Catharine Hoch BFA Intermedia Thesis Fall 2013
Through the Lens of Hollywood: the Ideal American Man vs. the Real American Man.
ORENDA, is a 2 channel experiemental video essay. Two channels means it contained two different videos, playing simultaneously interacting with one-another. The two videos can collapse into a 15-minute single channel film. In this film, I depict 5 different twenty year olds living in Portland, Oregon. Each individual has lost, or is lusting after someone they love. This piece was a portrait of the way I fall in love, and how each one of these individuals craves this immediacy for love. Each individual substitutes love with drugs, music, affection or illegal activities. I wrote this paper because I am fascinated about the feeling of love and the vulnerable moments when they are displayed on screen in an installation. The types of shots that were taken were close-ups, and very intimate discussions. Occasionally, each screen would show two different individuals inter acting with each other. These screens were on display for the audience, so that the audience could also experience how they substitute this emotion with illegal activity. Scenes like these are heavily influenced in contemporary cinema as well as experimental video, and I wanted to research why America particularly has such a fetish for Romance. This exploration turned into a research paper about the ideal and real American male character type and how they fit into society. How both characters learn to love and live influenced my thesis project.