Tuesday, January 15, 2013

wintertree



"Primitive  and  pre-alphabet  people  integrate  time  and  space  as  one... their  graphic  presentation  is  like  an  x-ray.  They  put  in  everything  they  know."

"Electric  circuitry  is  recreating  in  us  the  multi-dimensional  space  orientation  of  the  'primitive.'"

These two quotes from McLuhan were the inspiration for this video. I wanted to play with this concept of everything we know being put into something, rather than just the singular angle of a photograph or a conventional video, so when I went out to shoot, rather than just shooting the tree, I took video of a number of things around it as well, putting those in to show what else was there.

The day I went out to shoot my video was particularly cold, but calm and peaceful; with the soundtrack I created in Garageband I wanted to get that feeling across. I chose not to use actual sounds (either from my filming or later created) because having realistic sounds took away from the magical sense, the mystical emotion of the video - which was something I was trying to get across, as that was what I felt at the time of shooting.

I decided to break up all of the shots in an experiment with continuity. Rather than leaving them together in a stream someone could follow and understand, I wanted to give this sense that everything was there all at once, and also play a bit on McLuhan's ideas about continuity and detachment.

"The  instantaneous  world  of  electric  informational  media  involves  all  of  us,  all  at  once.  No  detachment  or  frame  is  possible."

3 comments:

  1. Wonderful choice of images and sound. I was able to relate to the sense of togetherness, and I definitely experienced the mystical theme that you intended to achieve.

    In approaching the idea of continuity, I appreciated the shooting of the many different trees from the different angles, and the fact that you added footage of your own feet as you walked because it brought back the idea of the human interaction with nature that ties to McLuhan idea of tribal experience where they are fully present in a multidimensional space. Nevertheless, I think that it could have worked better if you had longer shots of the surroundings and the cuts were almost invisible in the editing process. Because every time a new cut is made and a new tree appears the eye is forced to absorb more material and this process interferes with the trip to this multi-dimensional magic place that you are creating.

    Or what do you think? You perhaps decided to do it this way for a reason. I can be proposing something that could actually ruin the video.

    Overall, you did a fantastic job. For the minute and fifty six seconds you made me admire the beautiful snow and forget how cold it can actually be in WI.

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  2. Yes! like Douque said, I appreciate that fact that you shot the image of a tree from different angles, and the film is just beautiful.

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  3. I really like the sounds that you incorporated along with your video. It makes it "flow." In addition, I love the idea that you shot the surrounding areas of the tree and that you shot from a variety of angles. This made it really easy for me to understand the point that you were trying to get across that you indicated in your description. Well done!

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