I recently decided to update my Flickr page - until now a vehicle for my university assignments - with some of the more personal work I've been doing over this summer. Having found a tutorial on how to make a watermark brush in Photoshop - actually a fairly easy thing to do - and gone through three of my 'Abandoned Places' albums watermarking, reducing file sizes and updating metadata, I uploaded and arranged them into sets.
The first set 'Gwlad y Gan'
contains images from my exploration of the scrapyard mentioned in my
previous 'Summer Assignments' blog'. Meaning 'Land of Song', the name is
taken from a sign on the disintegrating 'zombie coach'.
At some point in the future, I hope to return there and spend a day there developing some of the ideas captured in this set. The second set 'Cwmorthin Shed'holds some images taken back in April on a visit to LLyn Cwmorthin. The quality of the light in the shed - coming in through just one side of the broken roof from an overcast sky - was superb to work with.
The third set contains images of a former railway station just before it was demolished. The station was originally built in the 1880's (one of three in the town during it's slate mining hey-day in the Victorian era) and was the terminal for the Blaenau Ffestiniog-LLandundno line. Disused since a new station replaced it in 1983, the building had recently fallen into disrepair. Passing one day in June - en route to photograph something else entirely - I caught sight of the demolition notice on the door and realising that time was running out, found a way in round the back and set about exploring. The images are not of the best quality because of the necessity for longer exposures due to the darkness.
When I returned the following week with a tripod, a torch and the expectation of being able to take much better quality images, the building had already been demolished leaving me to photograph the empty space it had once occupied. Although nature, beauty and harmony are of vital importance to my wellbeing, I have enjoyed investigating these kinds of environments - places that many would find unpleasant or even repellent - since early childhood. I will readily admit that I can only cope with them in small doses, safe in the luxurious knowledge that I can return to my lovely surroundings at the end. To this extent such excursions are perhaps similar to a ride on a ghost train or watching a scary movie. I have noticed however that both the quality of my interest in these environments and their personal significance has altered with the passing of the years. As a child they represented danger and the unknown, a hidden and ultimately indecipherable side to the strange adult world; now they serve as a metaphor for the human condition. As nature (or the next human generation) reclaims these spaces and objects, they acquire new meanings outside of their original function..the mundane becomes found art and speaks eloquently of our own impermanence; such places remind us of our forgotten ambitions and jettisoned plans, our neglected friendships, our disillusion and broken promises. I have sometimes thought that photographs of abandoned places are like little snatches of
recorded conversation: jumbled, taken out of context, undeserving of
being preserved for posterity in themselves and yet often strangely
compelling. In a relevant news article, a radio producer called David Weinberg recorded all of his conversations for three years. His conclusion was that his friend had been 'totally right about posterity only being good in small doses' - a comment made at the project's outset - adding that the only moments worth capturing on tape were those 'that remind you that life is temporal, that our
existence is fleeting.'
David Weinberg. (2012). Why I secretly recorded my life. [Online article] Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19546096. Last accessed 11th September 2012.
2. Create a series of sequences that when speeded up compress time in an interesting way.
I am really looking
forward to this assignment and began preparing for it by looking at
the recommended Haworth website from which I have copied those
passages which I think will be useful in this project. I have worked with this medium before - when I attended Coleg Harlech in 2011 - and my video from that time - called 'Transitions' can be viewed here. As a result of making this video I have acquired a fairly clear idea of the kinds of events which work well when speeded up and those that do not. Due to lack of experience (it was my first attempt at video-making) I wasted time and energy acquiring and editing an enormous amount of footage that I did not eventually use and this time round I intend to be more careful, focusing my time and energy on fewer subjects.
Research
There
are a great many fascinating time-lapse videos available on You Tube and
whilst researching I have found some very inspiring examples of
work, such as the video on 'Stopchiyski's' channel in which beautiful
flowers are filmed blooming against a black backdrop. The
cameraman is obviously a professional because these time lapse films
have been carefully set up with perfect lighting and filming
conditions and the image quality surpasses anything similar I've found on You Tube.
