I don't know what i could do from this or ..? But what i know is hat i really like this style. Am i restricted by making model scenes? I am questioning as to whether i should be doing this, but i enjoy what i do. use stuff off the internet and layer up? Maybe. Place in burning trees whilst she is still in the garden doing nothing?
Last week we had a spoken word type thing group tutorial type thing. There we 8 of us and we were told to bring some of our own writings, something that i never do. So i actually thought to myself, what am i even doing here, i cant contribute to this. However, after hearing everyone with their work and how they connect it to their art practices, i began thinking about my own work. I want some sort of sound to go alongside my films, and i thought what if i was to do spoken word?.I could have someone reading standard housewife tasks and instructions about doing them. I thought this could be layered up and would be something fun to play with. Another idea would be to have these instructions, and where something bad happened, a bad clip in my films happened, and then when a nice text was spoken, a corresponding piece of film was played. This will be what i get up to next week in my studio. An artist that gillian suggested looking at was Vicki Bennett. http://ubu.com/film/plu_burning.html
I don't know what i could do from this or ..? But what i know is hat i really like this style. Am i restricted by making model scenes? I am questioning as to whether i should be doing this, but i enjoy what i do. use stuff off the internet and layer up? Maybe. Place in burning trees whilst she is still in the garden doing nothing?
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Over these past few days i have been making another garden to film. i wanted this one to be rather formal and pristine, to be perfect. It had grass in the middle, with a soil and bark boarder going round the outside. I initially had stepping stones going up the centre, but this did not look in-keeping. At the top in the centre, i had a large tree, with a bark chip base to it. Luckily i managed to find a tree which looked the correct size and fully in proportion. This gave for a more interesting film, as it gave more dimensions and perspectives. Again though, i had bare fence panels, in the next garden i will have these covered with small shrubbery, taking things one step further. I then set up the blue/ green screen to film my work in front of, and due to wanting a nights sky, i used the blue screen predominantly. However, when this came to filming my friend Gorgi, when she wore denim jeans, that colour proved to be the wrong side to use, i should have flipped it over to the green screen side. Because of filming over the blue, when Ultra Keying the blue out, it also took out some of the opacity of her jeans and she went slightly see through! However, i have learnt for next time. Another thing that i did differently this time, was to pin back the blue screen to make it taught, this proved to reduce shadow lines and make for a clearer one tone'l screen. However, even though this was better, i still need to work on maybe adding lighting so that there are less shadows produced by her body when on set. The one with her lying down was the best to Ultra Key out, i think because of the minimal movement in her body. It gives her an effect of being almost like snowwhite, pale and beautiful on the floor. This piece is the most surreal and i think the one out of all of the films that looks the best and most realistic, i think it will now be interesting to add some sound to this piece. 1) Sleeping was the best in my opinion. I blurred the bottom to keep in 'focus' with the blue of the main camera - really getting to understand how to use premiere now. However the blur over the top of her was made by feathering in the ultrakey, to try to get rid of all blue screen. 2) Polishing, both of these did not work too great. One because of the shaky camera and two because the perspective of where she was polishing was off. 3) Cutting grass, was alright..She is really translucent here though because of the blue screen being used. Perhaps if she wasn't as opaque it would look better. I also kinda like how her arm almost starts to disappear into the ground at one point.
I tried out editing a montage with all of the footage that i gained from my two different scenes. I prefer the one with the tree in it as it looks a bit more developed.
Saskia Olde Wolbers likes a belief in "What..? " "the idea of the invisible is very important" "the unverifiable is what interests me" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErBYfjs4bNk
She creates these almost highly edited videos. I believe they (the sculptures/plants) are filmed underwater, already giving things a strange look to them. I would say that she then highly edits the work, making things looks like plastic/ shrink wrapped. This may be fun to play around with within my work, try different effect on the gardens. Another thing which is great about hr work is the steady panning shots she takes, the smooth gliding motion which i just can't achieve yet!! http://www.saskiaoldewolbers.com/works/trailer-video-stills-synopsis/ This is the moment when fantasy is broken by reality.
