Clothed In The Flow - An Aquatic Short Film

Описание: My film entitled Clothed In The Flow is a short piece that concerns a simple aesthetic of water – its beauty, wonder and the benefits of interacting with it. Consisting of three acts, perhaps distinct stanzas each holding their own descriptive aesthetic and emotions at play. Clothed In The Flow was filmed over the months of July and August 2024 across a number of different aquatic environments and with a variety of different cameras. Experimental in nature, centrally the film consists of two unsophisticated characters and many cutaway shots that aim to emphasise their internal monologues and emotions felt. It is a piece less heavy on narrative, and leans more on expressive visuals that inspire a sense of wonder and joy in the abundance of water and central role it plays in life. It is a solemn ode to swimming, mindfulness and water's natural beauty.

Meditation and enlightenment are major motifs in this piece and the transcendent nature of water is a direct parallel to inner peace. With meditation, informed by second hand accounts and of my own experience to achieve a state of being fully present is the optimal result. Water, being an integral part of human bodies and of the Earth's surface too surely can be utilised as a tool to attaining a flow state. One of my philosophical influences, the surprisingly profound Avatar: The Water of Water (2022) perfectly describes the transcendent nature of water as noted in my proposal. Bakony (1974) notes in his analysis of non-verbal symbolism that The Seventh Seal (1957) uses the ocean effectively in its opening scene to represent eternity. The ocean being an all-powerful force of nature that comprises 70% of the planet means that this body is in abundance and can be engaged with. In my film, the concept of flow is characterised quite literally and conveyed through the moving image to strike a direct parallel. Scott-Hamilton, Schutte, and Brown (2016) conducted a study on athletes engaging in mindfulness and concluded that increasing mindfulness increases flow. So there is a certain causal link between mindfulness and a flow state to be observed.

As my film developed so did the presentation, deliberated out of a desire to capture a sense of mental and spiritual progression. Wanting a unique visual language that emphasised the triumphant nature of attaining a meditative and relaxed state, I sought experimental production logic. My film is shot in total across five different cameras in total; a Doro 8100 mobile, an iPhone 11 mobile, a Panasonic mini DV camcorder, a Sony Hi-8 tape camcorder and a Black Magic 6K. These are not random - they are all intentional choices with thematic purpose behind them based off of their respective technical quality. Technical formats of the footage correspond with where the film is at on a meditative level – in the third act the viewer will witness the scenes unfolding in the best technical quality which should inspire an accomplished feeling by playing out on stark contrast to the preceding two acts. One influence in this respect was 28 Days Later (2002); this film opens being shot on a very low-grade consumer camera, one much like the Panasonic tape camcorder used in my film, and later the film switched to 35mm format.

#shortfilm #filmmaking #watersounds #relaxingvideo #experimentalfilm