Karolina's Research Blog

I watched a TED talk about someone's experience as an immigrant in the US. Many points that he made interested me and allowed me to think more deeply about the questions I would want to ask the person I will be interviewing. It also allowed me to think about the topic of my interview, a bit less general as the topic of immigration is. It helped me decide that I want to know about someone's experiences rather than discussing the political side of it with statistics and other known facts. He talks about the kind of prejudice people have about immigrants, and the source of this hatred. He talks about that the reason people don't want immigrants in their country is because they fear that it would change their way of life. Many people call the US the greatest nation in the world, however statistics showed that not as much people would want to relocate there as Americans think. He later on talks about his experience of being an immigrant, an illegal one at that. He que...

 Here is an extract from the book Immigration written by Ilan Stavans . The part that interested me most was this part: "While on the surface these developments of political incorporation seem to reflect patterns of Americanization among earlier European immigrant groups to the United States, this is a decidedly ambivalent Americanism borne of racial tension and antiforeign sentiment. One 1994 statewide poll in California found that 25 percent of immigrants in the state personally feared discrimination and violence directed at them by virtue of looking foreign. As sociologist Rubén Rumbaut has put it, “the moral of the story is we reap what we sow. When you welcome people to a community, you encourage them to feel they matter and that they have a stake here. But if you sow hate, you’ll reap the products of hate.” This showed me that many immigrants fear discrimination and violence, and showed me that not a lot has improved since 1994, as people still fear these ...

https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2019/01/25/donald-trump-government-shutdown-border-wall-mexico-pay-immigrants-republican-democratic-drugs/2671514002/ This article looks at immigration and the stigma against it in the US. It debunks all the points the president, Trump, has made against immigration and immigrants, and shows how his points against it don't make much sense. It talks about the wall that president Trump wanted to build on the border of Mexico to stop immigration and drugs from entering the US, however the author of the article said that illegal activity cannot be stopped by the wall and that it is just an excuse for Trump to want to build the wall. This article was useful to read as I saw how baseless Trump's plans and actions of discrimination are and in my opinion, is just excuses for his racism. This inspired me to think about the unjust prejudice against immigration and advanced my interest in interviewing someone who has had...

https://theconversation.com/how-brexit-is-making-young-eastern-europeans-in-the-uk-fear-for-their-future-98929 This once again is an article about Brexit as it has been heavily linked with the topic of immigration. The article is about how Eastern Europeans feel about this situation of the UK wanting to leave the EU. Eastern European youth was interviewed about their future, and they all really fear Brexit as they don't know what it will bring for them, whether they have to be separated from their families or if they have to move away to another country. This article raised the issue of the effect racism and xenophobia can have on lives. Many talked about being uncomfortable within their environment because of the fear of xenophobia, and that they didn't know where they belong. Belonging is part of identity, so to not know where one belongs can be negatively impactful on someone life, especially as young as the interviewees. I myself identify with them, as I am unsure of my f...

For my first bit of research, I had looked at some articles about immigration and read some that I found interesting. https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1077411/brexit-news-immigration-eu-immigration-migrant-crisis-survey-ipsos-mori I know that a lot of people have a very negative view on immigration and immigrants, so this article immediately interested me. The article discusses how ever since the Brexit referendum happened, many people worry much less about immigration and some even think that it's a good thing. The article was interesting to read as I learnt how many people changed their minds about immigration, because not just in the UK, but all around the world, many people are not accepting of immigrants and view it negatively. This made me think about how hard it is for someone to restart their life in a new country because of having to leave their country of origin for different reasons, and how many who are against immigration and view immigrants as negative, don't...

For the topic of my research and interview, I had chosen immigration as I was interested in identity. I had brainstormed about identity as I was interested in this topic. I got my interest from my previous project, as one of the short films I looked at for inspiration was about homesickness. I thought about home, and origins, then I thought about how these are part of our identities. So I wrote the word identity down and came up with key words that I associate with identity. Then I also started thinking about my own identity as I wanted this project to be personal to me. As I finished brainstorming about my own identity, I had decided to focus where I came from. From which I got to the topic of immigration. 

From this point onwards, because I had started a new project, will be about the 2nd project that I am doing this year. This will consist of 2 parts: doing an interview with someone that has a unique story to tell, and then creating a short film, embarking on the ideas that I get from the interview and research process.

