My video montage piece is titled “Exhale”, named after the verb I decided to focus on for this project. Although I had considered other verbs such as sipping, giving, receiving and scrubbing, I feel that the act of exhaling holds a lot of symbolism. When I think of exhaling, I imagine it represents the beginning of something new, the end of something, caving in, acceptance, relief, a way to meditate, and many other things. Given the many new changes in my life after having left home, I found myself drawn towards this verb and felt that it was something I could relate to and apply. After researching it’s various meanings, I learned that it can be defined as “to breathe, give forth, or disengage from the surface; to send up (fumes, gas, vapour, etc.): to give off in vapour”, “to breathe or blow forth from within – To breathe out (life, soul, words, a prayer, etc.)”, “of vapour, perfume: to pass off as vapour; to evaporate”, “to blow off (as steam); chiefly fig.to get rid of (enthusiasm, wrath, etc.) as if by blowing”, and “to cause (blood, tears) to flow”. With these definitions in mind, I went around taking video clips of different people and objects performing actions that satisfied them. I then ordered all of my clips from “most aggressive” to “sweet” and presented them in this way, showing a transition. The video starts with an audio recording of an inhale and ends with an exhale – as if the transition from aggressive to sweet now allows this person to breathe. The video montage is constantly jumping from clip to clip until it reaches the middle, at which point a black screen is presented for a short amount of time at the beginning and end of a clip of me taking a breath. I intended for this to act as a short break in the montage, as if stopping to catch your breath. This also acts as the division between the videos I deemed somewhat aggressive and the ones I deemed sweet. To further push the differentiation between the two and show the transition, clips presented towards the beginning of the montage have traces of warm colors whereas clips presented towards the end have traces of cool colors. In the second half of the montage (when viewers are shown the sweeter, cooler video clips), the sound of quiet breathing can be heard in the background. This assignment was a good blend of our audio assignment and photo narrative assignment.
