Jujube/mind
experiment stage 1
One day I revisited all the video footage from my phone.
The impetus for this was not clear-cut. Part of it was to find footage as materials for a projected installation (prompted by the event organized through the "collective"). Then I noticed all the footage from a year ago. Most of them were of unusual landscapes/activities: a frozen lake in the Tibetan Plateau, floating beach balls in a pool (from xmas in Italy), wind blowing through a trash bag in Rotterdam, extreme wind on the surface of a canal, etc. etc.
Two collections of the footage were recent: one from Maastricht, of the split water levels of the river and the lifted bridge coming back down, then of the green glass entryway at the train station. The second was in front of the Brussel Stock Exchange (the workers were painting the soon-to-be-plaza pink). For each of the collections I took multiple long takes, ranging from 10 second to 2 minutes. I remember when taking them I wanted to portray these somewhat absurd structures/realities.
I loaded all the footage on my laptop and tried to make a sequence, changing colors and effects with the limited options on iMovie. (no need to laugh, I find it an interesting tool that offers something from its dumbness.) But the "narrative" feels forced... The montages do not work... Feels too abstract.
revelation
I come back to one specific footage. The original is a handheld shot of a snow storm on a Brooklyn roof. The sound was recorded through the phone (high volume wind noise...)
I applied effects to it as I was processing the other footage. To this one:
- x-ray filter
- stablization
- a slower speed (80%)
What appeared on the screen... I had to look at it again and again.
It had a stop motion quality. "Almost like an animation" (Ana)
I found the warp artifact from the stablization an amazing distortion...
I happened to be reading texts on Memory Image and this one seemed like a perfect example.
feedback
From Ana:
- more extreme crop to a degree that is abstract
From Cem:
- more rapid edits
- the b&w of the beach balls does not work
- yes for crop
I explained the use the bell footage... is like waking up from a dream. In fact a few footage I used the sound more than the visual: bike wheel (slowed down), bell as a rhythm keeper. I distorted sound from the roof footage. The wind noise with extra reverb turned out to create the atmosphere I would like to have. A storm in the dream...
Despite the suggestions, I was not convinced by the aesthetics of the crop. Somehow it feels like a thing I'd do early on (when I had instagram). An exercise of abstracting patterns and compositions. I did not want to use it in this case.