Here's another article I looked at in terms of the we are always being watched topic. Article - Hennesey, M. 2018. Siri, Why Do I Feel Like I'm Being Watched? WSJ. https://www.wsj.com/articles/siri-why-do-i-feel-like-im-being-watched-1533935861 This article talks about someone's experience of having a virtual assistant. The author says that we can "kiss our privacy goodbye" because of such inventions, since they are always listening, like the time the parents had doll houses and toys delivered to their house after their daughter had talked to their virtual assistant, which bought the things she had told it to buy. This article made me think about how much we really don't have privacy and it gives many people, including myself sometimes, a sense of paranoia because we know that we are being listened to by virtual assistants, and there is a possibility that we are being watched through the cameras of our personal devices such as laptops and phones, and also...

I talked to others about their ideas, and because I was a little bit stuck with my own idea, I decided to group up with someone who was doing a short film about surveillance and the theme of how in this modern age, we are always being watched. So I decided to do some research on this topic as well to get a better understanding. Article - Stone, B. 2017. Is Alexa Really Eavesdropping on You? Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/technology This article discusses a topic that is often questioned ever since virtual assistants were developed. The one invented by Amazon, called Alexa, was suspected to be sending data to the government after people asked the virtual assistant whether it's working for the government and sending them information about the user. The answer gave many people suspicions as it took a longer time to answer their question. Many videos were uploaded onto YouTube about this issue and conspiracy theories about virtual assistants were also becoming more popular...

The story of this short film (if there is such a thing) is quite unrelated to the story I am going to attempt to tell, however, I really like the aesthetics and composition of shots in it. The slow motion is also something that I feel looks quite interesting, which I will try to do with some of my shots. The lighting is also something that I find nice, and for shots at night, I will use as much given light as possible and not use my own light to give it a more realistic feel. I have also noticed for most of the short, the camera is hand held, which adds to the feel that we are watching the subjects with our own eyes. I think that is a great technique to make the audience feel more involved, and more part of the film. 

This short film caught my attention because I wanted to explore the idea of homesickness and nostalgia in my own short. I feel like this one, called Homesick, has really showed how I wanted my main character to feel like. In the end, the character of Homesick realises that she has to move on and that it's better to think about the new opportunities that arise with moving away from home, rather than thinking about how much she wants to go back. I want to give my character the same kind of way of looking at things and present them as trying to have a positive outlook on life. 

I didn't only want to look at articles but also short films for inspiration and to get an idea of what I want my short film to look like.  This first one is possibly one of my biggest inspirations. The short film was made because the creator learned that his parents were moving out of his childhood home, where the parents lived for over 20 years. I can relate to my own idea as the main character of mine has just moved out of his childhood home of 18 years and is starting a new life in a different place. From this, I understood how hard it is to move away from somewhere that you spent most of your life in, and how hard it is to let go of the memories that make someone want to stay living there for a longer time. I have my own experience, but it has been a couple of years since I moved away from my childhood home, so this was a good reminder for me that it can be very difficult to say goodbye to such a big and important part of our lives. I really like how this short looks,...

Article - Burdick, A. (2016) Why I'm Nostalgic For Decades I've Never Lived In. The Odyssey. https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-im-nostalgic-for-decades-ive-never-lived-in I felt that it was important to see someone's point of view and not just look at nostalgia from a neutral view. I wanted to see why someone might feel nostalgia that was not caused by the music they grew up on. The author of the article wants to go back to the 1920s, which has most likely been a longer time before their parents were born, therefore it is most likely that they feel nostalgia towards it because of recent trends in fashion, and the way life used to be before many technology advancements that we live with today. The author does seem to realise that those times were much worse equality wise but still feel a certain fondness towards the culture, such as music, tv, fashion, etc. This helped me in thinking about nostalgia more, and thinking about my approach to the main character of my film...

Article - Hamer, A. (2017) There Are 2 Different Types of Nostalgia. Curiousity.com https://curiosity.com/topics/there-are-two-types-of-nostalgia-which-do-you-feel-curiosity/ This article talks about 2 different types of nostalgia. I read this article as I wanted to know what kinds of nostalgia there are, as even though I knew there was more than one type from experience, I didn't know if this was scientifically proven. The 2 types of nostalgia identified are restorative and reflective. Restorative means our brain wants us to recreate the situation we feel nostalgic for, forgetting about the bad parts, while reflective means that we realise that it wasn't all nice, but we still miss how things were at that time. I felt like what I wanted my character in my film to be like is the latter, him not trying to go back to how things were, but reminiscing fondly of how his life used to be.