Again
the subject is very well lit and has been taken against a dark
background, which permits the viewer to concentrate solely on the drama of
the flower blooming, without distraction.
As an older person I can remember how astonishing footage like this seemed when shown on television during the 1960's; at that time only those with expensive, dedicated equipment were able to make such films. Advances in modern technology now allow anyone with access to a digital camera and basic video editing software to make time lapse videos and these days the challenge lies in find new and original things to say through this medium.
Many different events can be used as subject matter for time lapse videos ranging from the path of the sun as it lights a cityscape to subjects of a far more personal nature. An interesting example of the latter is 'Malisko's' video of himself sleeping. This is a strangely peaceful video to watch and the movement of his
breathing speeded up makes him appear vulnerable in a way that one
wouldn't normally perceive in real time. These are the kinds of
rare observations that I would like people to make when they view my
own time lapse video.
In both of these videos the camera remained steady throughout the shoot and the backgrounds were very simple, allowing the viewer to concentrate on the movement of the subject - again, this is something I will incorporate into my work.
There
are also many engaging time lapse films of people's hair growing or
their faces ageing over the years such as in JK Keller's video of his
8 year time-lapse photography of his own face for example:
On
his site he says that 'The
video was done in After Effects 7 Pro. That's how the eyes were
aligned.' (Keller, JK. 2009). Thisgoes
a long way toward explaining why his video is of much higher quality
than many examples of the genre, where the heads move up and down and
the backgrounds change so rapidly that the effect on the viewer can
be like that of a strobe.
Whilst the foregoing videos largely record events in an objective fashion, in my own time lapse video I hope to incorporate some kind of subtext or underlying emotional theme. A good example of such work can be seen in one of the more disturbing sequences from Ron
Fricke's film 'Baraka' where parallel editing is used to show speeded-up footage of commuters,
inter cut with both real time and slowed down film of chickens being prepared for the
egg-laying and meat industry, the whole sequence ending with a speeded-up sequence in which
distant traffic pulses down a city's streets at nightfall, viewed from the cage-like upper window of a city office block.
After
watching these videos I
have begun planning for this assignment by jotting down some ideas
for interesting footage.
Possible Ideas
for Time Lapse Footage
Shadows swinging around
an unlit room as the day progresses into night
Sky
darkening as evening falls / streetlights
coming on at night
Seedlings growing in
earth
Beansprouts
growing in sprouter / a flower
opening
Fruit
rotting and shrivelling
/ mould
growing on something sugary
Sun rising / sun
setting
Moonrise
/ moonphases
/ moon
travelling across sky
Clouds scudding across
the sky / scudding clouds reflected in a lake
Oncoming clouds
becoming rain / rain falling
A stream or river
flowing
Water boiling / water
evaporating / water going down a bath plughole
Snow falling and covering the ground
Laundry
in progression from laundry basket to washing
machine,
then dried, ironed and stored
A person's day A plate
of food being eaten
A
person cooking dinner, eating and then washing up etc.
People in the town
during the course of a day
Trees blowing in wind
Cats
playing /cats washing
A
drawing in progression / apainting in progression
The tide coming in and going out
The
above list has now given rise to some ideas for possible themes and *accompanying soundtracks; I would like to write the music for this project myself if possible.
Possible
Themes and Soundtracks
1.
Decay and Death
Organic material such as leaves, fruit or
vegetables rotting, showing that all good things come to an end,
including ourselves.
* A mellow string theme in a minor cadence would work with this.
2.
New Life from Old
This could begin as 1. (above) but then
concentrate in close-up on the growth of moulds. There was a
fascinating television programme shown recently about just this
process. Called 'After Life: The Strange Science of Decay' it featured
“a glass box containing a typical kitchen and garden, left to rot
in full public view within Edinburgh Zoo. In the resulting
documentary, presenter Dr George McGavin and his team use time-lapse
cameras and specialist photography to capture the extraordinary way
in which moulds, microbes and insects are able to break down our
everyday things and allow new life to emerge from old.”
*A video of this kind could convey an unsettling feeling to the audience if I wrote appropriately sinister music.
