Paranoia (Project 1, GIF)
Paranoia would be the title of this piece if I could name it. This is where I started, with the idea that I would visualize paranoia in a gif. The gif being a perfect medium for such a piece because it allowed for the manipulation of objects around me without anyone else appearing in the frame. Now that I think about it, gifs are perfect for faking paranormal activity. I never meant for any paranormal elements, but it certainly lends to the unease I was going for. Moving on. I knew that it would be key for me to demonstrate the passage of time to show how paranoia can have someone looking over their shoulder for hours. This was the hardest part of the project for me because it required me to wait for the perfect time of day when the sun sets. This period as you probably know, is very brief, so there's little room for mistakes. I of course made plenty of mistakes, but one that I had not anticipated fully was the need to make the whole thing loop perfectly and appear as though there was no beginning and end. Light screwed this up completely of course so I decided to slim down the full gif to hide the rapid changes in light exposure. I did the whole shoot twice on two different days trying to get the light and movements just right. On the second shoot I aimed to make better use of the daylight and shot all through the day until it was dark. Understandably after realizing the flaw in taking pictures in drastically different lighting circumstances, I found that my first one was the better of the two. You can look at both for yourself, but I think the difference is pretty obvious. One flows very well and maintains a near perfect loop while the other ones does not.
Nightmare on 22nd Street (Project 2, Video Short)
Deciding to shoot this project solo led to some great ideas made in desperation. However, getting the final product to look right took a lot of trial and error on my part. Moving from shooting, to acting, to reviewing my film between takes took a lot of work, and even more patience. Get a shot at the wrong angle, or choreograph a move incorrectly, and it was back to the drawing board. It's always nice to go at your own pace and not have to worry about actors getting impatient, but it would be nice if I could have someone else do the running for me.
In terms of plot, I had limited options. With only one actor and no one to carry the camera for pans, pulls, or zooms, I decided to shoot for a more imaginative concept. I wouldn't show the monster, and I wouldn't have any context for why the character was running. This worked in my favor, because dreams tend to not to make any sense, they simply convey feelings. The feeling here was simple, panic, and desperation.
I realized while creating the ending that I would have to use VFX to pull off the doppelganger effect, but I figured it was necessary to make the film complete. I not only wanted a pay off for the audience, but I also wanted to hint at the bigger meaning of the sequence. This is a dream about running from yourself, or the other half of yourself that you don't like. Often times dreams are metaphorical for problems you go through in your day to day life. In dreams your inner demons can manifest themselves into real demons that haunt you like pray.
In terms of plot, I had limited options. With only one actor and no one to carry the camera for pans, pulls, or zooms, I decided to shoot for a more imaginative concept. I wouldn't show the monster, and I wouldn't have any context for why the character was running. This worked in my favor, because dreams tend to not to make any sense, they simply convey feelings. The feeling here was simple, panic, and desperation.
I realized while creating the ending that I would have to use VFX to pull off the doppelganger effect, but I figured it was necessary to make the film complete. I not only wanted a pay off for the audience, but I also wanted to hint at the bigger meaning of the sequence. This is a dream about running from yourself, or the other half of yourself that you don't like. Often times dreams are metaphorical for problems you go through in your day to day life. In dreams your inner demons can manifest themselves into real demons that haunt you like pray.
Life in 7 Speeds (Project 3, Public Performance)
When coming up with this performance, I first took a hard look at what exactly I do
everyday. My life isn't currently very exciting, but it is something that I know very well through
such constant repetition. I wake up, ride my bike to class, study, eat, and repeat. Terms always
start off well; you have little homework, and a fresh outlook on all of your classes and teachers.
As the term wears on though so does your psych. Going from happy, to frustrated, to incredible
sad all in one day is a common occurrence. Its a turbulent quarter system we’re in, and
sometimes this system pushes us to the point of combustion.
The title “Life in 7 Speeds” reveres to my 7 speed bike which I use every day to get me
wherever I need to be. I came up with the title after I was finished with the editing, but I was
happy to find that I had coincidentally sped up the music seven different times already. The bike
serves to demonstrate the moments when I am transitioning from one place to the next. It also
helps to add chaos to the picture when it's constantly clicking in the background of every shot
near the end.
Beyond making myself look like a fool, crashing my bike around campus, and eating
chinese food in stairwells, filming was not the hardest part of this project. Editing was the true
time sucker, and even after six hours, I still feel the footage is a bit sloppy and unrefined. I found
it was actually incredibly hard to montage everything together. I wanted to create a building
video that ultimately ended with pure chaos, but pacing the video from beginning to end proved
that it would be a much more arduous chore.
If I were to work on this for another five hours, I could probably create a much tighter
work, but this for me was more about getting the major theme across… Life is a constantly
moving bike that pedals even when you're not riding. If you can't keep up, you’ll always be
down, and if you ride like lightning, you’ll crash like thunder.
everyday. My life isn't currently very exciting, but it is something that I know very well through
such constant repetition. I wake up, ride my bike to class, study, eat, and repeat. Terms always
start off well; you have little homework, and a fresh outlook on all of your classes and teachers.
As the term wears on though so does your psych. Going from happy, to frustrated, to incredible
sad all in one day is a common occurrence. Its a turbulent quarter system we’re in, and
sometimes this system pushes us to the point of combustion.
The title “Life in 7 Speeds” reveres to my 7 speed bike which I use every day to get me
wherever I need to be. I came up with the title after I was finished with the editing, but I was
happy to find that I had coincidentally sped up the music seven different times already. The bike
serves to demonstrate the moments when I am transitioning from one place to the next. It also
helps to add chaos to the picture when it's constantly clicking in the background of every shot
near the end.
Beyond making myself look like a fool, crashing my bike around campus, and eating
chinese food in stairwells, filming was not the hardest part of this project. Editing was the true
time sucker, and even after six hours, I still feel the footage is a bit sloppy and unrefined. I found
it was actually incredibly hard to montage everything together. I wanted to create a building
video that ultimately ended with pure chaos, but pacing the video from beginning to end proved
that it would be a much more arduous chore.
If I were to work on this for another five hours, I could probably create a much tighter
work, but this for me was more about getting the major theme across… Life is a constantly
moving bike that pedals even when you're not riding. If you can't keep up, you’ll always be
down, and if you ride like lightning, you’ll crash like thunder.
Soap Opera (Project 4, Animated Short)
Going into this project I expected to use a very similar process to the one I used in the GIF project. This assumption ended up costing me of course. Most costly was time, and the minutes spent taking hundreds of pictures was at the root of it. I spent hours taking pictures, moving things slightly, and then taking another. The final count came out to something around 530 pictures, and took me almost that much time in minutes. Editing also took a lot of my patients, requiring lots of slimming down and reorganizing.
I still don't feel satisfied with what I’ve created even after adding sounds, vfx, and filters. My plan was pretty well thought out, but pacing the story correctly, so that there was pauses, and variance in speed between frames was incredibly tricky. Dealing with individual pictures requires a lot more attention, than editing long stripps of 24fps video.
Hardware also became a significant problem when my computer started to become over encumbered with the hundreds of rendered pictures in Premiere Pro. This made editing much more difficult, because the video was always way behind the sound. Most of the edits therefore had to be made in rough estimate and with little precision.
All in all, the final product still gets the message across, and hopefully will have the audience intrigued for the full run time.