Film - Spoilers - Dissertation

Please watch this film with the sound turned up and if possible in darkness.  Watching alone should be considered also.  Hope you enjoy it.

Spoilers:

Here are a few of the ideas and thoughts that make up the 'visual metaphors' in the mise-en-scene in Ghosts in the Machine.  Ideally, you should watch the film first, have a think on what you thought things meant and then refer to this list.  This list is not comprehensive as understanding the subconscious thoughts of how or why I intended some of what isn't accounted for maybe a mystery, it may eventually come to me, it may not.  I just hope my film and what was intended can be understood and if you draw your own personal conclusions then I have succeeded in a film with interaction from director to audience.

• The Pocket Watch refers to Hypnotism, not a direct symbol as it appears only to be spinning.  The Audio of the clock tick gives an impression of the pocket watch swinging.  What you see doesn't match what you hear
• The repetitive ticking can be associated with binaural beats, a process of repetitive sounds (or even visuals) that can put the mind into trance
• The Shakespeare quote is from The Tempest where Prospero conjures up spirits to entertain in a play.  These lines bring forth the idea of dreams and sleep, what is before and what is after life, but also gives the feel of about to drift into sleep/hypnosis/hallucination
• The movement through the pocket watch - the vision starts off abstract, giving the sense of confusion and then pulling out to reveal what the mind can recognise
• The spinning and movement of the pocket watch completing the confusion and unbalance before heading into the mind
• The Ship represents the vessel in which we travel, the sea can be calm and it can also be stormy.  The lack of movement in the ship is again to carry the unease through but to create the sense of motion the waves are given the lighting effect.  The waves and their apparent movement represent the information that travels through our subconscious every second (more information on this concept can be found in the dissertation), the ship ploughs through them
• The Victorian Captain is the self.  He stands firm and proud on the outside, manning his ship steady on it's course, but the journey continues inside him
• The seated Captain, is drawn from the testing of psychics and the mentally ill of the period, who endured some horrific treatment (also inspiration took from Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange with the "curing" of Alex). It's as if the Captain is also sitting in judgement from himself.  The textures in the Captain start off on both sides, as camera moves round one side becomes empty.  This represents the two sides of a personality, or the inner and outer self in confliction.
• The two Captains - One part of him stands firm but the second self is on his knees as if knowing the fate ahead.  The camera movement was to make it appear as if the Captain had dropped to his knees - the shadowing as if to re-align the two once more but the separation is too late.  The kneeling Captain is made of empty glass, no textures were applied, all that is seen is the reflection from the standing Captain.
• The Darkness eats away - The heads of the two Captains move to look up as if looking for one last hope from their faith/belief.  This draws back to the movement of Spiritualism that took many people's faith away from Religion at the time, it makes me wonder if at the very last point that people would suddenly revert back.  The lighting suggest the 'God' beams and as the darkness rises a vague 'Cross' of faith appears before they are completely engulfed.  The darkness represents the edge of the abyss in the mind that everyone could fall into and the danger of getting too close.
• The pocket watch brings us back out to reality again.  The sound of the clock is given a wooden effect as if keeping us grounded, like a lifeline from our own abyss.
• All models are given the material of glass, this is due to the thought that the mind is a fragile thing, but also glass has wonderful visual properties.  Glass can bend and distort light, therefore playing on the idea again that you shouldn't believe all that you see.

These are just a few of the visual metaphors that manifested in my mind and out to my conscious.  For more thoughts I will add my dissertation as this may shed more light onto facts and conclusions I came to throughout this project.


Final thought:

Don't believe everything you see or hear, perspective can be altered - might be wiser to follow your intuition.