Patterns and Pathways

Following my predicament with the lack of continuity between the colours of the exposures, automatically adjusted by the negative scanner, I managed to find a way to more or less successfully weave them together into the strip I wanted. Definitely starting to look more like a Darren Glass Reference!

To turn this into a video, I was inspired by the 'Scratch Films' of Len Lye who would scratch directly into or paint onto film reels which were played back on a projector to creating patterns of moving lines, patterns, and colours, such as in his video 'Colour Box'. Despite lack of a movie projector, once I started playing around in Final Cut Pro, the way I imagined I'd make my idea work was deemed feasible. It was simply a matter of playing the still image into the timeline, extending it to the desired length and then using motion to adjust the x or y coordinate of the center point to change from one point to another over time. Hence it would move across the screen vertically or horizontally with only a section of it in the frame, giving the impression of the movement.

Image: Section of film from Len Lye's 'Colour Box'.

Once I managed to get them moving, it was a matter of composing them into a 2-3 minute sequence. It was these composition which would work in tune with the feeling of movement created by the individual films. The pathways, interactions and interceptions of the films are to reflect the infinite number of pathways and potential ways in which one can experience and move through the city, as with the infinite amout of ways I could combine and compose the films.

All, essentially for the purpose to linking back to my concept of capturing and conveying how the light and space shifts around us as we move through the city which taps into the way in which we psychologically experience the city. As it is almost completely abstract, the original subject and setting is indistinguishable as it is redundant, we remember more from our experiences how we felt at the time. We may not remember the exact paths we walk through the city but we recall the sense of movement, speed and constant turbulence.

As with other studio projects, there were a few bits of software to pick up. I found Final Cut Pro relatively easy to pick up as I'd done video editing in media studies for two years in high school, having created a short horror film and documentary. Final Cut was definitely more advanced that the software we'd used there but it was obviously the same concepts and mechanisms behind it. I disliked having to use Live Type as a separate piece of software to create the titles as it made it a lot more fiddly with the extra process of importing and exporting but I suppose that is often necessary with the overall complexity and vastness of each standalone program, of which we were only using what was probably just a small fraction.

It was good to develop on from these existing skills I'd previously developed and especially when I got to using DVD Studio Pro to create the menu which would enable it to burn a readable DVD. Even though menu functions on DVDs are a commonality, it never occurred to me as something that was possible for me to create as well so that was a really satisfying result and greatly improved the aesthetic of the final DVD.

I feel I have taken away a lot of skills from this project, in both metal work and technical and with software. As with other projects I have found I am starting to think of other projects I can incorporate these into or how I can keep developing my ideas. I think that is actually something I need to work on more towards the beginning of the project, that is, pushing more of a variety of ideas. It was a process I actually conformed to a lot last year in the method and criteria of NCEA where art design, always you had to generate a range of concepts, pick one or two to push and develop and change, but always bringing it back to regenerating ideas to create something new and more refined. It is something to keep in mind for next project or to think about in preperation for the final crit.