This sees most of the characters on films talking to the audience, stopping from making you think you are watching something real? It gives the audience a fly on the wall feeling. With all the fiction that is going on around you, you finally acknowledge the audience and confirm with them that it's all fictitious. Ever since seeing the Russian Pavilion at the Biennale, i can't help but think of making this large dead object alive. I want to make my dead scenes alive, and as of yet, i am unsure how i'm going to do this. I came across this artist, who yes, has nothing to do with my work, but breathes life into old dying art. "This project questions the fine line between virtuality and representation of reality , creating a sense of the uncanny". Pottier projects animated moving faces onto very old marble sculptures and brings them to life. There is such beauty within this art practice. To say i'm at a point of despair would be to put it lightly, *enter sarcastic smiling face here*
I don't know what to do, so i have decided to write down my problems in order to resolve them. So about two hours ago i was happy with an idea of filming someone in my scene doing mundane tasks and hopefully it looking good. However, after my tutorial i feel seriously thrown. I came from that not knowing whether what i was doing was going in the right way or not, i have no clue...but i basically think my tutor hated my work, and i really hope i am wrong. I have never used green screen before, so you have to go in eyes open to this fact. I need someone to just say yes or no, nothing too complicated just that. I feel like that was a useless tutorial and i was just sat there saying i don't know, and i don't. I don't know why i make model scenes. I don't know what i want to achieve with them. And i certainly don't know what i think about the human element to them. Argh. Everyone else seems so composed with their work, and then there is me. I want to stabilise my films more, but the earliest i can get out some tracks is 2nd November, THAT is a long time to wait when trying to do work. Gillian mention alandal.co.uk they mix up the things which they green screen, they make it really surreal. I don't know if i want to go that way, and even if i did, i wouldn't have a clue how to. But apparently there is an 'interesting' article on them by Marina Warner. Gillian also mentioned this 4th wall, it sounded interesting and so i'll look closer at this. 1) Use what footage i have now to make a small montage. 2) Film someone doing mundane tasks ready to put into my work - perfect the green screen. 3) Re-make one of my garden scenes, I'm bored and annoyed so its time for a change. 4) Film this garden scene, 1 - a curving shot leading into a still 2 - a full still 3 - a still which zooms out and makes clear the size of my work 5) Edit and smash all together in the hope of something, just something. 6) crash and cry. Over these past fews days i have been filming my garden sculpture and then have been editing it.
I set the whole scene up with two lighting cameras around it and then one orange spotlight camera. This set off interesting deep dark shadows, places where you cant see into - this was a good effect. I therefore naturally filmed most of it in this 'nighttime/ twilight time', and it worked well. I can understand why Crewdson utalises this time so much. Using the DSLR camera lent itself to some sharp image footage, however, because of it being so focused, it easily picked out the non smooth camera movements. I was hoping that with the aid of my wheels/track thing i could get a smooth movement, and i somewhat did. But i was still relying on myself to push it at a constant speed, and it was that which didnt pull off. So in some of the footage it is a bit start stoppy. Post production, after looking at all the footage gained, i believe i could put it together in some sort of a montage, flittering from different parts/ camera angles/ lighting. Something that i have never done is to put people in my work, but whilst having the green screen up, i decided to film myself and to maybe place myself in the work - just for fun. But since doing so, i think i actually quite like the effect, but i am still very unsure. The initial footage is bad, the background needs a lot of work done to it, and the green screen wasn't taught enough to get a full colour tone all over, but maybe it could work? I would need to take a lot more time over it if i were to do it again, i would at least know what i was looking out for. I have been thinking more and more about this perfect American dream, and thought about the possibility of: If i were to film myself to go in the scene again, i could be doing strange ritualistic things that the american housewife would be doing but in the wrong place. For example: Hoovering the lawn, cleaning the fence panels with polish, sunbathing at night-time, cutting the lawn with scissors. I think this could be something quite fun to play with, and then once i have all of this footage, put it together as some sort of montage. After an A V induction yesterday, i have since hired out some different filming equipment and have been shooting my garden scene. I got out two large led lights and a orange spotlight. Instead of using the standard hd camera, i was shooting with a DSLR camera on film mode. Apparently if you are not too bothered about sound being recorded and you just want to focus on a clear strong visual picture, then this is best to use. I used it with predominantly the macro lens as i was working with close ups.
