B&W Bananas

While filming we learned that St. Lucian violence can be traced to its history as a colony of plantation systems. In order to illustrate this aspect of Caribbean history, we're looking into archive video footage to supplement our doc. I've had luck with the Prelinger Archives, the Kino Library, and Travel Film Archive thus far. What makes the search process difficult is the lack of tags attached to some videos, which renders them impossible to find without looking through droves and droves. What makes it cool is how eccentric and obscure the found footage involved can be.

One of my favorites is this video, "About Bananas," which is a silent black&white film about, well, bananas. See here: https://archive.org/details/AboutBan1935

Banana export was St. Lucia's largest source of income until recently, when shifts away from St. Lucia in the international trade put local banana growers out of work. Instead of being able to make a living on their land with their family, many Lucians now have to commute to work at the island's many tourist resorts, resulting in time away from home, money spent on transportation, children being left unsupervised, etc. This is one example of a riff that history has torn through St. Lucia and something we're going to work very carefully--with the help of archive footage--to visually explain.

Evoking Warm Weather With Color

Animal Collective's music video for "FloriDada" is a technicolor ode to the Sunshine State. It mixes the palette of resort wear with the nonsensical nature of Dadaism for a really bizarre, uncomfortable, but compelling four minutes. I actually didn't like this song until watching its music video, which is a testament to the influence of visuals--specifically, in this case, color--on a project's reception.

From what I have seen of Saint Lucia, it is colorful in the same beachy way as Florida: hillsides of pastel-painted shacks, blue waters, light sand. Just as they do above for "FloriDada," these colors convey the mood of the place; they communicate its warmth, its vegetation, its landscape. I think it is not only appropriate but imperative, in order to establish and characterize the setting, to douse the frame with the colors of the land.

boats docked in Saint Lucia

houses in Saint Lucia

We are going to scout out colorful locations for wide shots once we arrive. I have also contacted an illustrator already with the hopes she can create whimsical, animated designs for our marketing materials and/or title card(s). I think the use of color and of graphic design will help even out the darker heaviness that our subject matter is bound to carry into this film.

the opening shot of "FloriDada"-- especially colorful!