Building upon what I made for my grad show, my intention was to use these characters that I had created and scenes that I had shot: and add layers of sound and colour that would emphasise and poke fun at the story. In making a new version, I peeled away the scenes that I felt lacked sincerity (the rabbit and lamb vignettes), and focused on the cat and squirrel stories (which were my favourites to begin with).
To re-edit it was important to view the raw footage with new eyes. Taking both scenarios at face value, they resembled fables to me: and I shaped the editing around this notion.
To re-edit it was important to view the raw footage with new eyes. Taking both scenarios at face value, they resembled fables to me: and I shaped the editing around this notion.
The three women are performing the Madonna/Whore trope of one psyche, twins: with one double. Two are played by Caoilainn Shola-Haastrup, and Orla Reilly playing the more tentative of them. She serves as a bridge between the two. Unsure in her commitment to what she is supposed to think, but determined nonetheless.
The two men are enacting a tiresome argument over dinner: bickering ideology, but to no understanding or resolution. It can’t be considered a conversation because the tone is so aggressive and chiding. It is an un-constructive dispute: the topic of which is ultimately irrelevant.
The videos projected onto the back and foreground are partially from my own video archive. I edited the scenes of chaotic, colourful dancing from: Betty Page striptease; Fifties Cheesecake Dance No. 1: She Demons; Alyce Bryce ‘Jungle Drums’, and Marie Voe ‘The Bombing Bombshell’ from Variety Girls Soundie Films 1948; and footage from the 2008 Rio De Janeiro Carnival ‘Best of Mocidade’
The music consists of samples from Otis G Johnson; The Sisters of Aquinas; and a stilted play-through of Oliver Messaien’s ‘La Nativité’.