Symbolism and Meaning

My story is a highly emotional tale of 2 clowns, who only have each other in this world... and crack. The clown industry is failing, children don't need clowns to entertain them anymore these days, because they have Xbox  and TV  These two clowns Figi olda and oom Koos have lost their jobs and their families, they live in wastelands and are completely addicted to crack, cocaine and heroin. Their lives have been ruined and they suffer from physchotic delusions. The breastfeeding scene is the main theme and centerpiece scene of the film.  When the 2 clowns smoke crack together, its as if they are being nourished by the crack, they enjoy it so much that they feel nourished, though ironically its ravaging them. The ultimate form of nourishment is breast milk  both the mother and baby draw comfort, safety and pleasure from this bonding process. So this is the metaphor and the reasoning behind all their drug abuse. Also some of the voice clips are from the clowns childhoods, of how their parents abused them, shouted at them and tried to force them to become lawyers and doctors. They came from pushy loveless homes, which ruined their psyches forever.

The disorientating shots and editing techniques symbolize the way the clowns feel when they smoke crack, disorientated and 'totally tripping balls'.

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Filming process

I filmed my opening sequence with 2 cameras, a go pro hero 3 and a Sony DSC-RX100

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 I had the go pro first, and it doesn't have a screen to see what your filming, so i had to use an adapter which drains the already short battery life. Me and my brother traveled to Deptford, we met our friend Drew, i put makeup and costumes on them both, i also dressed up for fun. We walked to a place we call the wastelands, it is an entire council/gypsy estate which has been abandoned and left to rot. We filmed in there because it was the perfect mise en scene for the crackheads to be, dirty, abandoned, dark and in the middle of London  We filmed for a limited time because of the battery. We also filmed in a children s play park, but i decided not to use that footage because it didn't go with the feel of the film. Then we went back to Drew's house to charge up and wait for darkness to fall. We then went out again, to the streets to film the night scenes. We filmed in lonely alleyways and on the Deptford anchor, which was Deptford s main attraction and the heart of Deptford.

After i went home and started editing, i noticed that it lacked an important scene, the metaphor of the story. It was the film where Drew breastfeeds my brother in masks and different costumes. So a few weeks later we went back to Deptford to film the centerpiece scene. I decided that we should shoot it in Drew's house, on his toilet, as it was a step up from the wastelands, and the scene is supposed to represent comfort, and i think a toilet is one of the ultimate comforts people have, but it is taken for granted as we see it as a normal part of our lives. I had made long saggy latex nipples, which i latexed to Drew's hairy chest. I filmed lots of the footage while violently shaking the camera to give it a trippy, disorientating feel.
In the first 2 scenes, i spray painted OOM KOOS on the floor, and FIGI OLDA on a wall, these are meant to be the actors names, the shot moves a bit too fast, so if you don't know that they are there you might miss them. However i like the speed of the shots, otherwise they would be too long.

The filming was then complete.

Editing Process

I edited my video in adobe after effects- premier pro. It was the first time that i had used this software, but after testing it for a while, i found it quite easy to use. The over all editing process happened over a space of 5 weeks. I decided not to use hip hop montages and many of my initial ideas, but i am very happy with the outcome. There were many times when i thought that it wasn't working and that it looked more like a trailer, and that the footage was not good enough, but i managed to pull it together. I used high contrast, low brightness, saturation and hugh throughout, to give it a cold, dark phsycadelic, trashy feel. I also put colour gamma changes throughout and radial spins on the violent shake scenes to make them even more disorientating. I added quick subliminal flashes of photos and videos i took, and the breastfeeding scene throughout. Finally i overlayed an old film dust and scratch effect over the whole thing, and added the titles and editing was complete.

Making the soundtrack

As we are not allowed to use copyrighted music, and the uncopyrighted music is inappropriate for my style, i decided i would make my own track. My friend Sam is a really talented musician, me and my brother went to his studio to make the soundtrack. I wanted it to have a trashy clown, dark, eerie and morbid feel to it, we made it on cube base  with electronic sounds. We made the base beat with drum, bass and synth software. We then overlayed a record crackle and played tunes on the keyboards with different effects on the notes and cut and looped them together to make the main body of the track. We also pitch bended the track and set the tempo. When i layed it over the film, it was good, but not good enough. It was lacking in depth and emotion, so i reset the pitch and the tempo, my band of me and my brother played some slow low pitched tones on our instruments. I recorded it and layed it over the first track, i pitch bended it and this made the track perfect. I also recorded my brother speaking a monologue which is telling the story, voice clips of the clowns past, and more manic laughing, which completed the soundtrack.

Behind the scenes

These are some photos i took of the mise en scene, and of my actors, unfortunately at the time, i didn't have a proper camera, and i couldn't use the GoPro because i had to save battery life for filming, so the quality isn't the best.