Polaroid timelapse tests

Click here to view Polaroid timelapse test #1: 'Forwards' version

Click here to view Polaroid timelapse test #2: 'Backwards' version

These two short videos were an attempt to create a timelapse video of a polaroid image developing. As I was using modern Impossible film, the development would take 30-40 minutes and I thought it would be visually interesting to try and record the process of an image coming into being, and then potentially alter this 'narrative' digitally.

The tests weren't a complete failure but were not without their problems. my first issue came with taking a still shot of each of the two Polaroids at regular intervals as they developed. My inability to do this led to an uneven series of images, with one of the polaroids coming out so dark in every image that the series was unusable without adjusting the the contrast in for every one in Photoshop.
The next problem presented itself when I took the successful images into Photoshop and tried to create a consistent crop of each image. In the 'forwards' version, with the image cropped to show the Polaroid as an object rather than an image, the frame jumps around a little and detracts from the overall effect.

Following this attempt, I used a closer crop and just focussed on the image itself. This time I reversed the flow of images to make the subject 'disappear' - I think this result is slightly more successful, as with the loss of the white frame, the physical 'shift' created by the inconsistent cropping almost becomes an effect itself. The closer crop, however, only seeks to highlight the differences between each version of the image.

If I was to repeat this experiment, I would try and film the development of the Polaroid rather than capture a progression of still images. This would allow me to capture the entire process and still allow me to edit it down after to create a condensed version, either by speeding up the film, or experimenting with the frame rate. Hopefully this would create a more consistent outcome. The downside of all of the videos shown here to date is that they were created in iMovie, which fine for testing, but I look forward to testing ideas in Premiere.

Journey to college video #4

Click on this link to view the video in high quality on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/147736304

This fourth version of the 'journey to college' narrative was created in response to feedback from the first group crit. It was suggested that the sudden change in narrative (going away from the college) could be matched to a change in the music, and that the music could build up to that point.
With this in mind, I added an edited version of Breton's '15 Minutes' to the video. The normal version of the track runs to 4m08 seconds with a moment 2m45 seconds in where the track explodes. Working backwards, I edited the track so that the first of the post-collage images coincided with this change in tempo.
The build up to this moment is perhaps not as mellow or subdued as I would have liked, and the track now just fades in at the start of the video, but the effect of the music and the change of pace in both the visual and the music makes for a great effect.
The build up to the 'explosion' features minimal use of the Ken Burns effect, and a fairly slow pace; after the change this comes into play as the images come thick and fast, and the 'camera' pans down and across the images. By this stage I was becoming more confident at using the effect and even in this rough edit, feel there is a dynamic momentum present.
As I now had a longer piece of music, I added more images and this time added different takes of the same scene, which also added something extra to the narrative. The three shots of the horse were a happy accident but serve as a basic form of animation that could be extended and further experimented with in future iterations. I feel that the Ken Burns effect could be more consistent but each time I go back to this version, I find new mini-sequences within the overall structure that have their own rhythm, which coincided with the attempts to create new narratives out of existing visuals that I was exploring elsewhere in this module.
Finally, in retrospect, this version would benefit from having the contrast / vintage tone on just the images in the build up section, which would then change to the bright colours of the new images which were added to this version, and enhance the overall change in tone.