ccdn 231 | project 1 hand in

toilets

I decided to investigate further the act of going to the toilet. I have made a documentary-style video that depicts five people in the act of going to the toilet. Each individual clip represents one of the five senses. (i.e. five people, five senses). The clues are in the words which are overlaid as 'handwritten' script - taken from their written responses to my interview questions.

None of the clips involved nudity and the identity of each participant was deliberately obscured. One of the greater challenges was therefore to maintain the viewer's interest in the final edited version of the combined clips.

I did this through interesting angles, starting the crawling text at a moment where the viewer might be needing new stimuli and also when the sound of urinating commenced (so as to distract from any discomfort the viewer might be feeling).

The act of making and showing this video has almost become more important than the investigation of the actual activity. Finding willing participants was a little difficult at first but once they had seen how it was to be handled I was able to convince five people to take part.

The process was two part - firstly I asked each person to be filmed in the act of going to the toilet in a variety of locations. I then asked them to answer three questions for each of the five senses. I used this material as content for the crawling text in each of the scenes. I took the best responses for each sense and added it to the scene of the person responsible for writing it. So the words that scrawl across the screen in each room are the words of the person being filmed.

I then took the remaining material and used it for my physical hand-in. This was a piece of toilet wall covered in 'graffiti' about each of the five senses. I have therefore fulfilled the brief requirement of 500 words by submitting about 200 words in the video and the remainder of the 500 on the 'graffitti wall.

For my wall I was inspired by the cubicle on level one at the Vivian Street campus.

Here is my physical submission:

Front

I decided to use a mix of words and drawings to illustrate my board. The coloured words in 'tag' style (which are the headings for the five senses) and the 'tag' lettering is by Nikolai Scott.

And here is my video:

Note: For a short time, my video is watchable on this blog. After 31 August 2013 it will go 'Private'.