3.
Birth
Shoots sprouting, flowers opening etc. *The audio could consist of an uplifting theme using woodwind and percussion.
4.
The Movement of Life
Shadows sweeping round a room during the
course of a day, clouds travelling across the sky,
the tide coming in and retreating and other such natural phenomena
shown interspersed with footage of people travelling to work, being
busy around the home or workplace or shopping and traffic, the idea
being that nothing stays still. *Audio with some kind of fractal or minimalist construction would work well here.
5.
Microcosm and Macrocosm
One thing could move at different speeds
with the 2 films superimposed, the layers fading in and out, or
perhaps slow-moving things - like an elephant - could be speeded up
so they're moving at the same rate as an insect which could then be
slowed down so that it appears to be moving at the same rate as the
elephant when shown in natural time. *As with 5. above, fractal or minimalist music would work well for this.
6.
The Journey
This could be a walk – for example across town –
or through a park with the autumn leaves falling and squirrels leaping in slow motion amongst the trees.
*The best audio for this would probably be something strongly percussive to imply footsteps.
7. People
Run on Automatic
Illustrating our machine-like existence using
speeded-up shots of commuters travelling or people eating or doing the
same repetitive sequence of actions day after day.
*The ideal Audio for this would be minimal techno.
8.
Windows
Fast footage of cars and people passing by various
windows. Some of the sequences could be reflections in the windows whilst others could be filmed through the windows themselves.
*An energetic percussive soundtrack would be ideal for this.
9.
Liquid
Ice melting, a drop of water falling slowly, the tide coming
in and going out, snow falling, bathwater flowing in and out of the tub and clips of
a stream or a river.
*Music for this should be lyrical, ideally using strings.
10.
Feats
Jumping and sneezing shown in slow motion, laughter, eating
and conversation showed speeded up.
*Humorous music such as a scherzo would work here, as would idiosyncratic percussion and strange sound effects.
11.
A Meal
Mostly speeded up, a meal prepared and eaten, with the
dishes then being washed and returned to the cupboard. It could
start with the light being turned on to show a tidy kitchen and
finish with the light being turned off once everything is tidy again.
*As in 10. above, music with a humorous theme would be most appropriate for this.
12. Laundry
The complete cycle from worn garments discarded after a shower through the various stages of washing, rinsing, spinning, drying on the line, ironing folding, putting away and then being fetched out and worn again.
* As in 10 and 11 above, music with a quirky, humorous theme would work well here.
Audio Ideas for this Project
Over the summer I have been writing a variety of audio tracks which could be utilised for my film assignments over the coming academic year. One idea I have been experimenting with in particular is that of fractal music, where a fixed melodic pattern is played against itself at different speeds. In this concept, a four-note sequence using one note per bar (a breve) would take four bars to complete, whilst the same melody could simultaneously be played four times over using four crotchets per bar, and eight times over using quavers. In this respect such music resonates at an intuitive level with the idea of juxtaposing fast and slow time-altered footage.
Quite a lot of the music produced using this algorithmic approach has a cold and somewhat alien feel, but the addition of some warmer, slightly more 'human' touches here and there does much to warm it up (even if it does somewhat dilute the purity of the concept) and my latest track shows promise in this respect. At the time of writing however I am uncertain whether it will be incorporated into my time lapse film since the piece I'm currently working on has a sleepy, dreamy feel to it which I feel may be at odds with the eventual subject matter chosen as I find I am leaning towards the ideas described above under the headings: '4. The Movement of Life' and'7.
People Run onAutomatic'.
The conversion of mathematical ratios into audio and visual form can produce results ranging from the uplifting to the downright unsettling. I recently read an interesting article on the BBC news website describing a collaboration between nanoscientist Jonathan Howse of the University of Sheffield and artist Mark Fell, in which data produced by the molecular movement of tiny particles of polystyrene jostling about in liquid was modelled as sound.
'The sounds come from eight separate speakers, one assigned to
each tracked particle. The pitch of the sound from each speaker changes
with the distance a given particle moves, while the timbre or character
of the sound changes with the angle of the movement.'
