Research

For this project I am required to produce a time-based moving image piece responding to the theme "Stillness & Memory", the piece is to last between 80-240 seconds. The piece must feature audio, but this must not be music or a soundtrack. For this project I can create moving image (video) or produce stills and put them onto a time based timeline which is in a video format, therefore I want to challenge myself and learn from video.

This project is exciting and engaging for me as I have studied video work before hand and have some basic knowledge within this criteria. Throughout this project I will be experimenting using different video techniques, such as focus pulling, different camera angles, sound, rhythm, and pacing of the video clips.

La Jetée
To start my research, I have looked at few films which tie in with this project brief. The first piece I looked at is Chris Marker's La Jetée. Chris Marker is a french writer, photographer and documentary film director. La Jetée was produced in 1962 and is made up of still photos, all images are in black and white. It tells us a story of a post-nuclear experiment and time travel, the genre being very Sci Fi. The film lasts 28 minutes and has also won the Prix Jean Vigo.

 The first shot we see is an establishing shot which shows us an airport, over the shot you can hear music and the sound of planes, there are also some opening sub titles. An establishing shot is always good to start with as this introduces the viewer into the scene, I will consider an opening establishing shot when I come to filming my video.

As a few more seconds pass, we start to hear the narration, this narration introduces us into the video and explains about the nuclear disaster and destruction, there are also establishing shots of Paris's destruction. I really like the use of narration as it helps the viewer understand the story and what is going on, instead of leaving it up to their imagination. I also noticed that all the stills seem to have moody lighting, from this point I knew the narrative was going to be about devastation. Throughout the video, I realised that quite a few stills were actually re-used, which saves having to take so many stills, especially if the narration keeps going back to the same subject.

As well as narration, the film also had ambient sound which related to whatever still was on the screen, there was also some whispering which I thought was brilliant as it really set a creepy and eerie vibe. Concentrating on the stills, on one part of the film, there was different stills with the same subject, but the subject had changed position multiple times, this suggested that the subject was moving, as shown below:

During this scene, there was audio of a heart beat, which was getting quicker and quicker as the pace of the stills started to move quicker. This gave the stills some tension and by applying imagination you can really see what was happening in the video. The use of the heart beat really intrigues me, and had me on the edge of my seat, this is handy to know if I want to cause tension in my video, but it doesn't have to be the sound of a heart beat, it can be many different things, depending on what my video is about.

There was also a part of the video where the subject is shown running toward the girl stood on the end of the pier, and to capture this movement the stills had a little bit of motion blur in them, I thought this was a great technique to get the fact that he is running across to the viewer. When the man is running down the pier, the pace of the photos also speeds up to suggest that he is running, another idea to consider when I come to making my video.  I also find it interesting that all the stills are taken from a film perspective, they are taken as if they are being filmed which makes the stills look like they are moving.

Another interesting shot is this still which looks like an airal view of paris but is actually an image of a microscopic slide. All the lines within this image look like the roads of Paris, which lead me to think that.

I also like the use of overlays within these stills as this suggest that the subject is form another life form, it works well with the make up and half lit face.

Sans Soleil
Another video from Chris Marker, Sans Soleil which translates to "Sunless". this piece came much later than La Jetée and was produced in 1983, the piece explores human memories.

The first few seconds of the video displays a quote, white text on a black screen. After the quote, it then cuts to a black screen which for a few seconds is silent, then a narration of a woman's voice comes on, still a black screen. As she pauses in her words, it quickly jumps to a shot of children walking in a field, no transition and hand held footage. The start of this video really interests me as it straight away pulls the viewer in with its quick starts. It then cuts to another black screen which lasts for a few seconds then a clip of a plane is shown, with another black screen after it. The pace is all equal which makes the rhythm of the video flow properly. This is a slow build up, the shots each have nothing to do with each other, these little previews gives the viewer an idea of whats to come.

The narrator then pauses as the titles show up. The title is very bold and very much like the classical silent cinemas, I really like this style of showing the title, with nothing else going on in the video, we are concentrating on the name of that title, which will make the viewers remember it.

Within this video, I find that the clips follow moving subjects, they also last quite long and do not cut straight away. Chris Marker also makes use of camera movement and often pans the shot, this makes each shot look very natural it also makes the subjects not look as though they are acting. The use of sound is also great as it is quite rumbley and gives the viewer an uncomfortable feeling.

Screen Test 3, Edie Sedgwick - Andy Warhol
In this piece, Edie Sedgwick stands in front of the camera staring into the lens for 3 minutes straight. This is a very intimate piece which captures her standing still, but she is moving her lips and blinking, it is taken as a photograph would be taken. There is also no sound within this video.

I really love the way he has captured stillness, but as a video, this really puts a twist on video capturing. I also think that the video looks as though its interactive, it almost looks futuristic in a way.

Still life - Sam Taylor-Wood
Still life is a time laps video captured by Sam Taylor-Wood, produced in 2001. The video shows a classical, beautiful still life painting set up of a bowl of fruit. As the video goes on, you see the fruit slowly decaying.

Within this video, I really like the way the framing and lighting really does look like a classical fruit bowl painting, and as we see it rotting we realise that everything has to die some day, this twist is dark and makes people think about the project. Also in the video, we see a pen which has been purposely put into frame, this does not change throughout the entire video.

A Little Death - Sam Taylor-Wood
A little death, very much the same concept as Still life is another piece from Sam Taylor-Wood, created a year later in 2002, is another time laps video but this time we see a dead hare rotting over time.

Once again in this video, there is a peach in shot which doesn't change at all throughout the video. I found this video very interesting as its strange to see how bodies rot over time and how they rot. The use of time laps in this video has been used very well, to show something that we have never seen before. I feel like the use of a dead hair will also stair up some arguments, which is always good for getting your work recognised.

Letters To July - Estée Lalonde
The series letters to July is featured on Emily Diana Ruth's youtube channel, she is a Canadian film maker who lives in London. She asks well known youtubers to make a letters to July video of them narrating over the top of video there feelings towards July.

This video features beauty youtuber Estée Lalonde, who has a passion for video making. I really love the way this video was filmed, the techniques and shallow depth of field used makes this video beautiful.

From this first shot, we can see that straight away its artistic, and we can see her home, we know that this is going to be a personal video. The narration only starts at the very end of this shot where she says "dear July" it then cuts to another shot of her making coffee, another personal shot where we can learn something about her. The footage shows off her personality as the first quater is all filmed in her home, you can learn a lot about someone from seeing their home. The narration is soft and well written, slowly paced which adds to the peacefulness of this video.

The footage also shows us the day to day life she shares with her boyfriend, and we can see the love between them. Throughout, these clips stick to the theme of shallow depth of field. At first not showing their faces so our imagination can make an assumption of what they are like. Throughout the video we hear ambient sound along side the narration, which sets the scene and makes us feel as though we are already there.

Before seeing shots of people outside, this establishing shot of some trees tells us where we are now, this helps the viewer to keep up with whats going on in the video.

I noticed that throughout the shots that were filmed outside there is the sound of people walking across gravel, but no wind noise. Either she has cleverly edited the wind noise out, or the footsteps is pre filmed and edited in to make it look like it belongs to the clip.

This video also has an ending title which I thought was very unique as we don't ofter see many ending titles, and this is big and bold, no fancy writing and very in your face. Throughout the video I noticed that she has made use of a tripod, but as well find quite a lot of shots hand held to emulate walking. I feel like I learnt a lot from this video as it is very much the style that I want to do my video in, I have also taken inspiration from it and am applying it to my mind map of ideas. The techniques used throughout the video are as well something that I would like to experiment with and create a beautiful piece.