Good work on this. You made some very interesting decisions and I think they work to your advantage. An artist whose work you may want to take a look at is Dani Leventhal. She works in a similar mode, creating diary-like collages out of what seem to be unrelated shots: http://vimeo.com/31538238, http://danileventhal.com/
There are a lot of really beautiful moments in this piece, and I think the silence forces us to see them, or look at them, in a very focused way. There is an interesting moment near the end of the piece, I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but a little bit of sound pops out of the silence and makes for a really nice surprise, causing us to shift the way we watch. I think you could do this more and use it more strategically to create moments of different levels of emphasis throughout the piece. You also have some very nicely edited moments, where the rhythm shifts slightly based on the length of the cut, a nice example being the shot(s) of the clock that seem to pass by much more quickly than the shots surrounding it. I think you could also exploit this more, create more contrast between the lengths of different shots. My only question for you would be, what do these shots add up to? What meaning is being made by their grouping together and the ordering of them?
Something nice that's happening with your editing already is that shots will come and go, gradually becoming more recognizable as they return to us. I'm thinking specifically of the boiling eggs. This is a good instinct. So this is a good start. Not quite visual music, or even abstract in a wholly visual way, but there are some very nice things happening here in terms of montage, collage, etc. Again, take a look at Dani Leventhal's videos. There is some common ground between what you're doing here and her work.
The juxtaposition of the different clips is interesting to me. While the process of creating the footage is obvious sometimes (the breezy grasses and the tree branches), other times I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at, particularly at 1:12. Or when the digital clock starts to flash directly after a pleasant clip of grass and flowers, the transition is jarring and thought-provoking.
I like that this video had more concrete contents than the other videos; being able to tell what it was you were filming was very refreshing. I find it that often nowadays we don't take enough time to notice the simple, naturally-formed creations around us, and this video was a good way to battle against that fact. It was an odd choice to splice in the clip of the alarm clock with all of the clips of natural things, but it certainly wasn't unwelcome. In fact, I think that was my favorite part of the film!
To me the editing of the clips was a little bit randomized and didn't seem to flow as well as it could have, but maybe I'm just not looking at it with the correct perspective. Either or, very interesting work!
I liked all of the individual clips because they seemed like animated photographs. Each image had its own sense of composition and substance on the screen becoming a compilation of these "moving photographs". It would be interesting to see even more of these shots built onto this video and maybe devoting less time to each clip to add to the diversity of the overall composition.
I really liked the imagery of nature and the peaceful feeling that I was given while watching. I also thought the idea of having the alarm clock interrupting the tranquility was also very clever. Maybe you could try overlaying bits of the alarm clock footage (at a low opacity) throughout the film, so we see this greenish thing that we can't really identify trying to edge its way into the scenes of nature... and then finally towards the end it breaks through, and we realize that it is actually an alarm clock. That could kind of kill two birds with one stone, in that it makes the visuals a bit more abstract, and there's sort of a narrative progression and more clearly conveys the idea of dreaming, if that was what you were going for.
This was a really nice video. I liked your choices of subjects in nature because they were visually interesting but the they were not cliche nature scenes. I also really like the boiling water which almost had an alien feel to it compared to other shots. The video had a dream-like feel to it which was then reinforced by the alarm clock. It is easy to see how it was made but still a very cool video.
I personally think that, with as many focused objects as you have now, that giving the video itself more of a focus as a whole would help strengthen it and resonate with the viewer. It's well done, for sure, but right now it just looks like a bunch of different scenes of different things, to me at least. Also, is there any sound?
While i have really enjoyed the ambiguity of some of the clips in other peoples videos I really appreciate the simplicity of yours. It is really nice to know what I am looking at but at the same time question the connection of all of them. I love that all of the footage is fairly still with some sort of small moving aspect like the bubbling water or the wind affecting the plants. Though you were hesitant to add in sound, some kind of music could be really interesting in this. Great job!
