ten_objects

Shooting Process

One thing I have learned from the experience of filming video/photography for time-based communication is the innovation and experimentation that is involved to achieve a desired shot. For instance, for my last project, I envisioned a plan shot of the top of my head as I am spinning around in circles. It was easy enough to imagine it, but when it came time to begin filming, I realized it would be a challenge to position the camera in such a way as to capture the shot.

While brainstorming possible ways to do it, I began to explore my house for things that would help me achieve my goal with the least possible effort. I realized I would have to mount the camera to the ceiling somehow, and didn’t want to drill any holes in the ceiling or make a large mess.

First I thought of hanging the camera from a light fixture, by tying it on the light with a rope. However while trying this out, the fixture seemed to be a little fragile and I ceased the process because the chances of breaking the fixture were high. Then, after some more searching, I found was there were already some hooks in the ceiling for holding plants, in my upstairs hallway. The hooks were certainly sturdier than the light fixture, and the hallway ceiling was also higher than the one in the bedroom where the fixture was, which would give me a wider shot, which was desirable. I successfully hung the camera from the ceiling hook, and realized then that the preview screen on the camera could be turned to face me, and this made it so much easier to move the camera to an angle from which I envisoned the shot.

Another aspect that made the process easier was the camera’s remote control. Rather than having to climb the chair to press the record button (and gain un-necessary footage of the set-up) I could just press the record button on the remote and instantly start spinning below the camera. Once finished, the shot had to be re-done several times, however the little technical helpers such as the remote control and the turning preview screen definitely hastened the filming process.

www.crushinc.com

(Click the Arte en Construccion Video).

The opening video for a mexican television channel, Arte en Construccion, is done with simple materials but the way in which it is filmed creates a poetic feeling and is visually interesting.

The use of focus transitions throughout the film gives it an obscure, mysterious quality that is in concord with the nature of what it is trying to represent: art. Furthermore,  the materials used are pretty banal (metal wires and pink string). Obscuring their banality with shifting focus is more successful than capturing them literally.

The camera’s spinning motion happens throughout the film and unifies it graphically. The metal wires and pink string also unify the film, particularly about a quarter of the way into it where the stop motion technique allows the pink string to slither its way through the short metal wires, almost like a snake through the grass.  The nature metaphor is sustained in the following part where the “grass” of wires gets taller; then the camera fills with this grass so the viewer feels as if they are in a forest.

Halfway through the video the nature metaphor is interrupted as the viewer sees a blurred sillhouette of two hands that hold some sort of webbed craft-object, reminding the viewer that this video is actually about human-made cultural objects. In the following moments, the webbed metaphor continues as the camera spins around an object suspended by wire-webs and covered in pink string. The pink string seems to symbolize the human touch throughout all of this.

Near the end there are wider shots of the wire/string work space (echoing the beginning) and the video finishes with a stop motion of the word ARTE being constructed with the same stop-motion of growing wires and string as took place during the nature metaphor phase as mentioned earlier. The built form matches the digital type which fades in and superimposes it.

The soundtrack  featured a peculiar sound made by string-instruments, that worked well with the images of the growing grass. The rhythm also worked with the winding snake and kept the pace of the video upbeat and interesting.

Overall I think this is video shows how simple materials combined with interesting camera movement (focus shift, spinning direction, variety in closeups/medium shots), stop motion animation, and an interesting instrumental soundtrack, can create a beautiful time-based piece.

Cold Waves Documentary Trailer – Cinematic Observations

Cold Waves (2007) is a documentary directed by Alexandru Solomon, and was recently featured at the Toronto-Romanian Film Festival.

The trailer combines many different types of footage to give a peek at the full-length documentary. There is a variety in range of motion in the piece, but dominantly there seems to be the use of panning to the left. The trailer actually starts off with this element, a sped-up pan of a man listening to the radio, split screened with what appears to be an image of an old radio (which also appears on the screen with a wipe to the left.)

In the following couple of seconds, the radio waves (again moving to the left) and the superimposed cuts of x-rays are in concord with each other because of their transparent, blue-green, visual style and technological connotations. (The x-rays might not seem to have anything to do with radio, but the full-length film documents a conspiracy, in which communists in Romania were said to have poisoned members of the Radio Free Europe with radioactive substances.)

