Final Post :(

I decided to use a stop motion video as my final project.  Even though this video is short, it took me forever to do.  First of all, it took a couple of hours just to make the "stage" I used three pieces of wood that were painted white and then I had my friend use an air gun to put them together.  Then, I had to set up lighting (I chose to use flat light--more on that later) and set up the camera angle I wanted.  After this I started out just waiting for the apple to rot but because that was taking too long and I only had a certain amount of time to spend with the materials I borrowed I had to hurry the art process so I took an apple I had rotted earlier and replaced it with the original apple in the beginning.  All in all, stop motion takes a very long time; I have an even better appreciation for it now than I did before. 

My video is based around the fact that time cannot heal pain, despite the saying.  When something terrible happens (such as a death or a break-up) that emotional pain cuts through you--it cuts through your soul or your core (hence, there are clear cut holes through the apple core).  When this happens the first thing to leave your soul is the happiness, love, and optimism you once possessed (represented by the white strips of paper, which are hopefully readable).  These are the types of emotions that leave quickly.  Then there is this period where you aren't really sure how you feel, possibly feeling "nothing at all".  This is represented with a space between the white and black words.  When the black words (misery, torture, desolation, etc) come out of the apple's holes, they are noticeably moving at a slower speed.  This is purposeful because when these "bad" emotions emerge they come out of us slowly, dragging the pain on and on.  At the re-emergence of the "good" feelings, the "bad" feelings surround the "good", squashing them completely out of sight for you.  As time goes on (represented by the moving apple), "bad" feelings seem to linger in the voids of your soul, causing you to essentially rot from the inside, out.  The rotten apple at the end has the word desolation on it because it represents a person literally destroyed by the "bad" feelings that took over their soul.   

Everything in this clip is of utmost importance; everything was done for a specific reason.  First of all, the stage my stop motion was set on was white specifically because I wanted an institutional feel to my video.  However, the white boards were not enough so I decided to use the bleach filter on my video in order to help get the creepy effect I was looking for.  (Unfortunately I think it may have made the words harder to read.)  The reason why I chose to use black and white papers for my words was because I was employing the archetypal black and white as bad and good.  I placed the apple in the corner because even though there is no where to hide from pain, it is still making that attempt.  There are two reasons why I chose a green apple instead of a red apple to represent the human heart (emotional center):  one, I looked up the meaning of apple colors and green represented love and two, green apples brown faster (because they are used for baking) so this made the green apple a better choice over the red apple.  In general, I liked the look of a green apple against the white instead of a red apple.  Another thing that I wanted to represent symbolically was the small ball of hope inside of Pandora's Box (when I had all the white words bunch into a circle).  I wanted to show that darkness would swallow that ball of hope, leaving nothing.  Right before that I have the words love and hurt circling each other, almost like the prelude to a showdown that love is going to lose.  I also have the words "crawling" out of the apple holes so that they look like bugs (worms or ants, I can't decide which).  This adds to the sense of destruction.  On another note, the amount of words used is equal because happiness and sadness are equally strong emotions, just experienced in different ways.  Finally my musical selection (Kesson Deslaf by Aphex Twin) is based on the fact that it is simple and very sad.  It helps evoke the feeling that something is missing and that whatever it is happens to be irretrievable.  Besides the minor mistakes (that I could not fix due to the fact that I had a limited amount of time to spend with the equipment I needed) and the fact that I wish I had shown a whole apple and then each slice from it before the video started, I was mostly happy with this stop motion; I thought it turned out quite nice.