Exploring Alternatives –
In my Film Production blog, I talked about how unhappy I was with my first film. Things haven’t got any easier. I still feel very poorly, but the perfectionist in me is not prepared to let this go. I absolutely ‘hate’ the first version of my film now! Unfortunately, I just seem to have such a severe creative block at the moment. One of the greatest challenges I faced was trying to come up with yet another script! At one point I thought ‘oh stuff it’ I’ll just stick with what I’ve done. However I just couldn’t do that. I went to bed feeling pretty ill and pretty down.
They say that sometimes when you are facing a problem, your brain will help you to work things out while you are asleep. Last week in my state of feeling so down ‘my brain, my subconscious the universe, god’ or call it what you like came to the rescue overnight while asleep!
I’d long been aware of the concept of ‘The Eight Day’. In some theological interpretations, the “Eighth Day” symbolises the day of resurrection or the eternal Sabbath, representing a new beginning or a time beyond the constraints of earthly existence. This concept is derived from the Jewish tradition, where the seventh day (Sabbath) is followed by an eighth day, signifying a transition to a new creation or a time outside of ordinary time. I felt the concept of an eighth day would tie in very nicely with the advent of AI and humanoid robots.
The concept of an ‘Eighth Day’ resurfaced when I woke up one morning last week and my first thought was ‘Eighth Day’, a song by the artist Hazel O’Connor and sung by her in the film ‘Breaking Glass’. It was one of my favourite songs from the eighties. Who knows maybe this whole biblical concept of an ‘Eighth Day’ has actually been subconsciously and secretly influencing me all this time, but I didn’t consciously realise it? What this memory did however, was show me how the old biblical concept of an ‘Eighth Day’ could be an apt approach for the narrative for my video.
O’connor’s uses the term to describe how man meddles too much. Ultimately, man builds machines and robots as slaves, but unfortunately things go horribly wrong. The robots get upset and on the eighth day it contributes to man’s ultimate demise. Looking back I think the song was well ahead of its time, particularly in light of what we are witnessing today. A person only need turn on the television and we see the horrors of what man is doing to the earth. We are in the midst of a climate crisis, coupled with the rise of robots and AI. Indeed, in my opinion we are entering a perfect storm!
Hazel O’Connor Eighth Day
I felt that weaving the old biblical concept of an eighth day into my film’s narrative would help highlight the brave new world or alternative realm that we are currently entering.
Taking Inspiration from the Biblical Term Eighth Day
My mobile is all about addressing the balance of power (hence a mobile) between the hidden humanity behind the algorithms and the rise of technology – ‘Unity in Bits’ vs Unity in Bits and Bytes’. Therefore, I wondered if I could take some inspiration from the ‘Eighth Day’ in the context of an unknown new beginning or a march towards an alternative existence. An evolution perhaps? I felt that an ‘Eighth Day’ style narrative was a perfect fit in terms of what I was trying to achieve.
Sadly I’m no poet, so I needed help. I embarked on a joint human and ChatGPT venture to construct a form of words to express our gradual descent into a very dark place.
Below is a complete reworking of my video. Some clips are still missing but as I’ve got a tutorial coming up, I thought it was probably better to show something even if it is still at a conceptual stage.
The Balance of Power (Concept II Unfinished)
Even if I’ve achieved nothing else with the reworking of my film, I have gained a lot of knowledge about sound and it’s importance. I am so much happier with the quality of sound on this video. There are some clips missing but I am waiting for my printed book to arrive so that I can film this. I think it is also important that I add some kind of text to explain how my work in the first half of the video was an attempt to resolve the question of AI art (I was using it in a 2d manner). The second half shows how I move from digital to a mix of physical, digital and AI. Part one of the video is resolving and part 2 is evolving. If there is no explanation of this, I feel the viewer could be left wondering why they are seeing what they are seeing. There’s still a lot of work to do!
I think the duvet trick mentioned in my Film Production blog, worked ‘like a charm’. I hope you agree that the sound quality is much improved? I also spent hours choosing the background music – I want the music to be sad yet at the same time hopeful. For the purposes of comparison the first version of the film can be found here. I’m just sooooo tired now.