DPT Y3 2017

Nearly all of the installations by James Turrell have provided me with inspiration. In particular ‘what light can do to the viewer’. This enforced the idea of using light within the visuals, and made me recognise the importance of light within an installation.

Pipilotti rist

This is an example of an excerpt of a Video Installation at Hauser & Wirth gallery by Pipilotti Rist.

“Worry Will Vanish” is  a fitting title for the piece. The fluidity of the video, combined with the repetitive rhythmic music creates a calming dreamy atmosphere. One that could easily be watched on loop.

A lot of thought is clearly put into these installations. My favourite one being ‘Pixel Forest’ (below). The video is projected on the ceiling and the audience can lay on comfortable beds and watch. There are also LED lights hanging throughout the room. This idea of the audience being fully immersed, means that the artist didn’t just create a video but an atmosphere, and a physical experience.

When thinking about how to display my video, the idea of an experience was important to me. Drawing inspiration from the comforting atmosphere created in these installations I decided to make my video part of a gallery installation piece.

 

 

 

This clip is from Pixar’s animation Up (2009). Ellie and Carl’s relationship is being shown as time passes from their marriage to Ellie’s death along with the mood of background music changes from liveliness to sadness. It kind of use timeline to record their life which inspire me to use audio timeline to record some daily routine.

Traditional Windows Media player visualisations, are an example of the way in which I would like the sound to work with video. Colour, light and movement being a theme in my artistic practice, I would like to incorporate these themes within the video.

The hypnotic swirls and kaleidoscopic patterns hold your attention and because  they compliment the sound, it creates an immersive, engaging experience.

http://vimeo.com/165554473

“Dark Days” shows subtle ways of how to use sound and volumes in terms of positions and perspectives. The idea behind Nkondo’s video is the changing the story via changing the lines of perspectives in the visuals. This in turn affects transitions in sound depending on where the story is at the point. The volume and intensity of the sounds change depending on distances and perspectives, which may seem obvious but are integral to the believability of the animation as a whole project and makes for better immersive viewing.

Another influence for my short was the Montage scene from Season 1 episode 2 of Joe Penhall’s ‘MINDHUNTER”. The sequence here is intuitively timed to the appropriately chosen music and flows seamlessly. Shots are collected and neatly framed to establish a passing of time (an array of different cars in front of different hotels are framed identically, as are plates of diner food and coffees being served) in a manner that is enjoyable and even amusing at times. The sequence is well thought out and fills the gap better than a simple cut, by using the shots to develop the relationships of the two protagonists.

Whilst my short does not use timing in the same way due to a lack of music, the use of progressive shots identically framed is seen in my work, particularly towards the end-  a quick shot of a mouth is followed by the same mouth repeated with a ‘joint’ and then again with the ‘joint’ lit.

Throughout the course of Breaking Bad, director Vince Gilligan uses unusual POV shots to establish a continuous narrative surrounding the protagonists, their character-defining decisions and their repercussions. The protagonists (Walt and Jesse) are shot from unusual places and objects: the inside of barrels, a fridge, a tumble dryer, a frying pan, and a gas mask to name a few. These shots are often, if not always, connected to a character-building moment related to Walt and Jesse’s production of meth and objectively capture their progression throughout the series as they find themselves in increasingly riskier positions, referenced by the inherent claustrophobia in all the POV shots.

This style influenced my own editing, drawing attention to how different shots can offer a new level of context. I decided to use a POV shot of my own, showing the preparation of drugs from under a pane of glass, creating a similar feeling of claustrophobia, representative of the dependency felt by my protagonist.

Mainframe’s ‘For Approval’ goes against all expectations of sound and vision. The behaviour of everyday objects is distorted to go against how you’d expect them to behave. Eggs bounce, balloons slice and pencils flap. ‘For Approval’ is very successful at playing with and audiences knowledge of objects, setting an event for things to happen a certain way and then doing the opposite that lends to humorous viewing. In some ways it also creates uncomfortable viewing, how theses things we know so well don’t behave the way we expect.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Bwd0Y48m4&t=46s

Aronofsky’s stylised use of fast-cut dream-like sequences (known as ‘hip hop montages’) has been recreated by numerous directors but originated in his 2000 film ‘Requiem for a Dream’. In these sequences, short shots of drug use are intercut with footage showing the biological effect of drugs (ie. the increase in red blood cells, expansion of the pupil, with loud, stylised sound effects accompanying. The overall effect is disorienting, almost intoxicating in itself as the viewer is placed in the midst of the continuous routine of drug abuse and dependency.  This editing technique inspired my own use of fast-cuts throughout my short to show the emotional narrative involved in drug use.

At the Uniqlo Tate Late event in October Nic Tasker did a set in the Tank accompanied by visuals from Chantal Adams and Izzy Eyre. Their response to the music (in this video Radiohead) was conceptual mostly featuring microscopic imagery of cells and bacteria alongside plants. They have used two screens and two different films on each although there is still fluidity with the similarity of the images which is effective. The nature of the imagery helps create an atmosphere in the room that compliments the calmer beats of the Radiohead track. Both the images and the music draw in the attention of the crowd and are quite hypnotic which I feel makes it an effective piece of visual work.