Even though it seemed fairly daunting after only handing in our dissertations the previous day we had a very productive group tutorial where we showed images from the Manchester show and then the scenes from famous film with the dialogue removed. People seemed to genuinely warm to them, which was strange because for us they were only intended as an exercise but now it could be an actual work in its own right. However, it doesn’t feel as if it’s ‘enough’ to stand by itself and after a discussion we agreed it be more effective to exist within another frame. We started thinking about it as a part of a whole. Initially the several parts were the steps of a how a film gets produced and consumed; the audition, then the actual film, then the review. This didn’t quite fit because it puts a little too much emphasis on the matrix (the most recent and best quality scene with removed dialogue) as opposed to the notion of creating a story within a story and how a narrative is put forward and displayed to an audience. After considering this we went on to think about where this sort of video exists in the world and we landed on YouTube and the idea of fan made content.
The idea of how a story is told is now becoming more complex and layered. Made us think about Chinese whispers or how conspiracy videos/theories come to fruition. Therefore our final product is actually going to be in the style of a YouTube video/blog where someone is discussing watching The Matrix and seeing a scene without any dialogue which the previously thought of as being highly expository. They then go on to discuss the ‘Mandela Effect’; coined first by Fiona Broome, in reference to a false memory she reports, of the death of South African leader Nelson Mandela in the 1980s (when in fact Mandela died in 2013), which she claims is shared by "perhaps thousands" of other people. This is then consistent with the themes of The Matrix; notions of conspiracy and a general lack of trust of ‘the system’. It also plays well with the original ideas of narrative construction and how their receival is a big part of that.
Today we’ve just finished producing a script for the video and a ‘setting’ for it to exist. By setting we’re referring to the YouTube frame work; the video will be playing surrounded by the recommended videos and view count we all know and love. We’ve slotted in some additional nods to our source material too. There are 101K likes on the video because Neo lives in room 101. There are also 303K subscribers on the channel because of the opening scene where Trinity is in room 303. It’s also funny because of the fairly popular internet meme of Morpheus saying “what if I told you” which supposedly comes from the same scene and is never actually said in the film and therefore is the title of the YouTube channel. The name of the YouTuber is Fiona Johnson who is the woman in the red dress, intended to distract Neo, the profile picture is of Fiona Broome who first thought of the phrase Mandela Effect, and all the recommended videos are references to either some other Mandela Effect, the Matrix or conspiracy theories in general. All we need now is to find an actress…
Finally, we’re going more into the word for Tate Exchange in terms of documentation. This isn’t necessary for tomorrow but we’re considering devising a film where we deconstruct the items in the bag/studio in a sort of things organised neatly/Wes Anderson style thing. Either with foam that’s all cut perfectly to shape in a suitcase, or a piece of wood that’s had the lines of everything drawn onto it. We’re also considering selling the items on ebay and having the listing printed out next to the moving image work.