Another very interesting visual element is the spinning podium with the red blanket, on which a microphone spins while a male says, in Romanian, “This is the Europe Free Radio.” This red spinning table is used several times throughout the actual documentary, and each time something different is placed upon it. For instance, when the narration describes the poverty in Romania and scarcity of food during the communist regime, instead of the microphone there spins a plate of chicken heads, which were some of the few meat items that Romanians had access to during the regime.

This spinning table element creates and abstract mind-space for the viewer; it is reminiscent of a spinning desert rack at bakerys, basically a device used to show off something interesting to the viewers. The centrality of it within the frame, the lack of other elements which might distract the eye, the use of the red blanket, all draw the viewer’s eye to what is on the spinning table. As opposed to static mediums of photography and painting, the time-based medium of film allows the object on the table to be spun so the viewer can see multiple dimensions of it.

This is something that I could potentially use in my own time-based work, would I want to draw the viewer’s attention to something in particular in a kind of surrealist way.

My third version of the countdown.

This new rough cut was an experiment with light.

One thing I realized after I viewed the finished product was that the numbers are too jumpy; the composition changes with each new number and that disorients the viewer, esp. with such quick cuts. For the final I think I will keep the position the same but vary the ways in which the numbers are projected through light.

Split screen idea might be too confusing: have a greater focus on one part of it so that our eyes know where to go. If you want the audience to read what’s written in the journal on the bottom part of the screen, make writing more prominent. However, timing might be too fast for audience to read anything (esp. if pages are being flipped) so consider other options.

From Franci:

Flip-book idea has potential. However, split screen might not work: two ideas being forced together. Consider animation with flip-book. Or, with light-writing idea, consider materiality of the light medium: the texture of it, the temporality of it, etc.

Once finished the sounds exercise, I found it conceptually challenging to select appropriate imagery that would accompany my soundscape. I went downtown and took many photos, and combined them into a rough cut that was critiqued to be as literal as my soundscape. It was suggested that I include more abstract imagery, so I tried to do that at the beginning with the abstract arms of the baby, and also at the end in the wedding march, where I did continuous shooting of a fountain as I tilted up. My rationale was that the beginning stages of life were the most abstract and blurry, when one is young, but when you get older things become much more literal and concrete. After presenting my final it was suggested through critique that the whole composition could have had more abstraction throughout it, it would have made it much more interesting. And I agree with that, it would have made a nice contrast to the literal soundscape. I will try to keep the idea of contrast in mind for the next projects, because it is an effective design tool.

I have uploaded some notes and storyboards that I did throughout this project to keep my ideas organized. Feel free to take a look.

The timing of their piece is slightly awkward at times, so I suggest that they refine that a little. What is interesting about their piece is that they want some of the shapes to come together at the end after all the chaos in the beginning movements. At the rough cut stage it is ok, however the transition from chaotic movement to structured still needs a little more work.

Overall I think this is a very interesting idea, I’m looking forward to seeing the final result!

Cristina.

Water rushing from artesian waterfall; the beep of trucks pulling backwards from construction site; machine hums, clangs, buzzes; dry leaves scratching the pavement nearby, as they are blown to and fro by the wind; RT pulling out of platform at the TTC station in the distance; distant conversation, two people talking near the waterfall; conversation gets nearer and fades away as the two people walk past me; the dragging of their feet on the pavement

Inside- GO Bus on way to York, 11:55 a.m.

Conversation (individual voices by themselves, talking into their cellphones); some two-person conversation, but more rare; continuous whistel of wind against front of bus, which makes a futuristic hum; engine in the back continuously humming, but crescending/decrescending in relation to acceleration/deceleration of bus; clicks and creaks from windows or other places in bus, scattered around me in 3D space (to the right, in front and above, to the left); timed beeps of bus driver imputting information when bus exits highway; clicks of closing cell-phones, swishes of bags, unscrewing and screwing of plastic water bottles

Reflection

Though I usually notice sounds quite a bit (I have a hard time going to sleep because I get too aware of creaks and such), what I did learn from this exercise is how certain sounds are consistent (like the hums of buses while they are moving) while some are much rarer and temporal (like the scratching of dry leaves as they are blown by the wind.) Furthermore, while I was on the bus I became more aware of the placement of sounds in space, like the cricks and clicks of the various parts of the bus while it was moving. I didn’t know exactly what caused these sounds but I could hear which direction they were coming from, and I formulated a kind of visual 3D map in my mind of their various locations.