Day - Inspiration for condensing footage

A day (approx 12-14 hours) is condensed into 3m 20s in a time lapse experiment on Super 8 film.

I watched this film to see how other Directors have portrayed a day.  I liked how this showed the development of the sun's cycle.  In our film I would like to show a Bokeh'd phrase/symbol throughout a day, having the light gradually getting darker, and the statements becoming clearer. 

I liked how the footage seemed to fast forward through the day, showing the different movements of nature.  I think that within our film, it would be effective if at the end of our film we went back, and quickly fast forwarded through our film again, which will show the phrases and symbols one more time. This will remind the audience of the phrases and symbols throughout the piece making our statements clearer, and emphasised.

During our post-production stage, I think we will experiment with the different effects that are created when quickening and decreasing the speed of footage. 

Drift - Stop Motion Inspiration

"This film was made using a digital stills camera to create a stop motion animation.  This video is an evolution of an earlier work/technique called Still Moving"

We felt that we needed to include more techniques within our film.  We wanted to maintain the theme of words/symbols, but we needed to decide on a topic.

From our experimental footage, we saw that most of it evolved around travel.  We therefore decided to have travel and journey's as our theme. 

We liked drift because it was a surreal way of showing a persons journey through a city.   We liked how all the images merged, and blurred together.  We felt that these blurs would fit in with the Bokeh technique. 

We will therefore merge this effect with the bokeh sequences. 

What do I like about this film?

Artist Inspiration - Bill Viola

Bill Viola

Before I knew of the Bokeh technique, I thought we would need to layer our film.  I came across Bill Viola's work.  He produces slow motion, short films that are installed inon gallery walls.  "The Crossing" is an example of his work. 

In terms of layering, I like how all the layers merge perfectly to make it look like a single, stand still shot. 

 The sound from within the gallery would have been overwhelming.  This makes it seem as if it is really happening.  He wanted to create a realistic atmosphere to draw his audience in.  I liked how the use of sound impacts on the audience, making them feel part of the piece.  I'd like to over-exaggerate the ambient sound from our footage, and make it over-whelmning for the audienc like Viola does in his pieces.  To draw the audience in. 

Also like Viola, I want to involve the audience using cinematography.  Where our film will be different to Viola's work will be in the use of  words and images to suggest a mood, and in the different shots and locations that we will have.  Viola uses a single, still shot within his work, and the action happens in this shot.  In "The Crossing"  Viola has used a waterfall because it is a destructive element of nature, that washes things away.  His work is impacting because of the strong images used and the strong, impacting sound.

At the moment our film depends strongly on the Bokeh effect.  Because we discovered this effect, we will not need to use layering, like Viola.  But, from his pieces I have discovered that sound can be just as impacting as the footage. 

When we have filmed the footage we will experiment to see whether it needs a soundtrack like "The Words of Bokeh", which uses uplifting music, or whether a natural, loud, ambient sound will be more impacting.

Creating Bokeh with different locations

On Wednesday 8th Feb we decided to go and take some pictures of different locations that we could have in our film.

I wanted to try blurring different types of lights to see what effect I could achieve.

I then wanted to see whether I could create a bokeh effect from a reflection.  These were less successful than without a reflection.  

The "Bokeh" technique

After watching "The Words of Bokeh", I decided to research the techniques used within the film, and found that "Bokeh" is in fact a technique within photography.  I then found a tutorial on DIY Photography explaining Bokeh.

"Bokeh is an adaptation from a Japanese word meaning "blur".  In photography this term is used to describe the quality of the areas in the picture which are not in focus."

During this tutorial, I was able to manipulate the shape of the light, making the shape into a heart shape.

To begin with however, I wanted to see how clear my words/shape cut outs were when I took pictures of them.

Here are some examples below.

To gain this I firstly cut out, and shaped a sheet of paper to make a lens hood.

In the middle of the filter the wanted bokeh shape is cut out.

I now want to see how I can create this effect using a video camera.  Like "The Words of Bokeh"  I want to go from a light, a traffic light for example, and blur this into a shape.  Using the same technique as a still camera, I will focus the object, and then change the focus so that it blurs. 

Inspiration 4

(The Words Of Bokeh from Archie Campbell.)

We began to research further how words are used within film, and we came across Archie Campbell experimental film called "The Words of Bokeh".  This film was his cinematography experiment for a course.  

I liked the ways in which he has made words emerge from blurred lights to create a phrase throughout the piece.  This has inspired me to research his techniques, and find out how to create this effect.