN AGENCY LIAM GLEESON VANESSA BREGANCIANO I think the best bit of advice I got from this talk was: ‘don’t go into anything with a pre-conception, go with a clear mind’. This is really difficult for me to not overthink things and prejudge something before I’ve heard the logistics of it. However, listening to Liam and Vanessa talk it did open my mind at the possibilities you have within a brief. I loved the different projects they had done over the years and their real opinion on what they felt about the outcome and what they wish they had done better etc. Working with designers and brands such as Matthew Miller, Pull & Bear and Liam Hodges it was interesting to see the very different routes they went with each of them, yet still sticking to their style of working so you can recognise that it’s Hidden Agency. Be original, be open to change. This was a big message that came through the talk. They breezed over social media content and how you may have to change your concept due to having to use the film for social media and adapting your concept for the target audience. Taking away from this, it’s evident social media plays such an enormous role in fashion film. You need stills for Instagram, clips for facebook, interesting lines for twitter. Everything they create somehow feeds back into social media to get people talking about the project before it’s even released. The film they make needs to be able to meet all criteria for social media and have the capacity to be split into many different things than just a fashion film. When they produce a film for a company, they’re also producing 4-6 months’ worth of content. This is pretty insane, considering social media didn’t exist a few years back and now it controls content. Be versatile. I’ve heard a lot of lecturers say (particularly in photography) be resilient

and shoot your style, demand your style and don’t shoot anything but that. But I always found this a bit odd, because surely you would want to try everything to then find a key style? Or experiment sometimes with different styles? This is what Liam and Vanessa said. They reiterated that shooting in the same style will pigeon hole you and you may not get other jobs. From this, it creates more of a chance to take full art direction on an entire campaign. This rather than them bringing in a director and photographer and art director all to help produce one thing. Image: Photo exhibition in collaboration with Lee Lapthorne for the On|Off event at London Fashion Week, HiddenAgency.com

HIDDEN AGENCY 41

DECODING FASHION FILM

Image: Still from The Art of Je Ne Sais Quoi by Corrine Delaney, ual.com

I think what this discussion outlined more than anything was how fashion film is making a difference in advertising and fashion itself. With the rise of selfies and selfie ruining and self-destructing, fashion film is becoming more cinematic. Content has to be meaningful and fashion film is doing that. It was refreshing to see a lot of people so passionate about fashion film as I haven’t really spoken to anyone that specialises in this before. They spanned through why we’re seeing fashion film, is fashion film obsessed with aesthetics and will it end up being superficial? I then went on to ask the question: ‘Will fashion film take over the runways?’. It was interesting to see everyone bouncing off each other’s opinions an adding more to each other’s points. In the answer to my question I

had a few responses: that it will go hand in hand with runway acting as another advertising tool but not replacing it altogether. Video was previously used as the runway show in 1991 and 2010 and that didn’t take off as a trend so, no. It’s a great idea for younger designers with not a lot of money to make a runway show and we have to think about the customer and sales. Do they want to see it in person? If they’re going to be spending thousands of pounds’ worth of money on these garments, then will they want to see physical evidence of it on the runway? Before I asked this question, I really thought that fashion film would be strong enough to take over runway. But with the point that people are spending a lot of money, they want to see the garments in person.

AESTHETICA

MAKERS PROJECTS A lot of what they said I thought wasn’t really associated with fashion film. Through the ABC’s they mentioned that you should move people to get results and feed them emotion. But I think with fashion you don’t need to feel upset or reminiscent about something to buy it. Fashion is a little bit more, fickle than that 75% of the time, in the fact that if a well-known celebrity is wearing the clothes or there’s a catchy song behind it, then it’s still going to work. However, if you’re selling gravy or cars then hitting the audience on an emotional level is probably going to be more effective than anything else. They made some interesting points about the attention span of the consumer. When we watch Facebook videos, more than 90% of the time we watch it without sound therefor if you base your entire video around the sound, this could be lost.

