STOP/ GO

This is the final experimental film I have submitted, I feel that it still requires a lot of work before I am happy with the final result but I do feel that it is a step in the right direction.

Our group concept was exploring the role of time in the lives of 'city goers' and asking the question are they a slave to time? Expanding from that I have explored common city signs that control the flow of people through the environment

Experimental Film Critique

On critique day our team was the first to present

Flaneur Rig CAD Animation

This is an animation I created in Solid Works to show our rig in action. Solid Works has been a good tool during this project and as the CAD operator for our team and has allowed me to create engineering drawings, 3d renders and this animation. Which in comparison to photographs of our rig are more similar than I expected.

Experimental Film Review 2 - Connected

Connected by Selina Shah has been featured in several exhibitions and festivals since being first presented in 2008, these include: SKIP INTRO, TRANSFORM, YIVF#4 Screening, Open Source Festival, Astronomical Frontiers, Selina.Shah:CONNECTED, the EYE_KEA project International Video Art Event and Video Art and Experimental Film Festival 2010.



The experimental film 'Connected' depicts a cyber-relationship between two parties and explores the paradox of "intimacy without being intimate". The visual content in the film is made up of several small screens that show a variety of seemingly trivial and irrelevant clips. The main focus however is made up of the sounds of typing and the conversation unfolding in text at the bottom of the screen, it is this text that serves as dialogue in this short narrative. Shah's use of audio and choice of video effectively disables the viewers senses and leaves them feeling somewhat helpless.

I think that the way that Shah has presented her theme is quite intelligent, she explores the ins and outs of cyber-relationships through the visual element of her film. The seemingly trivial video presents to us a challenge to rethink just how little we know about the stranger that we find ourselves sharing with.

The typed text that makes up the conversation is the driving force behind the film, it presents us with the would be first time cybersex relationship between two individuals. By letting us into this private affair Shah places the viewer in a uncomfortable place, this is accentuated by the audio made up of typing sounds and seems disjointed and inferior next to the intensity of the conversation.

Shah manages to create in the viewer a feeling of awkwardness and and a sense of disjointedness. To an outside observer there are many pointers in the film to risky or ill advised behaviour. This feeling is continuously built upon as Shah using a multitude of techniques, the one character by typing in caps immediately takes on the role of dominance in the mind of the viewer, even before the subject is broached in the text. Other warning signs include the reference to one person being seen on webcam while the other remains faceless, this coupled with a reference to the 'seen' character "look(ing) young" gives a distinctly predatory feel to the dialogue. The viewer cannot help but develop a sort of concern for the character that is unseen by us, this is even more disturbing because we know that this character is being observed by the dominant character that we are continuously more wary of.

By the way of experimental techniques I liked the way that Shah used sound effects to make up the audio for her film, I think it was somewhat spooky and allowed the viewer to fill in their own gaps. I was also a fan of the video content, and how the ideas of the director were conveyed without showing anything literal. The text acted as the only form of narrative and was justified as it drove the film from beginning to end.

Shah presents us with a branch of the popular world of social networking that most would still feel uncomfortable about. This pushing of our comfort in relation to online culture challenges our current thoughts on the virtual world. Shah aims to make us consider online interaction and if it is a constructive advancement in our society, proposing that this may be the age that we neglect our bodies. In her essay on cyber discourse Shah explains some of her theories and those of others on the virtual age and our activity around it. Shah claims that ‘Virtual culture is a culture of retreat from the world …the loss of the senses of the reality “out there”.'

Reviewing footage and the Editting Begins

We have collected all the footage together and distributed it to all members of the group to work on our individual films over the weekend.

We have all taken different sub categories that interest us based around the role of time in the city. Personally I am going to look at signs, signals and warnings; I find these things really interesting because of two factors, the interpreted meaning of a sign and the action we take when we register one. Signs are instructions and in the city they serve to govern the flow of people, vehicles and some types of information through a city.

