Slit Scan (The Last Clock)

Slit Scan photos from a project from 'The Last CLock' at www.lastclock.co.uk, the different rings depicted are created by changing the scan speed to represent hours, minutes and seconds. "Last is a clock that is a record of its own history." The images show a history of what has been in front of the clock in the last 12 hours. Personally I really like the contrast in what is achieved in each different ring, I like that you can achieve such varied levels of distortion using the same technique. I also think this will be a very effective way for us to record time as well as to play with peoples perceptions of it.

To be writen

Auckland International Film Festival - Homegrown: Quirky Tales

Homegrown - Quirky Tales was an event held at the Academy Cinema in Auckland, it was described as a "spicy mix of funny and imaginative stories that span animation, documentary and experimental genres."

This event was made up of a series of short films so I will tackle this review by talking about my favourite from the selection entitled "Fruitless Journey". Written by Jeremy Herbert and directed by Jodie Stack this 12 minute film told about the journey of a banana who was proudly taken to the South Pole as food for the expedition of Captain Robert Falcon Scott.

What makes this film interesting is that it actually retells the fateful journey that had Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his expedition crew try to be the first team to reach the South Pole but instead saw them die in the attempt. In 'Fruitless Journey' however this tragic story is told with such spunk and good humour that it is truly captivating and the unlikely character (the banana) wins the hearts of all in the audience.

Set in the fruit crate of the expedition and narrated by 'banana' the story is told from an interesting perspective quite unlike that of any other film I have seen, the narrative includes the proud destiny of banana to be consumed by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, his love affair with 'navel' and his intense disappointment as he ages without being consumed.

This film is incredibly clever as it utilises a truly unique perspective, it also manages to be accessible to all because of the clever nature of the story telling. I especially enjoyed the fruit orientated humour and judging by the laughter from the audience I was not the only one. The ending of the film in my opinion did leave something to be desired however, in the last minutes of the film the aesthetic changed somewhat and there was replacement of Captain Robert Falcon Scott with an animal that represented an ape, this change in the narrative was quite confusing and jolting for the audience however I accept that as an experimental film it is safe to expect the unexpected.

This film works on the level of simply challenging what we consider as a character, the level of rapport and emotional connection we formed with banana through this film was quite extraordinary as a piece of fruit wouldn't frequently be considered a character let alone one that we are attached to. This experimental film was well worth watching as a piece of home grown cinema and a film from a fresh perspective.

Reflections Experiment

Our initial fascinations have been with the vast number of different, and largely unnoticed reflections present in a city. I think a reflection can be very symbolic and produce some good and really simple footage where effects can be created through the contrast between the real world and the reflected image, I also like text that is shown mirror image that can turn any image from plausible 'real' life to a 'reflection'.



This experiment was quite fruitful, it really helped us to consider the city in a new light and made us think more in depth about what footage could include for our experimental film. It did however make us realise that at this point the concepts for our apparatus are somewhat lagging in comparisson to the actual subject matter of the film. We all really appreciated the different types of reflections we found but at the same time we felt that the footage should largely be reflected/ distorted by the actual camera rig we are to construct rather than elements of city scenery.

Nevertheless I think we all have the feeling that we are getting close to deciding on a direction to take this assignment and that is exciting.

Cinematic Flaneur Project

Our first studio project for the semester is to "invent and make video equipment that allows you to explore the city in new ways. That allows us to see the previously inaccessible/ unnoticed, or reveals something new about the every day city to us."

For this project I have the pleasure of working with Christine, Charlotte A and Theresa.

Together we will be designing and fabricating a rig that will carry two cameras and will be used by all of us individually to make an experimental film 2 -3 minutes long.

We also have to contend with the idea of the Flaneur and work some of the perspective of this character into our projects. I feel this will help challenge us to look at the city in a new light and hopefully inspire us to make films with the same intention.

Bullet Effect

The first day back in studio we tried our collective hand at 'the Bullet Effect'. This is a technique that is most famous from the movie 'The Matrix' and we achieved it by getting into large groups and setting up our laptop cameras in an arc and taking photos in close succession so they could later be turned into video by playing them at 12 frames per second.



This is the resulting film