Subtitles are key for this platform and what’s going to grab the attention of the consumer more than the sound itself. could be lost. Subtitles are key for this platform and what’s going to grab the attention of the consumer more than the sound itself. Being film makers themselves, the fact they made a point of saying scale down on equipment where you can, really reiterates the fact that cost is a big factor in any campaign. Brands don’t always want to spend a lot of money where it isn’t needed and you may get a small budget for something that they want to look like they’ve spent thousands on. I definitely will take all of this into consideration when looking at realistic costs in my own campaign and designing a plan on ways I can cut the cost in half so that the campaign is more cost effective and can break even quicker on profit. 43

FOLIE A DEUX

POONSAP

Informed by biographical research into the dynamics of notorious murder couples, this atmospheric, haunting film charts a toxic relationship - Aesthetica Short Film Festival: Official Programme 2016

Both images: Stills from Poonsap’s short fashion film ‘Folie a Deux’

AESTHETICA

Starting with a tale of love, a fashionable pair meet on public transport where they soon hit it off. With clean cut and tailored fashion, with pops of colour from strong knitwear, we see the scenery change as they enjoy each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s company on a crisp and beautiful English beach. As we cut to a studio setting, we see the emotions change as violence kicks into their short lived relationship and a sense of urgency to escape surfaces. Cut back to the beach and bruises overlay the aesthetics. With strong music and a clean palette, this was a piece to make an impact. With an underlying theme of violence against women, there was still a strong sense of fashion. I could visualise this short film to go in accordance with brands like Hugo Boss or Calvin Klein. Hugo Boss because of the clean

and tailored clothes and the style of the man and woman walking along the beach in this dramatic slow motion. Calvin Klein because of the flash of strobe, neon lighting across their bodies in the cut scenes, which ties in well with their most recent campaign. Although made in 2014, this film in my eyes is still current enough to make it into fashion film in 2016. I thought out of all of the UAL screenings, this tied in perfectly with my research and the concept that I want to make for my own project. It gave me a clear sense that you can still make a fashion film with an underlying message, without the message taking away from the fashion. I was struggling visually with how to subtly put across my message of no violence towards women, but this has given me a wealth of inspiration to work on going forward. 47

Image: Still from â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Silver Goddesses, vimeo.com

AESTHETICA

SILVER GODDESSES QUENTIN HUBERT & ANNA RADCHENKO

Jumping on a glitter filled child’s trampoline, the camera glides up a slim body to introduce a sassy older woman. With three fashion grans slowly being introduced lighting a cigarette to birthday candles (age 101) and being dramatically revealed behind black fabric, a eclectic tune starts playing. Celebrating beauty and any age, this upbeat and eccentric depiction of fashion left me not only aspiring to be like the women when I’m older, but wanting to go dance. Aptly named silver goddesses, this short movie glides past any stereotypical view of an increase in age meaning a decrease in style. Being a millennial, this really opened my eyes to the silver age. When we look at magazines and adverts and anything to do with fashion the models are 99% of the time young and perky. Women aspire to look younger and want to feel young in themselves, but after watching this film, why do we care so much? Why is our generation so obsessed with being younger when being in the silver age can be so much fun? What came across for me in this film besides the amazing fashion from the likes of Chanel and Alexander Mcqueen, is that you can have fun at any age, you just have to embrace it. I can’t wait to be a sassy, fashionable gran and I hope to be as amazing as the three women in this short film are.

AMOR SACRO, AMOR PROFANO. LUCA MARIA PICOLLO Prize winner at Berlin Fashion Film 2013, religious iconography is the inspiration for this highly produced piece, in the style of a moving painting. With a hue of gold, half naked men with statuesque physiques and a questionable queen this piece was a masterpiece. Delicate strings and soulful lyrics, the music carried the movement and arguably brought the visuals to life. With the first scene, I instantly knew it was connected to some form of religious painting. The opening cut has a woman painted in gold with sculptured circles surrounding her in exaggerated slow motion. The main character has a constant reference to being some form of a queen, however in a topless scene, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s questionable whether this is a woman or not. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not sure if this was something the director intended us to ponder over, however with transgender and cross dressing being such a heavily discussed subject, I found it hard not to second guess myself and keep coming back to the thought about what gender the main character was. Aside from this, every scene was a piece of art. The music worked so well and added to the fantasy like feeling you got from watching it. It was dramatic and beautiful and made the biggest impression on me from any other movie I saw the entire 4 days. Image: Still from short film, vimeo. com