I want to experiment with signs and challenge what makes an effective one; usually the obedience in the presence of a sign is instinctual, they are often there to keep us orderly or safe and we obey without much thought. My aim is to present signs in a way that may alter their meaning or make them in some way chaotic or different from the signs that rule us every day in our travels. I am quite fascinated by the concept of seeing how far and what elements of a design can be changed while leaving it still recognisable and able to be obeyed.

Initially when we presented our ideas to the class we didn't want to take to firm of a stance on whether we thought the clock controlled the average city-goer but I think I will for effect probably take a polar stance and suggest that we are ruled by the clock. A clock is a man made device that can cause relief, panic or a great number of other emotions from one glance and the recognition of the time that follows, this to me creates an order but a rather artificial one, with my movie I would like to encourage room for interpretation in the city's seldom considered fixtures.

Experimental Filming Day 1

Today we began filming for our experimental film. We have all brain-stormed what we would like to explore with our individual films and I am taking the direction of looking at patterns within the city, specifically the STOP/ GO flow that seems to be present in many assumed systems within the city.

We have been filming as a team of 4 but are keeping our footage separate so that we will have a greater amount of variation between our 4 group films. We have however been discussing using a certain sample of universal footage to increase the ties between our four sub-themes.

Filming has been interesting so far, we have had a multitude of problems on this first day including webcam brightness issues, overwriting footage and an increasing unsteadiness in the rotating camera on the pivot. Being in the experimental genre these things haven't been too badly hindering we have just adapted and continued and are happy with the certain level of randomness that has been achieved by this.



I would however like to encourage an increase in public interaction and participation so I am planning to create a sign or some props that make it clearer to the public that we are open to their participation in our film making process. Currently we have a lot of people staring but a lot very few interacting. I have noticed though that when you do manage to get one person engaged then the people around increases exponentially.

Tomorrow I want to do a lot more planned filming at locations and timings of prior choosing. This way the film will have a little more continuity than today's wandering.

SlitScan Experiments Berchem from zerolmzero on Vimeo.

This particular film is the one we have decided to share with the class when we do our presentation, it is the most exciting film and it hasn't been edited, it does however have some fabulous natural colours coming through in the footage and it is an excellent example of how the slit scanning technique can be used to full advantage.

Slit Scanning is something that Charlotte has been researching into during the past week and we are planning to set the top camera on our rig to run the code for the slit scan as it films so that we will produce the effect as we film as opposed to recreating it later in an editing program which is far less experimental because we are controlling the outcome in that case.

I like slit scanning for its potential to monitor one pixels width at constant intervals and update it to create a time graph of sorts of the city that is highly visual. When the slit scan is run from a stationary observation point there will be coloured lines that wipe horizontally across the screen from where is observes other stationary objects, however when an object moves past the slit it will create a new component to the image as long as they are in the range of the slit. This is really good for creating time visualisations as the bigger the object and the slower it goes/ closer to the camera it is bigger change will be perceived and vice versus. I am excited about using this in my film and seeing the different patterns in the city that I may be able to expose with it.

Rig Test Run

The below video was created during the making process by Christine and Theresa, it shows the footage as it will appear from the rotating on-board camera. I am quite impressed by the different effects that can be created such as a spin, a sway and a rotate. I feel that the rotate is much more noticeable when it is in close proximity to what it is filming and therefore for maximum effect I think it would be best used close to what it is filming.

time from Rebecca Glasmacher on Vimeo.

Some videos that I came across in the search for an experimental film on time. I found most films quite literal in their portrayal of time but I did really like some of the soundtracks that were created from clock sounds as I thought it really drove the film forward and could be sped up/ slowed down to create the effect desired by the filmmaker.

Time and Texture from Zeno Films on Vimeo.

New CAD Drawings

This is my re-editted

CAD Drawings

These are the first CAD drawings I have produced for our experimental camera rig. I am quite happy with my drawings as these are my first attempt with Solid Works. After they are evaluated by my team members and the lecturers/ 3d lab staff I will possibly redo them to incorporate any suggestions.