‘I own my body, my body isn’t a political playground, it’s not a place for legislation, it’s mine, it’s my future.’ – Samirah Raheem
The CTS part of the course has greatly influenced my work as I have chosen to base my work for this on the concepts I am discussing in my main animation project. With my video essay I chose to base it on the interview Earth Kitt did on compromise, her passionate response to when the interviewer asks her whether she would change herself and her life in order to accommodate a man aided in fuelling my own passion for the feminist dialogue. Eartha Kitt is such a strong woman who is so comfortable in expressing herself and her sexuality and can provide a strong voice and undercurrent for my video essay. Therefore by using a film of her performing Santa Baby and the interview I managed to create the basic structure and narrative for my video essay. I began with using her interview on compromise and layered clips ontop of this all about the issues women are facing today, such as footage from the Sarah Everard vigil in Clapham. Being at the vigil ignited a deep passion within me, the evening was extremely emotional and felt by every single woman there. I went through many visual news sites and collected clips from women’s rights protests and placed them in when Kitt is talking about not compromising for men. This more serious first half presents the problems across the whole world that women face on a day to day basis for just being a woman, recognising the worldwide demands for equality and women’s safety. The piece then transitions into clips of empowered women who are pushing back and leading us in the feminist dialogue, this is accompanied by Kitt’s sultry rendition of Santa Baby which is joyful and with the clips placed to work with the audio creates a positive empowering atmopshere. Here is the final outcome.
Creating this video essay aided in creating questions in my own mind and aided in connecting the piece to a wider group of people around the world. It has helped me understand the bigger picture and that so many women face so many prejudices that take control of their lives no matter their own opinions and emotions. This has helped provide a drive to my work and ignited the fire within me in order to create an animated piece which is able to hold as much weight as these issues whilst still staying relaxing and positive. Working with these clips has also helped me develop my visual storytelling techniques and communicating a dialogue without physically wording it. By connecting and cropping clips at the right time and ordering them in the most effective manner I am able to visually suggest a narrative by creating a natural flow between the pieces.