Because it was such a prominent thing in the theme of my film, I decided to research the topic of nostalgia. I found many things that interested me a lot. They also helped me develop ideas for my film. I thought that by researching nostalgia, I would be able to find a reason why we feel it and the case of having a sense of nostalgia towards a time that we didn't live through ourselves. Article  - Marantz Henig, R. (2013)  Nostalgia for a Time You Didn't Know. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/cusp/201309/nostalgia-time-you-didnt-know This article is about the nostalgia I think we all feel, the type of nostalgia that perhaps doesn't make quite a lot of sense, as we haven't lived through that time which we feel the nostalgia for. It seems many feel similarly about this. The author of the article discussed that we often feel nostalgic for the music that was being played throughout our very early years of life, and this could mean that we feel ...

Because I of course would not be able to do both of my ideas, I had to choose one. I liked both ideas, however, I feel like that in the amount of time that I have for the completion of this project, it wouldn't be ideal to make a documentary, as it would probably be much longer than what is required and allowed. So because of these reasons, I decided that I will go with my experimental film idea. This is the presentation that I have done to pitch the idea to the class. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/16z8i2J87tlhhtIMhd3WiC8UeuAt8B7ctVbSxqY8Q9nE/edit?usp=sharing

This week I visited the Tate Modern for ideas, as I know seeing other people's artwork can be inspiring as Tate has moving images on their exhibitions too, and seeing those might inspire me, as well as non-film based pieces that could help me in figuring out how I would want my film to look, considering colour and negative space in shots. The purpose of my visit was to see Christian Marclay's 24-hour film The Clock, however unfortunately, I was unable to get in. Because of this, I have decided to visit other exhibitions to make use of my visit.  Exhibitions I visited: (click photos for full size) Jenny Holzer's artist rooms Living cities Media networks Magic Realism Materials and objects Start displays In the studio This exhibition was one of my favourites as there was a lot of poetic elements in the works on show. I really liked the colours the LED lights created and it inspired me a lot in how I would want my film to look like if I ...

Because I knew my second idea would be a documentary, I started looking into Louis Theroux's work (ones that I have not seen in the past) and found that he had made a documentary film about Scientology. I have decided to watch it because I felt it was important to look at a documentary, and the fact that it was about this topic was really helpful. The name of the film is My Scientology Movie. The film consists of many reconstructions of scenarios that had happened to a former member of the church, Mark Rathbun, as well as others. Louis Theroux also visits the California Scientology base, and the church puts the film crew and Theroux under surveillance to make sure they are no trouble. However, there is a lot of confrontation as the church members try to stop them.  It was useful to get sort of an inside view of the "Gold Base" in California. It showed the type of behaviour church officials exhibit and how protective they are of their reputation, trying to sto...

As I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do with the previous idea yet, I decided to come up with a "Plan B", or another idea that I was also interested in doing. This idea came from when I went to the Tate (which I will be posting more about soon) and passed the building of the Church of Scientology of London while walking to the museum. This sparked up thoughts in my head about a potential documentary about Scientology. I have always been sort of fascinated of how the whole church works and all of the bad, some would say controversial, things that are said about it. I started researching about the current leader of the church, David Miscavige, and found that his father, Ron Miscavige had quit the church because of the things that went on behind the scenes, in his experience, at the American headquarters. I listened to a podcast interview with Ron Miscavige, which was more than an hour long, and there was quite a lot of information in that. They talked about many th...

I have been given the task to find an article, book or something that could help me start coming up with ideas. Of course the point of this wasn't to immediately have an exact idea of what I want to do, but rather just to help me start a thought process. Before I started looking for something that could be interesting, I thought about what I should do research about that could inspire me. As I have recently gone to the cinema to watch Bohemian Rhapsody (dir: Bryan Singer; 2018) and I really enjoyed the film, as well as the topic, Freddie Mercury and Queen, interested me, I decided to think about ideas that would be interesting in a film. I didn't want to be too specific to Queen and Mercury, so I thought about doing research into 80s groups and pop culture, however the results on Google about this didn't interest me too much, so I decided to go back to Queen. I was really interested in why people thought they were so great, and different opinions by people who actually ...