My Memento

My chosen physical memento for this project is a necklace. It was supposed to be given to my 'girlfriend' on Valentines Day 2020, however I never got to give it to her. We both loved one another deeply and I thought it was a gift that would be special to her and make her smile. The necklace was a special personalised gift, which had an orb where when you shone light into it, it read, 'I love you' in 100 different languages. It's something we always said to each other, and I knew that if I could somehow give it to her it would mean the world to her.

Link to necklace: https://www.namenecklace.com/collections/100-languages-says-i-love-you

Backstory

To me a memento is an object that carries value such as memories and nostalgia, and this necklace I think was a powerful symbol of what we had. Her love for me was real, she really cared about me, yet it was definitely not without its flaws. She grew up in a rather dysfunctional family which affected her mental health as well as the way she learns to love; the only love she'd ever known was something that made her feel lonely and unloved - more like a people pleaser.

As in she would only ever receive love if she did something to make the person she loves happy, which of course isn't right. She became a wholly empathetic and caring person to me, especially despite her upbringing, with a big heart, and that's why there is a part of me that will always care about her. I could write a lot about our ups and downs, highs and lows, but in the end I had to leave. We were no good for each other. She became really fixed on me, obsessed with me, to the point where everything I did had a huge impact on what she felt, which of course is not healthy.

Project

The necklace above formed the basis for my Memento Prokect. When I first heard about this project, the memento project, I instantly knew that this would be what I would use, as obviously it carries lots of meaning and represents what we had and how we cared about each other.

To tell the truth, I spent much of the allocated time for the project (specifically 2 out of the 3 weeks) trying to come up with an idea for the necklace as the basis of something I would produce. Admittedly it was very disorganised on my part, but as a creative individual this is what often happens. I find it difficult to work within a fixed period of time. I found this really challenging and I tried as much as I could to form an idea for something I could make in relation to the necklace. Considering I am going on a degree course for TV & Film Production at Maidstone TV Studios, I wanted it to be something watchable, yet meaningful.

I eventually settled on an idea for a short music video as a personal project. My idea was it would be of me performing a song we both loved (Star Shopping - Lil Peep) as well as an extra song by the same artist as she loved his music like a mashup, with symbolic tokens (the main one being the necklace) etc. It would also require me as well as doing the filming, recording the audio for the cover song as well, which was rather demanding for just one person but I was sure it would be brilliant at the end.