The audio installation itself, called 'Scale-Structure-Synthesis' can be experienced at the University of Sheffield's 'Festival of the Mind' which runs until 30th of September 2012. An excerpt from this strange, burbling audio however can be listened to here on the BBC News website. The track puts me in mind of the apparently random and yet somehow ordered behaviour of crowds in a busy railway station. It would certainly make a great soundtrack for an animation! Since writing the above,
there has been an exciting new development: my son Ash who studies Music
Technology at Leeds Met and produces electronic music under the name
'Innerscape' has recently released his first EP with independent label
Future Flavour. One of these tracks - called 'Changes' - is actually very
much closer to what I need for this video than my own fractal piece which is sounding altogether too 'floaty' and angelic for the purpose. As Ash and I had previously
discussed the possibility of his writing a piece of music to accompany
my time lapse film for this assignment, I asked him if I might use 'Changes' because it would be absolutely ideal and he agreed, saying that the ideas I
described - footage of human life that conveys a sense of continuum
whilst also hinting at an underlying futility - was exactly what he'd
had in mind whilst composing it, adding that his original concept was based around the vocal sample he'd used: 'nothing ever
changes'. The melody thus appears to develop from the initial theme in a
linear fashion, only to inexorably return to it because 'nothing ever
changes'! I am absolutely thrilled and all
that is necessary now is for him to obtain clearance for me from the
label; once I get the go ahead this will be my chosen piece as it
incorporates the correct tempo, a touch of humour and above all, the
necessary atmosphere. A preview of 'Changes' can be listened to on
Ash's Soundcloud page here.
Additionally, having received very positive feedback after sharing some of my previous work with his peers, Ash has asked if he may use the finished timelapse video to promote his track. I couldn't be more delighted!
Filming
In
this video I have decided to use the busy surroundings of Wrexham to
provide a vision of a hectic environment in which we appear to scuttle
about like ants in service to commerce, while the days roll endlessly into one another.
After
being given clearance by Future Flavour to use Ashley's track
'Changes' for my audio, I have decided to combine the theme of '7.
People Run on Automatic' within the broader theme of '4.
The Movement of Life',
developing the film along the lines of a music video, which means my
footage will last for the duration of the track. Since the full
track lasts for some seven minutes I obtained Ashley's permission to
edit it down to six minutes and using Sony Soundforge was able to
extract several eight-bar regions from the middle eight without
damaging the musical narrative.
Having
familiarised myself with the basic video functions on my DSLR camera
during the percussive Rhythm assignment, I waited until good weather
and increasingly early nightfall combined to offer the ideal filming
conditions. My opportunity came during a time of full moon in late
November. Walking back from Uni one evening I was thrilled to see a
beautiful full moon rising across the street from my student
accommodation and seizing the moment to set up a tripod in the front
yard I filmed it rising over the road and into the sky. Whilst this
footage turned out to be unuseable due to its being out of focus –
I had used manual focus to film and even with glasses my eyesight is
not accurate – it nonetheless gave me some good ideas for shots to
capture and clarified the direction from which the moon would be
visible rising the following two nights. I therefore collated a
shotlist and put together a storyboard.
The following
afternoon I set out to film the town of Wrexham as the sun descended and rush
hour began beneath a rising moon. I
used an 18-55mm lens in order to capture subjects that were
reasonably close. Learning from the previous evening's mistakes, I
set the video function of my camera to auto focus, adjusting it each
time to the area I wanted the viewer to concentrate on so that
although my subjects would be moving, that point at least would remain
sharp as cars and people moved through its zone. On this first day
I was able to capture the majority of my evening and night clips,
beginning with cars and lorries streaming downhill at nightfall. The
moon was even more beautiful that night than the previous evening.
Guessing that it would probably look like a fuzzy blinding white blob
if I tried to film it climbing the skies directly, I looked for a
puddle in which to capture its reflection and was lucky enough to
find one in a darkened car park. I was also able to film it as it
disappeared behind scudding clouds which blocked enough of its glare
to make the clips worthwhile.
