In this project, we were required to use green-screen techniques to create a self-portrait inspired by Robert Wilson’s Voom Portraits series.

Process and Ideation

So far, I had felt that in my Time class I had unconsciously restrained myself to a very minimalist aesthetic with highly reserved use of sound and colour. As a consequence I felt I was settling into my comfort zone and not pushing myself enough to experiment when working on new projects. So, for this final assignment I wanted to do something I wouldn’t normally attempt, and in doing so symbolically represent this change in my own mindset. Below are some ideation and storyboard sketches I developed as initial approaches to this project.

While the storyboard in the second image is a more evolved form of the initial sketch, what is consistent in both drafts is that for my Voom portrait, I decided to depict myself being gradually overwhelmed and eventually immersed in busy, colourful imagery that in many ways was antithetical to what my earlier works in this class had looked like. I made the choice to portray this as I felt that symbolically it represented the realisation I had about my own mindset, and the openness with which I was now ready to accept new ideas and experiences compared to before.

Final Work

Voom Portrait
December 2020
Digital film
00:59

As seen above, my final work quite closely mimics the storyboard I had drawn out. The Voom portrait begins with a clip of me being drenched in the kaleidoscopic colours that I described above as being representative of overwhelming change. It then continues to show this colour infiltrating my body beginning with the cheeks, followed by my head, mouth, left, then right eye, and then culminating with the image of my entire skin being covered in the colourful imagery. The film ends with me disappearing into the background as if being swallowed or completely immersed in it. In terms of the audio I used the sound of chimes to reinforce the sense of a fantastical / transformative experience that I was going through. Overall, this piece was put together using just the mask tool in Premiere Pro, and apart from a one-minute video I shot of myself looking into the camera, the primary video material I used in this film was sped-up YouTube clips of kaleidoscope animations, and a number of psychedelic gifs.

Work from:
Time with Professor Mike Rader