I found it interesting that i seemed to film most of the work at a predominantly twilight stage, strange when i am studying Crewdson's work. I was had the lens on manual focus so i was able to choose what was in focus and wasn't, this did take a while to get the hang of. I also chose moments where everything was out of focus, there was something special/ eerie about this. I had a blue screen set up behind it as i wanted to be able to put in my own background, i will play with different scenes for this, for example: night time, open field..Whilst i was filming, i filmed myself in front of the blue screen, as i want to see what it would be like to put myself into my work. I have never done this before, and so i'm excited with the thought of this and to just see if it would even work! So it seems that apparently yoghurt is the best way to help cultivate moss, so i am now spraying the moss with it, lets hope for a non smelly studio.
Sound. Over the weekend i have had a zoom mic on loan, and i began recording things which could sound like drones, background music. For example i recored: washing machine, bathroom fan, c.d.looping sound, hair dryer, toilet, oven, kettle, microwave, hoover. I have no idea what i am doing with music, but i am hoping that maybe a mash up of some of these thing will produce something interesting?! Therefore, the plan for this week is to: create some sort of sound, make a fully scene and hopefully get some footage from it - maybe even film it with green screen. These past few days i have been busy with making fence panels ready for my sculpture and then beginning to find moss. Yes, i have resulted to using moss as there is NO TURF ANYWHERE. Not that i am bitter about this..but it is nowhere. So, moss it is. My main issue with this though, is that it is not one full surface, it is patchy, and shows patches! I am now thinking about which design to start with, one that wont look too bad with all of this patchiness going on. I believe the best result would be to go with a scene which requires minimal grass.
The main thing taken from this tutorial was to begin collecting sounds. I have never made anything with my own sounds and so this will be interesting to explore and create. The sounds that i would like to accompany my work would be more of a drone type noise, so i could start trying to get noises from things like: fans, extractor fans, fridges, microwave, pipes - i would use a zoom mike.
I prefer having slight movement within my work, so i need to practice filming slow and then slowing it down even more, so i am not just relying on the editing process to slow things. Previously when trying to do this i have had trouble with keeping the camera still enough, so i would need to look into film rigs. I could even make my own ones out of simple moving toys etc..this would allow me to have the stability when filming in slow motion. Also, focus on filming one item and have the rest in blur whilst looking around it 360*. We decided that i focus on the filmography, not the the ideas/ topics/ political things. I also want to play around with green-screen and see what can happen with that. I could also set one of these up in my studio. I also want to play with the lights, and spotlights, not necessarily using conventional light colours. Maybe yellow, green, red. Next, people who to look into: David Lynch Blue Velvet and a rasor head. Saskia OlderWolbers - submerged into water. These past few days i have been making digital gardens, getting designs ready and out of the way so i can take my next step forward. However, these are the resulting gardens that i got:.. I am really pleased with these, my favourite ones are the trenches/ foundations dug out, the one with the washing line over the pond, and the double flower bed and the double fence. I believe that i will begin with the the trench dug out one.
We were gather together to talk about a certain piece of text, but in the end, we ended up talking about our dissertations with each other. This is going to be a random list of bable, but somethings may prove interesting to return to!
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April 2016
Kerry FosterThird Year Fine Art Student at Falmouth School of Art. Fellow artists: |