SYNOPSIS
Women's Work is a documentary which explores the subject of domestic labour. Testimonies from a small group of Merseyside women paint a picture of the gender imbalance in household responsibilities. Visually, the film features mixed media animations along with tender accompanying footage.
influence & methods
I made this film independently for my university thesis; taking on every aspect of production myself. My initial influence for this film was my own mother, who has expressed regret that she wasn't a 'good feminist role model' due to her decision to stay at home over pursuing a career. I personally resent this view, and wanted to make a film that pays homage to all the women who dedicate much of their lives to this 'invisible' work.
I developed my own mixed media filmmaking methodology for the animation elements of this film. Filming in 12fps in a studio provided me with raw footage, which I then edited & colour graded. I then printed out each frame as individual images and used paint, crayons & collaging on the footage. I then scanned the frames back in & cut them together in AfterEffects to create animations. This process is very time-consuming, but I think the results are so fun & often unpredictable, and it adds a fine-art element to my work. The repetition of the animations throughout the film also serve as an inadvertent visual metaphor for the monotonous nature of household chores.
Watch Women's Work here: https://youtu.be/YXqhiQJXQgk
