As my last Major Project for the uni, I wanted to continue and in a way 'develop' what I originally started on the 2nd year of my study, with the 'Magnetic Man' Stop Motion video clip I made.
This time I am making a video clip for band XX-'Heart Skipped a Beat'; I decided the particular song has an interesting combination of electronic sounds mixed with beautiful vocals that have a distinctive tone to them.
Made my own Timeline of the song; I've divided the song into 6 categories <male vocals/ female vocals/ elect. guitar/ harp/ bass/ synthesiser> and marked each part of those categories precisely as the song unfolds, from beginning to end.
Doing my research on Abstract Film Artists; Walter Ruttmann, Hans Richter, Oscar Fischinger, Len Lye among many others.
I'm doing some research around colour combinations and the connection of certain colours to musical tonalities and pitches. Research goes back to greek philosopher Aristotle and has some interesting points from both scientists and artists.
The information I got is something I could potentially use to illustrate certain musical categories of the song.
Meanwhile, I'm looking at microscopic images from a Science and Art Project of collaborative disciplines called 'BROAD VISION'. I've been taking part in this project since the beginning of February 12' and there is a great material of all sorts of images including insects, human organs, and plants. The texture, shape and colour variation could be something worth checking out for my Major project. http://www.broad-vision.info/
More research. Looking at two books right now, 'See this sound: Audiovisuology Compendium'/ Dieter Daniels and 'The Edge of Vision'/ Lyle Rexer
Beginning some experimental work. Inspired by Len Lye's 'A colour box' 1953 cameraless film, I wanted to make my own version by using a developed film strip, which I scratched and painted on top using acrylics, black, blue markers, and a white correction pen.
The results were quite interesting; The shapes I made seemed to move in a musical way while the film was rolling. In a way it seems the movement suggests the beat of a song.
The process of making the video. Since the method of playing the film strip was dated back to black and white film, we had to use one of the old machines, in which the film department of the university of Westminster were more than helpful to assist me.
Experimenting with SCHLIEREN PHOTOGRAPH, with the help of photography student, Danny Garside http://da5nsy.tumblr.com/
Below, there are four videos taken by Danny Garside which are used as experimental work for my project.
The first experiment was made by capturing the thermal plume of a lighter. Light was projected from a single source on to a mirror, which reflects the light onto a straight surface (cardboard). The lighter was placed in front of the mirror and managed to capture the flowing movement of fire.
In the second part of the experiments we tried to capture the fumes of the lighter using again a single source of light. Two lenses are placed on a calculated distance in front of the light source. The first lens works as a controlling mechanism of the light beams projected by the light source. The light beams are originally going through multiple directions; the first lens fuses them and directs them into parallel lines. The 2nd lens concentrates the parallel light beams into one focused direction. The result is concentrated light.
We place the object in front of the 2nd lens and the projection appears on a cardbroad.
The different colours are achieved by placing coloured lenses.
Photographers Rob and Nick Carter, tend to take high detailed photographs of the layered textures of paint.
Inspired by their work I thought I could experiment with colours, layers and thick paint textures while taking photographs of the outcome. I spent my day at the printing studio applying and mixing printing ink onto flat plastic surfaces. My goal was to capture certain colour combinations and movements of the ink that would represent certain musical combinations and interact with each other, based on the previous research I did on 'Colour Combinations' (see above).
I divided the mixtures into 6 categories based on textures and movement of the ink.
cat.1
cat.2
cat.3
cat.4
cat.5
Thursday 22 March/2012.
Today I'm shooting the 'inky' part of the video clip'; meaning the vocal parts. I'm spending my entire day in the photography studio capturing the movement of ink when dissolved in water and when squashed by transparent tracing paper. This is very slow STOP MOTION process but it will be worth the time and effort.
Thursday 29th March/2012
Still working on my final video. It's been a hectic week but I managed to make some interesting colour combinations using ink and water. I thought since the vocals in the song, are the 'inky' part and since there seems to be a sort of 'dialogue' between them, I tried to illustrate that dialogue using, movement, form and colour; always in comparison to one another. Have a look
Done with editing ! Finally managed to put the video together and divide the parts depending on when each part (vocals, electric guitar, harp, drum and bass) comes in and out in the song.
Final Video. Enjoy:)
Another version of the same video.