THE INDUSTRY

CREATIVE DIGITAL DIRECTOR SALLY SINGER CRITICISES BLOGGERS IN MILAN FASHION WEEK BREAKDOWN No more can Vogue be criticised for not having an opinion. They really rocked the boat, pushed people overboard and set fire to the decks with this one. In a breakdown of Milan Fashion Week, writers at Vogue. com took the opportunity to bring down bloggers that turn up to fashion shows to get snapped in their street style outfits, risking accidents and making fools of themselves as they stand in the middle of the street. To be honest, I think the article and responses went pretty hard against bloggers. I am all for bloggers and I don’t think Vogue is completely against blogging as they do make the point that these people are borrowing any designer clothes they can get just to boost their social media outreach rather than doing what blogging was made for, to write about the things you love and to share your own style. I think with the increase of popularity of social media, a lot of what we love and what is put on the internet has been lost in what we think will be popular and what won’t. We warp our personalities and what we post on social media in order to please other people, we say don’t believe everything you hear in the news but the same rule

applies very much so to social media. Coming back to the article, I fully support Vogue in their opinion (not just because I adore them and want to sell my soul to them, obviously) and the fact the so many writers got on board to show a united front I think only strengthened their opinion. However, they did receive a humungous amount of backlash from bloggers, discrediting what the vogue writers had said. I see this as a very smart move though. Vogue may have annoyed bloggers all over, but they’re approaching a younger market with this debate, people may hate what Vogue read but suddenly this mass of young bloggers are reading them. I know being a millennial myself, that if an article has annoyed me, I delve in and do more research about the brand and don’t just stop on that one article and all of a sudden I’m hooked on what they have to say next. Whether this was an intentional tactical move or not? It was nicely accumulated. Image: ‘Street Style: Ladylike handbags’ and ‘Best Street Style Moments of 2016’ all from Vogue.co.uk

For the Fall 2016 Campaign, Marc Jacobs collaborated with legendary music video director Hype Williams to create a beautiful, strange, and dynamic video featuring the unique cast of the campaign. With acclaimed singers, actresses and models such as Kendall Jenner, Marilyn Manson, Cara Delivigne to Susan Sarandon, this video encapsulates all diversity from age to gender and race. This really got to me. The first thing that had me hooked was the beat behind the video and then recognizing all these amazing different celebrities. Some I was really well associated with and others I had a faint familiarity with, although all of them recognizable. It was a strong look, going back to the club 80â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s scene, with strong makeup and dark looks. The first time I watched it I just wanted to watch it over 54

THE INDUSTRY

and over again, trying to spot something new and just envy how cool everyone looked within the video. This sounds really judgmental but it even made me envy the older generation within the video because it put them on an equal level with the younger models. This isn’t the case in a lot of fashion videos because older people are dressed fashionable but still old. In this video everyone was dressed to suit their body, age and shape while keeping everyone looking young and fresh and on equal terms to each other. At first I thought I wanted a video like this for my campaign just because it made such of an impact on me after watching it, but then I sat back and realized that it wouldn’t work. Film like this only make an impact because they’re not done often and when they are, it’s timed

perfectly. With everything going on in the world, grunge is exactly where we’re at. Riots, protests and rebellion is hitting out against government and leader’s decisions. Therefor why not play on this and create something moody but fashionable.

Images: Screenshots from Marc Jacobs x Hype Williams, youtube.com

THE INDUSTRY

Image: Stills from Burberry christmas advert, popsugar.com

BURBERRY CHRISTMAS CAMPAIGN

Last year I wasn’t that invested in the Burberry Christmas campaign video. It was fun and it had loads of famous people in it like George Ezra and Brooklyn Beckham, but it didn’t particularly make a lasting impact. This year however, they’ve taken it to another level. ‘The Tale of Thomas Burberry. 160 years in the making, a story inspired by the pioneering discoveries of our founder, reimagining key events that have shaped Burberry’s history. Directed by Academy Award-winner Asif Kapadia and starring Domhnall Gleeson, Sienna Miller, Dominic West and Lily James.’ It literally looks like a film trailer rather than a fashion film promoting a brand. However, after the masterclass at York about product placement and how we aren’t 57