The
following morning it was raining until about 10am meaning that I
missed the dawn light, but as soon as the skies cleared I filmed an
establishing shot of St Giles, panning from left to right by pivoting
the camera on the top of a waste bin.
I then moved to the zebra
crossing near the 'Waves', the river and the bridge above the train station
where - although now too late to catch a stream of commuters - I was able to film
a train arriving and departing.
I filmed buses arriving and departing from the bus station and experimented with filming their reflection in a window opposite.
In the centre of town I set up a
tripod and captured a lot of footage of shoppers.
In order to vary
my shots as much as possible I then bought a cup of tea in Nero's
Coffee Shop and surreptitiously filmed a woman on the other side of
the glass eating at one of the outdoor tables. I feel slightly bad
about this as she would probably be mortified to be recorded
apparently gobbling her food in fast motion, but the clip itself is
very pleasing and says exactly what I'd hoped. (During editing I
tried various techniques such as 'posterising' it in order to make it
less invasive of her privacy, however these effects – whilst
disguising her – gave the clip too much visual importance and
therefore I discarded them, eventually settling for black and white
in order to reduce the emotional impact of this shot.) As Ash will be using this video to promote his music across a variety of platforms, I took the precaution of checking the legality of such a shot. It is indeed legal to film a person doing anything in an outside space as in the UK we have no privacy laws and do not hold the copyright to our own image, however the fact that I have filmed from within a private establishment (whose permission I did not seek beforehand) could prove a sticking point if anyone were to take issue with this clip, even if identifying information is not displayed. Nero's would obviously not want their customers being deterred by the prospect of candid cameras. I have discussed the matter with Ash and we agreed that if anyone raised objections to this section of the footage I would simply take it down until I had replaced it with something more innocuous. For the time being however, the sequence will remain intact.
After
filming the shoppers in Hope Street as evening fell, I moved on to a
corner of the bridge leading from York Street to Eagles Meadow.
Concealing myself in the shadows from the precinct's security
personnel I filmed people rushing back an forth across the
beautifully lit walkway.
By tucking myself behind the fountains
near Debenhams was additionally able to film customers entering and
exiting 'Next' where I captured a lovely shot of a small boy throwing
an orange balloon into the air.
My last two sequences of the day
were filmed from the roundabout below Eagles Meadow, the busy
crossing just beyond and finally from the vantage point of the car park behind the Green Dragon pub from where I capturedcars speeding by in an unrelenting stream.
The
following morning I took my 55-200mm lens and filmed several
sequences both from the top storey of St Mary's car park and from
within Island Green itself, capturing medium close ups and long
shots.
In the evening I also experimented with this lens to take
more footage of the full moon, but as suspected, it merely recorded a
glaring white blob except when the moon was partially obscured by
cloud.
By the end of this third day I felt that I had acquired
enough footage to begin editing my sequence.
Editing
I
began by uploading the clips from my camera, importing them into
Premiere Pro and speeding each one up by different amounts depending
on the subject matter. The speed of the slow moon sequences needed
to be increased by 10000% to create interesting movement but many of
the clips of shoppers worked best at around 500% giving them an
appealing trot.
I
then brought in my audio and began sequencing my clips, starting with
my establishing shot of St Giles in the morning and introducing a
very gradual increase in speed as the 'day' wore on. I endeavoured
to connect motion and subject matter throughout so that a story could
be understood from the sequences. Only four clips (the river and the reflected bus station amongst them) didn't fit with the narrative, which is a lower proportion than I have found before when filming. Here and there I introduced subtle touches of the 'posterise' effect and the black
and white effect to depersonalise those clips which otherwise
commanded too much emotional interest and were therefore punching
holes in the narrative.I also made use of the tints from the effects menu to give one of the side streets a golden glow that corresponded with the sunset that preceded it and to convey the illusion of dawn at the beginning and towards the end of the footage.To loosely match the beat of the music
and tell the story effectively, I varied the speeds at which
individual clips played back by cutting them at intervals of between
two and five frames and increasing or decreasing the speeds by a
graduated amount either side of the relevant frames, thus yielding a smoother movement than if I had simply chopped them from one speed to another.