Helen,
ReplyDeleteGood work on this. You made some very interesting decisions and I think they work to your advantage. An artist whose work you may want to take a look at is Dani Leventhal. She works in a similar mode, creating diary-like collages out of what seem to be unrelated shots: http://vimeo.com/31538238, http://danileventhal.com/
There are a lot of really beautiful moments in this piece, and I think the silence forces us to see them, or look at them, in a very focused way. There is an interesting moment near the end of the piece, I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but a little bit of sound pops out of the silence and makes for a really nice surprise, causing us to shift the way we watch. I think you could do this more and use it more strategically to create moments of different levels of emphasis throughout the piece. You also have some very nicely edited moments, where the rhythm shifts slightly based on the length of the cut, a nice example being the shot(s) of the clock that seem to pass by much more quickly than the shots surrounding it. I think you could also exploit this more, create more contrast between the lengths of different shots. My only question for you would be, what do these shots add up to? What meaning is being made by their grouping together and the ordering of them?
Something nice that's happening with your editing already is that shots will come and go, gradually becoming more recognizable as they return to us. I'm thinking specifically of the boiling eggs. This is a good instinct. So this is a good start. Not quite visual music, or even abstract in a wholly visual way, but there are some very nice things happening here in terms of montage, collage, etc. Again, take a look at Dani Leventhal's videos. There is some common ground between what you're doing here and her work.
The juxtaposition of the different clips is interesting to me. While the process of creating the footage is obvious sometimes (the breezy grasses and the tree branches), other times I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at, particularly at 1:12. Or when the digital clock starts to flash directly after a pleasant clip of grass and flowers, the transition is jarring and thought-provoking.
ReplyDeleteI like that this video had more concrete contents than the other videos; being able to tell what it was you were filming was very refreshing. I find it that often nowadays we don't take enough time to notice the simple, naturally-formed creations around us, and this video was a good way to battle against that fact. It was an odd choice to splice in the clip of the alarm clock with all of the clips of natural things, but it certainly wasn't unwelcome. In fact, I think that was my favorite part of the film!
ReplyDeleteTo me the editing of the clips was a little bit randomized and didn't seem to flow as well as it could have, but maybe I'm just not looking at it with the correct perspective. Either or, very interesting work!
I liked all of the individual clips because they seemed like animated photographs. Each image had its own sense of composition and substance on the screen becoming a compilation of these "moving photographs". It would be interesting to see even more of these shots built onto this video and maybe devoting less time to each clip to add to the diversity of the overall composition.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the imagery of nature and the peaceful feeling that I was given while watching. I also thought the idea of having the alarm clock interrupting the tranquility was also very clever. Maybe you could try overlaying bits of the alarm clock footage (at a low opacity) throughout the film, so we see this greenish thing that we can't really identify trying to edge its way into the scenes of nature... and then finally towards the end it breaks through, and we realize that it is actually an alarm clock. That could kind of kill two birds with one stone, in that it makes the visuals a bit more abstract, and there's sort of a narrative progression and more clearly conveys the idea of dreaming, if that was what you were going for.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really nice video. I liked your choices of subjects in nature because they were visually interesting but the they were not cliche nature scenes. I also really like the boiling water which almost had an alien feel to it compared to other shots. The video had a dream-like feel to it which was then reinforced by the alarm clock. It is easy to see how it was made but still a very cool video.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI personally think that, with as many focused objects as you have now, that giving the video itself more of a focus as a whole would help strengthen it and resonate with the viewer. It's well done, for sure, but right now it just looks like a bunch of different scenes of different things, to me at least. Also, is there any sound?
ReplyDeleteWhile i have really enjoyed the ambiguity of some of the clips in other peoples videos I really appreciate the simplicity of yours. It is really nice to know what I am looking at but at the same time question the connection of all of them. I love that all of the footage is fairly still with some sort of small moving aspect like the bubbling water or the wind affecting the plants. Though you were hesitant to add in sound, some kind of music could be really interesting in this. Great job!
ReplyDelete