noticing the subtle hints (and sometimes not so subtle), I started to try and spot and even subconsciously notice where Burberry had put in their subtle branding. Obviously the whole tale was about Thomas Burberry and all the extraordinary people he had made protective clothing for, relaying that this is a brand you can trust. You also had everyone dressed with a hint of their famously well-known scarf, with Sienna Miller having this amazing moment where she walks away in a long, flowing black cape and the statement scarf. You had the plane branded with Burberry and even the trenches still had a hint of fashion in them. Alongside all of the products and the narrative of the film, it wouldn’t have worked without the music. Visuals apart, the music carried and complimented the film tremendously. This has become a theme in Christmas adverts with the John Lewis Christmas advert featuring a famous singer to carry it along every year. This, not surprisingly, does very well in the charts. I didn’t recognise the singer straight away, however it had this tone to it that made me feel reminiscent. This could be because of the visuals partnered with it, but I thought all in all the music made the whole film. This is definitely something to think about if I’m going to make a short fashion film. If music made such an impact on me with the Burberry film, making me want something from the brand just so I’m associated with them, that’s what I want people to feel when they watch mine. I didn’t really account for music being a long process when making the film but now I might have to schedule more time in for it.

Image: Stills from Burberry christmas advert, popsugar.com

EXHIBITIONS

BIJORK SOMERSET HOUSE, LONDON

I don’t like virtual reality. I can’t really get into the technology hype that somehow is sweeping everywhere. First it was the 3D cinema, then the 3D TV and now we’re bringing virtual reality into everyday life, which is just an extension of seeing things and experiencing things when you’re not actually there. As much as I think this is a cool concept that you can potentially experience anything in the world if this technology takes off, I also think it takes the magic away from the real experience. If I use the Northern Lights as an example, the beauty of looking at them and saving the money and planning the trip, it’s an experience to say you’ve been there. However, with virtual reality, yeah you can see them, but it’s not the same and it sort of takes away from people that have actually travelled and been there in person. I don’t come from a wealthy family and I’m pretty sure I’m in the demographic that they’re appealing to with software like this, people that can’t afford to travel everywhere, but it still doesn’t appeal to me. I guess I want to have the actual real life thing in front of me, so I can experience it in the moment, with the sounds, smells, sights all in that place and not a fake version of it on a headset. Also, what is going on with the headsets? They’re awful! Obviously I know they’re still in the developing stage and everything about VR is completely new to everyone, but when I was at the exhibition I had the overwhelming sense of feeling claustrophobic with this massive head set on. I think this was also paired with the images. Part of the exhibition had you wear these head sets and you were on revolving chairs so you could move around with the headset to look around the setting. It all sounds very exciting, but it made me feel motion sickness. Spinning round constantly trying to find the person in the image, it was too much for me. I can definitely appreciate the effort and the intelligence that went into the technology and the exhibition, but I just think it’s not for me.

TUTORIALS

INITIAL IDEAS TUTORIAL I have no idea what I’m doing. I can’t seem to find a steering point to what I want to do as a campaign or who I want to do it for and everyone seems to be doing a lot of work about loads of different things and I’m not sure that I really know what I’m doing. I know that everything is a process, but I thought I would have some clue about what I want to do. Having the brief about the Orange Label Project makes me want to take that into my campaign and do something around violence against women. However, I’m not sure how I take this into a fashion campaign and what brand would be right to tackle such an important issue.

MID UNIT REVIEW I do not enjoy presentations. Standing up in front of everyone talking about my campaign was not the highlight of my day, but I got a lot of encouraging feedback.

research and not be scrutinised for it? Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I hope that by the time I’m hopefully writing for a magazine that this notion that you aren’t allowed to have an opinion is slightly abolished. However, I do think sometimes I over exert my opinion, but it’s only because I’m passionate about the subject and I feel like people partly don’t want to hear my opinion on rape in particular is because they’re embarrassed about the subject, which is what I want to stop through my campaign. I have taken on the criticism though and I think I could re arrange my presentation in a way that it’s less full on and eases more into the statistics than just putting it out straight away. Now I’m trying to plough on with the campaign, also sorting out my reflective journal and creative industry file whilst also juggling a job and work experience. Easy.

Positive = campaign idea seemed strong, visual work looked good and research was clear Negative = Maybe don’t go so hard into the statistics and leave opinions out As much as I try to take negative opinions on the chin I still find it difficult not to give my opinion. I just can’t take that you aren’t allowed to give an opinion after you’ve reeled off so many statistics about an issue. Or that my opinion dampens the statistics, because I feel like it just sets feminism back 20 years. Surely we should be allowed to express our opinions freely, in context to the