In order to match the sequence featuring shoppers entering and leaving 'Next' with the preceding bridge footage I had fixed the position of the shop doorway at a level which revealed only half of its name in the top right hand corner. This looked peculiar on playback so using some of the ideas gained from our After Effects lectures I exported a still from the footage to Photoshop where I created a small black mask to hide the logo. This needed to be tweaked and re imported for individual frames where shoppers passed in front of the logo because the mask blocked their faces as they crossed it. I also created an orange shop logo of my own in its place saying 'CHANGES' which appears gradually and briefly towards the end of the clip when the little boy emerges with his balloon. I am hoping that no-one will actually notice this until their second or third viewing of that sequence!There is no doubt a quicker way create such masks in After Effects but at the time of writing I have not yet acquired the knowledge necessary to produce this kind of thing efficiently, which is why I used Photoshop.
The
film took three days to edit and then a further three of minor tweaks (I
had gone rather overboard on my transitions first time around) to
bring it to completion. I then spent a further evening replacing the clip of the lady eating with something far less intrusive, for upload to Youtube. Whilst I will be handing in the original edit for marking, the 'public' version of this film may be viewed below.
Evaluation
I
have enjoyed this assignment immensely - timelapse is one of my
favourite mediums and there was no aspect of this task that I didn't
relish. I feel satisfied that the film I have made is the best I
could have produced at the time and whilst making it found I was
generating ideas for other music video sequences to create
in the future. If I had the chance to do this task again however
there are some things that I would do differently. Whilst its a good clip, I am not
completely comfortable with the somewhat intrusive close up of the woman eating her chips andtherefore in the future I would probably ask someone to
act this type of sequence for me to film.Since making the film I have in fact substituted that part of the sequence with a close up of a friend eating sweets on a bench and mixed, blurred footage of shoppers in Regent Street. It is this version which is now on YouTube. I need to
learn what kind of settings to use in order to best photograph and
film the full moon so that in future I can take good quality film of this most fascinating of subjects. Some of the shots where I was unable to use a
tripod are a little shaky and I intend to invest in a gorillapod for
future work of this kind. I also wasted a day tweaking many of my
overlong transitions and therefore next time I edit video I will start with
very short transitions by default and only lengthen them afterwards
where necessary.
These considerations aside, I feel that my workflow
was correctly planned and went more or less according to schedule: one week from start to finish. I produced a sufficient - but not excessive - number of clips to use and varied my shots with more confidence than I have shown in the past.As my subject knowledge increases my
ability to capture interesting footage and weave it together into a
coherent narrative is improving and although I am not yet competent with After Effects, I was able to use the knowledge I have already acquired to incorporate ideas from it to solve problems using alternative Adobe software.
I am also delighted to have provided Ash with a music video that he can now use to promote his track. He watched it over Xmas and said it was exactly the type of images he had imagined for his music whilst he was writing it and he would like to use the video to promote his track. We are already discussing our next joint project! In the near future I hope to create an umbrella media business within which my partner, my son and I can promote our work and this has been exactly the type of collaboration I had hoped for when we first discussed the idea.
BBC
Four. (2011). After
Life: The Strange Science of Decay.[Online
video]
Available
from:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00kjrg4
Last
accessed 10th August 2012.
Ron
Fricke. (1992). Chickens
from "Baraka"[Online
video]
Available
from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFQhn8RW0Nk.
Last
accessed 25th July 2012.
Jason Palmer. (2012). Music from tiny particles' movements set to debut. [Online article] Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19647038. Last accessed 20th September 2012.
Howse, J. and Fell, M. (2012). http://Scale-Structure-Synthesis. [Online audio installation] Available: http://festivalofthemind.group.shef.ac.uk/scale-structure-synthesis/. Last accessed 20th September 2012.
Innerscape. (2012). Changes EP. [Online audio track] Available: http://soundcloud.com/innerscape/flavour11-changes. Last accessed 1st Oct 2012.
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